National Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he's added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS' Mark Knoller: This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 10:07
Stimulus Spending Doesn’t Work – Tax Cuts Do
Via Jonathan Adler, I see that world-renowned economist Robert Barro and his student, Charles Redlick, takes to WSJ to summarize their research report showing that stimulus spending doesn't work. Oddly, take cuts do. The bottom line is this: The available empirical evidence does not support the idea that spending multipliers typically exceed one, and thus spending stimulus programs will likely ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 1, 2009 10:01
Stupid Chart of the Day
Conor Clarke has devised the following chart of the federal effective tax rate paid by the wealthiest 1% over the last 15 years: While he doesn't "love the idea," he think it justifies paying for health care for the poor by taxing the rich. Kevin Drum agrees, adding, The basic story is simple: As their incomes have gotten ever higher, their ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 16, 2009 12:43
Obama’s Tax Pledge
Isn't true if you engage in a lifestyle that most people find icky. You know that pledge that if you make less than $250,000/year you won't see an increase in your taxes? Yeah, well not if you smoke. One of President Barack Obama's campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday. The largest increase in tobacco taxes ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 3, 2009 15:14
Cowen and Singer Solve World Poverty
This exchange between Peter Singer and Tyler Cowen on BloggingHeadsTV is priceless. Singer has written a book, The Life You Can Save, that argues from a very Leftist perspective that those of us in the West enjoying a decent life should give much more to the poor. Cowen, arguing from a Libertarian Right perspective, agrees wholeheartedly but thinks that the way ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 19, 2009 15:27
Obama’s Irreversible Agenda
Ross Douthat has discovered Barack Obama's evil genius: What Obama does have, though, is an atmosphere of crisis and a massively-unpopular opposition party, which grants him an unparalleled political opportunity to pass whatever spending the Democratic Party likes, and damn the short-term cost. And what you see in his budgeting proposals, I think, is the liberal equivalent of the conservative attempt ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 4, 2009 16:01
The Libertarian Stimulus: First Do No Harm
Jeffery Miron, Harvard Senior Lecturer in economics at Harvard University, on the stimulus package, CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- When libertarians question the merit of President Obama's stimulus package, a frequent rejoinder is, "Well, we have to do something." This is hardly a persuasive response. If the cure is worse than the disease, it is better to live with the disease. [...] Repeal the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 9, 2009 12:44
