CATO analysts discuss the State of the Union address
Government’ s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it; If it keeps moving, regulate it…and if it stops moving, subsidize it.
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| — | Ronald Reagan |
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
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| — | George Bernard Shaw |
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
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| — | Winston Churchill |
Voters favor cuts to balance the budget — yet they object to most of the cuts that could be made, a Los Angeles Times/USC Poll shows.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. [original post]
Do you remember the days when getting elected to Congress or choosing to work for the government was referred to as “public service”? The idea was that you would be making a sacrifice for the greater good of the country. Well, those days are long gone. Today, getting…
“America needs a fundamental shift in attitude. Instead of expecting a “nanny state” to take care of us, we should desperately try to reshape the federal government into a much smaller entity that will finally get off our backs.”
Deciding which politician to support has long been frustrating for libertarians. Both the liberal and conservative perspectives conflict with cherished libertarian views, so few Democrats or Republicans present a package that libertarians can embrace with enthusiasm. Libertarians do find common ground with conservatives on some issues, and with liberals on others. Roughly, libertarians are economic conservatives and foreign and social policy liberals. So, depending on the pressing issue of the day, libertarians can sometimes identify one candidate or another as “the lesser of the evils.” Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, however, have presented libertarians with a more fundamental dilemma: when judged by actions rather than rhetoric, both are anti-libertarian on almost every issue.
A panel of Democrats, Republicans, economists and other experts is set to say Wednesday that a complete overhaul of the U.S. tax code is the best way to address the nation’s fiscal problems—a new and likely controversial idea aimed at tackling the growing deficit.
Reminds me of a book I read a couple years ago - Fair Tax
The Obama fiscal commission’s draft report suggested that federal spending be reduced from 25.1% of GDP today to 22% by 2020, and lower after that. That’s a reasonable goal for a centrist kind of commission, but let’s remember that spending was just 18.2% in President Clinton’s last two fiscal years, 2000 and 2001. For the final report, the commission’s staff might look to Clinton’s budgets for guidance. The chart shows federal spending as a share of GDP in fiscal 2001 and fiscal 2012. Fiscal 2001 was Clinton’s last year, and it was before all of President Bush and Obama’s spending increases. I choose 2012 as the end year because most of the “stimulus” spending will be finished by then, defense is supposed be down a bit as foreign troops are partly withdrawn, and the economy will have hopefully recovered. Based on President Obama’s Mid-Session Review, spending in fiscal 2012 will be 23.0% of GDP. Total federal spending is expected to increase 4.8 percentage points of GDP between 2001 and 2012. The chart shows that increases have occurred in every part of the budget–entitlements, defense, and domestic spending. Thus, the Obama fiscal commission is on the right track to propose cuts across all areas of the budget. However, it needs to be about 4 percentage points of GDP more aggressive in downsizing the government to get us down to Clinton-level spending.
