President Obama hinted toward at least one aspect of his second-term agenda during yesterday’s inaugural address: more transportation “investment.” No surprise there. Obama’s past budget requests, State of the Union speeches, and the American Jobs Act of 2011 plan have all been peppered with calls for increased federal spending on …
Japan’s incoming prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has an unenviable task. While Mr. Abe may prove to be exactly what the country needs in terms of foreign policy, his economic promises mirror the policies that have mired Japan in two decades of stagnation. Mr. Abe has made headlines promising more aggressive …
Deficit spending does not foster economic recovery. The U.S. and the world need to recognize the stagnation and inter-generational inequality caused by such spending, and for reference, they need not look further than Japan’s recent history of deficits. In addition to its two lost decades, Japan’s heavy borrowing means the …
Menzie Chinn took to the blog Econbrowser last Thursday to accuse conservative economists in general – and The Heritage Foundation in particular – of being inconsistent, since we did not share his optimism about the benefits of the 2009 stimulus, but we’ve warned of the danger of the fiscal cliff. …
According to Friday’s Washington Post, the Administration is considering a new, short-term tax cut. Should conservatives cheer? As a matter of principle, there are at least two reasons to dislike taxes and to applaud tax cuts. First, taxes take money away from those who made the money in the first …
Vice President Biden and Representative Paul Ryan squared off last night for a spirited and intense 90-minute debate at Centre College in Danville, KY. Topics ranged from foreign to domestic, touching on serious issues that Heritage policy experts grapple with every day. While many commentators were critiquing style, a team …
Over the past few days, new strikes and riots have convulsed Greece and Spain. Conventional wisdom (including from economist Paul Krugman) suggests that cuts in government spending—often described as “austerity”—are a primary cause of the economic downturn in these nations and across much of Europe. This “demand deficiency” hypothesis leads …
One reason economists sometimes compare themselves to astrologers is that their forecasts are often equally accurate. But when it comes to analyzing government policy, economists have trouble even figuring out what happened in the past. Case in point: The most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report of President Obama’s $831 …
President Obama will deliver his third State of the Union address on Tuesday night. According to a preview video released this weekend, the speech will outline Obama’s vision for improving the economy and creating jobs. With an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, there’s much work to be done. But after …
President Obama’s economic stimulus was supposed to revive America’s economy and put people back to work. But nearly three years after Democrats rammed the bill through Congress, it’s a clear-cut failure. The nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate stands out as one of consequences. Then there is the high-profile Solyndra scandal …
