Category: Government Spending
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Economic Outlook: Current Administration vs. Congressional Budget Office / Economics / Government Spending
By: Asha_Bangalore
The current administration and the Congressional Budget Office project a considerable reduction of the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP in 2012 and 2013 (see Chart 1). The current administration predicts the federal budget deficit to decline to 7.0% of GDP in 2012 from 10.9% in 2011 and further reduction to 4.6% is anticipated for 2013. The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) predictions show the federal budget deficit also dropping to 7.0% in 2012 from 9.8% in 2011. The CBO expects the budget deficit to stand at 4.3% of GDP in 2013.
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Wednesday, February 09, 2011
U.S. Politics of Hate Driving Out of Control Government Spending / Politics / Government Spending
By: David_Galland
In describing the current situation in these United States, and in many of the world’s other superpowers, we here at Casey Research have often used the word “intractable”… as in, “impossible to resolve.”
While that may not be technically accurate – because there is no problem related to economics that can’t be solved if one is willing to swallow sufficiently strong medicine – it is a correct assessment, given the overwhelming role that politics now play in the economy.
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Thursday, December 30, 2010
Is Big Government a Myth? / Economics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Murphy
Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Why the United States of America is Broke Due to Out of Control Defense Spending / Politics / Government Spending
By: Mike_Shedlock
Explaining why America is broke is rather simple. All we have to do is look at two separate and distinct problem areas: public unions and defense spending, then generalize the problem. Let's start with a look at defense spending.
Here's an article on Foreign Affairs magazine by William Pfaaf making a solid case How Militarism Endangers America . The article is subscription, but a decent sized synopsis and lead-in follows:
Friday, December 17, 2010
Why the U.S. Gigantic Intelligence Apparatus Is a Mega Fraud / Politics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Higgs
On July 19, 2010, the Washington Post published the first of three large reports by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the dimensions of the gigantic US apparatus of "intelligence" activities being undertaken to combat terrorist acts against the United States, such as the 9/11 attacks. To say that this activity amounts to mobilizing every police officer in the country to stop street fights in Camden only begins to suggest its almost-unbelievable disproportion to the alleged threat.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
De-Toxify the Federal Beast by Cutting Taxes / Politics / Government Spending
By: Gary_North
Have you ever heard this phrase? "Starve the beast!" It refers to starving the Federal government. It argues that if Congress cuts taxes, spending cuts will necessarily follow.
The problem with this metaphor is that it conjures up a mental image of an overweight person who cannot bring himself to stop eating. He has no inner Richard Simmons, longing to get out.
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Monday, November 08, 2010
Lessons From the 1930's Great Depression, Create Jobs by Executive Order / Economics / Government Spending
By: Global_Research
Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn writes: On May 6, 1935, with the country in the midst of the Great Depression, and with indirect efforts to create jobs having not moved the needle of unemployment rates, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 and appropriated $4.8 billion for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA put millions of Americans to work constructing buildings, painting murals to decorate them, and performing plays for audiences that had never before seen a dramatic production. In the process, many were saved from poverty and starvation and the economy began to revive.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Less Government Means Less Economic Trouble / Economics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Higgs
Though our current economic troubles are complex, many mainstream economists have endorsed the simplistic Keynesian theory that massive government spending will produce jobs and prosperity.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Real Economic Cost of Government Is Spending, So What Do You Want to Cut? / Economics / Government Spending
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
One of the biggest issues in this mid-term election is the desire to pare the rate of growth in federal government spending. Economically speaking, this is spot on because the real economic cost of government is how much it spends. Bear in mind, the federal government always gets the funds it needs to pay for its expenditures - through taxation, borrowing and/or "printing." The more the federal government spends, the more productive resources it directs, leaving fewer resources at the disposal of the private sector.
