Issues
Explore the ideas
Start with John Tamny’s arguments, then explore writing from across the institute. Each topic connects the ideas to the essays behind them.
- 01
The national debt
54 essaysThe debt is a symptom of how much tax revenue Washington can reach — and that revenue, not the borrowing, is the crisis. - 02
Taxes
47 essaysThe goal is not lower rates. It is limiting how much of the country’s wealth the federal government can reach in the first place. - 03
Government spending
39 essaysSpending is where the damage is done, because it is the political allocation of real resources. A balanced budget would not shrink government — it would certify a bigger one. - 04
Social Security and retirement
42 essaysSocial Security was always a tax rather than a savings account. That is why it cannot go bankrupt, and why it was never the deal people were told it was. - 05
The dollar and sound money
84 essaysMoney is a measure, like an inch or an hour. A currency whose value floats distorts every calculation made in it — which is our case against the post-1971 dollar. - 06
The Federal Reserve
110 essaysThe Fed cannot set the price of credit, cause a recession, or fight inflation. Credit is production, and the central bank has none of it. - 07
Inflation and prices
63 essaysInflation is a shrinkage of the dollar itself. Rising prices are at most an effect — and reversing that causation is how nearly every camp gets it wrong. - 08
Antitrust and big tech
93 essaysEssays on antitrust enforcement, the technology giants, and the government cases brought against them. - 09
Trade and tariffs
28 essaysTariffs are a tax on Americans. And the trade deficit is not a debt or a deficit at all — it is the shadow of the world investing here. - 10
Immigration
27 essays“Trump can have deportations or booming growth, but he can’t have both.” - 11
Technology and innovation
57 essaysJohn Tamny on the ways technology changes work, frees time and creates opportunities. - 12
Economic growth
58 essaysGrowth is what free people produce when the barriers to production come down. It is not something a government engineers, stimulates, or hands out.