No individual, corporation, or government ever gets to choose how much money to borrow. Only in academic and pundit circles is such a fanciful notion accepted as realistic. A recent op-ed penned for a think tank purported with alarm that “Congress Knows It Has a Spending Problem, But Won’t Fix It.” And at Fox News last […]
A $50 Trillion National Debt In 2030 Will Signal Opposite of Debt Problem Read More »
Budgetary experts have been promising us a future “crisis” related to the national debt for years, and in some instances, decades. If you’re reading this, you likely know some of their names: MacGuineas, Riedl, Galston, Bourne, Boccia, Jenkins, Rampell, and even Musk. To say the list is truncated insults understatement. Without much exaggeration, you
The Real Debt Crisis Is That There Will Be No Debt Crisis Read More »
Conservatives and libertarians talk rhapsodically about markets, while sometimes ignoring the market signals that reject their occasional alarmism. Which is why Montgomery College economics professor David Youngberg shouldn’t be singled out for predicting a debt crisis. Most conservatives and libertarians do. In Youngberg’s case, hopefully he’ll see this critique for what it is: a push
If a Debt Crisis Loomed, There Would Be No Federal Borrowing Read More »
Scholars at Brookings, Cato, Hoover, along with adjacent pundits, have been promising a “crisis” related to the national debt for decades. Despite so many of the wise so routinely and confidently predicting terrible things in the “future,” the value of Treasury income streams has conistently risen alongside increasingly alarmist rhetoric. Whom to believe: the
There Is a Debt Crisis, But It’s Unseen and Not Even Discussed Read More »
The national debt will continue to soar. Bank on it. See Holman Jenkins’s column from last week for evidence. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “The U.S. won’t deal with its looming debt problem except with ad hockery – inflation, spending cuts, tax hikes, de facto claw-backs of government benefits via waiting lists and declining service
National Debt Solutions That Don’t Address Why There’s Debt Read More »
Government spending is excessively harmful precisely because it’s the central planning of precious goods, services and labor by the federal government. Conservatives and libertarians at one time nodded along to the latter, while progressives and liberals rolled their eyes. Not so much today. As this write-up’s title indicates, they’ve become one. See Patricia Cohen
On the National Debt, Left and Right Have Become One Read More »
Why is Ray Dalio’s debt alarmism so wrongheaded? The view here is that successful investing (Dalio is brilliant at it) is incredibly difficult, while economics is blindingly simple. The investor in Dalio is complicating what isn’t. See his recent post on X: “When an empire runs out of its own money, it is able
Ray Dalio’s Debt Alarmism Is Belied by His Genius As An Investor Read More »
Soaring government debt is in the U.S.’s future, and at borrowing costs that will continue to decline. See the excellent Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal if you’re doubtful. Arguably the most influential business and economics writer in the world, in his most recent column Jenkins wrote that “Tax reform is in the industrial world’s future one
More Tax Revenue Won’t Solve a Problem of Too Much Tax Revenue Read More »
“Those of us who call ourselves Republicans have a choice to make: We can choose to stand for our historic principles, or we can continue on the road to angry populism.” Those are the words of former U.S. Senator John Danforth (R-MO) and Rina Shah, respectively founder and senior adviser of Our Republican Legacy. Danforth and Shah
$37 Trillion: The Screaming Tell About the Futility of Budgetary Balance Read More »
Total federal debt was $620 billion in 1976. Why 1976? In a recent column, Holman Jenkins referenced Jimmy Carter’s contention in a 1976 debate that “The best way to control inflation is to cut down government waste…and to let the American free-enterprise system work freely and effectively.” Jenkins subsequently wrote that Carter had “given
Falling Inflation Predicts Rising Government Spending and Debt Read More »