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Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Governmental Money-Vacuum / Politics / Government Spending
By: Richard_Daughty
The drunker I get, the more it seems to me that you slave away at your stupid job every day of your stupid life, hating every moment of it, reviling all the idiotic people you deal with every hellish day, but you bravely and heroically put up with the aggravation, tedium and ennui because you desperately need the money.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Government Jobs, It's Not about Personnel; It's about Power / Politics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Murphy
Market analysts have been trying to predict President Obama's pick to head the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Earlier this week Obama and other administration officials hinted that the spot would be filled by Elizabeth Warren, a hero to progressive activists but anathema to the banking industry. (As of Wednesday evening, Warren had been confirmed as a "special adviser" though her ultimate status still remained up in the air.) The whole episode underscores the profound difference between adversarial government operations and peaceful, win-win market activities.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Obama's $50 Billion "Infrastructure" Gift to the Wall Street Banks / Politics / Government Spending
By: Michael_Hudson
I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War¹s Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain¹s notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times.
Monday, September 06, 2010
The Fed and the Ratchet Effect on Government Size / Economics / Government Spending
By: Robert_Murphy
One of economic historian Bob Higgs's outstanding contributions is the "ratchet effect." During a crisis, the size and scope of government grow tremendously. After the crisis subsides, government shrinks, but not to the precrisis level. In consequence, leviathan expands over the decades, leaping from one crisis to the next.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Bankrupt Finnish Welfare State / Politics / Government Spending
By: MISES
Kaj Grüssner writes: Progressives in America are often keen on promoting the European welfare state as an argument for big government, not least in the healthcare debate. They point to European countries, often the social-democratic Nordic countries, as role models, with their universal healthcare, public school system, generous social-safety net, and all the happy people who live there.
Friday, August 27, 2010
What You're Not Supposed to Know about War / Politics / Government Spending
By: Thomas_J_DiLorenzo
It is a testament to the power of government propaganda that several generations of self-described conservatives have held as their core belief that war and militarism are consistent with limited, constitutional government. These conservatives think they are "defending freedom" by supporting every military adventure that the state concocts. They are not.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Runaway Out of Control U.S. Federal Government Spending? / Economics / Government Spending
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
The U.S. Treasury released its budget status for July. As Chart 1 shows, the cumulative deficit in the 12 months ended July was $1.318 trillion - the lowest since June 2009's $1.255 trillion. So far, the largest 12-month cumulative deficit reading has been $1.477 trillion in the 12 months ended February 2010.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Cutting Government Spending Is So Hard to Do / Economics / Government Spending
By: MISES
Grant M. Nülle writes: In recent months, fiscal austerity among governments on all levels has come to the political fore, albeit for different reasons.
In some cases, such as Greece, belt-tightening measures were essential to avert a sovereign-debt crisis. The Greek government enacted significant deficit-reduction solutions in order to receive monetary aid from the International Monetary Fund and European Union. In so doing, it continued the de facto monetization of Greek debt by the European Central Bank.
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
Government Employees, The Last Great Consumer Base / Economics / Government Spending
By: Richard_Daughty
Things in the economy are getting more and more stressful, and the company's revenues are down, precipitating the rumor around here that there are going to be more cuts in staff, and the odds are pretty good that I will be one of those unceremoniously fired since, ever since they fired Carl, I am now the company's worst employee.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Plan For America To Control Federal Deficit Spending / Economics / Government Spending
By: James_Quinn
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. There are no easy solutions. There are only painful, more painful, and really, really painful solutions. Both mainstream corrupted political parties have had the chance to put the country back on a prudent fiscal path. They have both failed miserably. One party will spend the country into oblivion and the other country will try to democratize the world with their military machine. There are no fresh ideas from either party. There are the same old stale ideas and rhetoric.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Hoover's Dam Folly, Governments Never Learn They Can't Print There Way to Prosperity / Economics / Government Spending
By: Douglas_French
Economics professor Bernard Malamud not once but twice invited the crowd in Las Vegas to visit nearby Hoover Dam to see for themselves an example of the productive assets that were created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's (FDR) New Deal. Professor Malamud was recruited to plead the Keynesian side of the argument in an "FDR's Depression Policies: Good Deal or Raw Deal?" debate with the Foundation for Economic Education's (FEE) Lawrence Reed during FreedomFest.