Ezra Klein quotes approvingly from Bruce Bartlett’s new book, The New American Economy: The Failure Of Reaganomics And A New Way Forward: The reality is that even before spending exploded to deal with the economic crisis, the government was set to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation just to pay [...]

Last week’s announcement from the Obama Administration that the Justice Department would call off the dogs with regard to medical marijuana in states where legal has created a perfect storm regarding state and local regulations. Colorado Attorney General lamented that with this announcement, a “legal vacuum” has been created and was quoted in The New [...]

From the WSJ: 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 raise GDP by less than the increase in government spending. Defense-spending multipliers exceeding one likely apply only at very high unemployment rates, and nondefense multipliers [...]

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Arizona State Capitol Building for Sale www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview The above video clip from The Daily Show, while very humorous, illustrates a fundamental problem of government: shortsightedness. In this example, the State of Arizona is offering [...]

Economist Bruce Bartlett had a column in Forbes outlining why he thinks spending won’t be cut. Every time I write about the need to raise revenues to pay for federal spending, some nitwit always demands to know why we don’t just cut spending. That is not a viable option to deal with our fiscal problem. [...]

Obama says that he won’t sign a healthcare bill that adds one dime to the deficit. I hope he’s right about that, because the people who are financing that deficit are a tad bit worried about the prospect: And yet, there was budget director Peter Orszag rushing to a lunch with Chinese bureaucrats on a [...]

“I can make a firm pledge….no family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase…..not any of your taxes”-Barack Obama, September 12, 2008 Once again, President Obama has lied to the country. After raising cigarette taxes earlier this year, Obama just ordered another tax increase. This time, he raised every American’s taxes [...]

The spike in car buying has caused automakers to ramp up production (via John Stossel): Many auto industry analysts and dealers expect sales volumes to fall now that the program is over. They worry that many people who took advantage of the program were merely accelerating purchases they would have made later in the year. [...]

The news out of Sacramento appears good for the California middle class: The good news, Schwarzenegger glowed, is no new taxes. Digging a little deeper, of course, reveals the truth: REVENUES * Accelerate income tax withholding — $1.7 billion * Increase estimated tax payments for businesses and the self-employed — $610 million Between now and [...]

Ezra Klein says there’s we shouldn’t act as if defense spending (considered discretionary in the budget) in unable to be cut: My friend Chris Hayes likes to say that “non-defense discretionary spending” is the most pernicious phrase in Washington. It means, essentially, that there’s spending, which we can cut, and then there’s defense spending, which [...]

I’m at a loss. I don’t know what world can justify this, and can only hope that my readers will be just as appalled as I am, because I have nothing to add. WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified on Thursday that he pressured Bank of America Corp. last year to go [...]

While I’ve not had enough time to take a comprehensive look at Tea Parties held around the nation on or around Independence Day, here are some quick observations from this full-time Tea Party enthusiast and part-time skeptic. First of all, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) was booed when he spoke in Austin, Texas.  The key reason [...]

BB&T, a regional southern bank, is a bit of a darling of the libertarian movement. After Kelo, they made it bank policy to not lend money towards projects utilizing eminent domain. Co-contributor Jason Pye suggested a desire to open an account there after BB&T began donating money to UNC-Greensboro to found a pro-capitalism and pro-markets [...]

Krugman, in 2002: To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble. Krugman said then that we needed to reinflate the bubble to save [...]

First, let me state categorically that I don’t believe government statistics. When they talk about $X Billions of dollars spent and Y00,000 numbers of jobs created, it’s clearly BS. The government rarely knows (or cares) how much of allocated money is actually spent until they’ve run out, and I think we all know that the [...]

The California Department Of Real Estate oversees and administers the state’s real estate agent and broker licensing program. During the big housing boom, the fees generated by the high level of real estate activity (and the agents/brokers who were licensed to enable that activity) has caused them to build up some a nice Trust Fund. [...]

The Governator is back. And this time, he takes no prisoners: Declaring that “California’s day of reckoning is here,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today the state should turn its dire budget straits into an opportunity to make government more efficient. Speaking to a rare mid-year joint session of the Legislature and other constitutional officers, Schwarzenegger [...]

When I posted the below open thread, one of the data points used to suggest things were actually recovering was a rise in income that was 0.6% higher than expect (and actually positive — expectation was negative). But it appears that this might be an anomaly brought on by our Congress. From The Big Picture: [...]

California’s in a world of hurt, exacerbated by the fact that we didn’t offer to give the state a whole bunch more money during our ballot propositions yesterday. There are a lot of reasons for our pain, but it really comes down to a state that never quite understood TANSTAAFL. They’ve been sold the lie [...]

California is not a well-governed state. But for a long time, I heavily blamed the voters on that one. After all, they did stupid things like voting for a $9B bond issue to start a high-speed rail line in the middle of a horrendous deficit. But perhaps I spoke too soon. Yes, California voters are [...]