Federal deficit

Michael Tanner‘s latest column for National Review Online explores the “moral dimension” of our national debt. “Oh Lord, give me chastity,” St. Augustine is reputed to have said. “But don’t give it yet.” So it is with Republicans who have vowed to show some fiscal discipline — sometime…

Tiana Lowe reports for the Washington Examiner on the latest evidence that the federal government’s spending trajectory is unsustainable. Just 10 months into the fiscal year, our budget deficit has already surpassed the totality of that of 2018. Currently at $867 billion, the federal government’s 2019 budget deficit…

Editors at National Review Online critique a new federal spending deal. In an era of heightened partisan rancor, Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington still managed to come together in a spirit of bipartisanship this week to do that thing they do best — spend. Party leaders in…

Brian Riedl writes for National Review Online about the implications of a new federal budget deal. President Trump and congressional leaders are nearing a deal that would raise the discretionary-spending caps by $320 billion over two years and offset less than one-quarter of those costs (and even those…

In a previous blogpost, I cited Economist Lyman Stone’s American Enterprise Institute paper, Red, White, and Gray. In a summary published today at the Atlantic, Stone draws some harsh conclusions about my generation: The political ascendancy of the Boomers brought with it tightening control and…

Jim Grant argues in the latest Barron’s that the nation’s first Treasury secretary would object to the current state of federal government debt. Nobody cares about the deteriorating federal finances, but who doesn’t adore Hamilton? Logically, you can hardly ignore the deficit, while paying as much as $1,691…

David Balat and Dr. Deane Waldman of the Texas Public Policy Foundation wrote an interesting op-ed which discusses some of the problems with government-run health care. In particular, why it’s crazy for Americans to think growing these programs is a good idea. The piece starts off by…

That’s the title of a new report written by Lyman Stone and published by the American Enterprise Institute. In it, Stone discusses something most of us know but don’t like to think about: “Americans are getting older.” Here are some excerpts from the executive summary: While we…