Economic Policy News

The Daily Signal provides economic policy news with reporting, analysis, and commentary on markets, growth, and fiscal responsibility.
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    • Opinion

    5 Takeaways From the 2018 Index of Economic Freedom

    The Heritage Foundation’s 2018 Index of Economic Freedom—an annual global study that compares countries’ entrepreneurial environments—was released earlier this month. Since 1995, the index has measured a nation’s commitment to limited government and free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating four critical policy pillars, including rule of law and regulatory efficiency….
    Patrick Tyrrell
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    • Opinion

    How Congress Can Start Rebuilding the Military Within New Budget Framework

    The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 raised the defense budget caps for both 2018 and 2019. For the coming year, the defense budget will be $647 billion, excluding war funds. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019 will determine how these resources are to be spent and provides a chance to continue reversing…
    Frederico Bartels
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    • Opinion

    Congress Blew Through the Budget Caps, Again. Here’s What Needs to Change.

    The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 signed into law last week really should be renamed the Bipartisan Budget Crash Act. This spending spree takes a Mack Truck and rams through the hard-fought budget caps under the 2011 Budget Control Act to the tune of at least $300 billion. When all is said and done, the…
    Stephen Moore
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    • Opinion

    Tax Cuts Are Sustainable. It’s Spending That’s Holding Us Back.

    The U.S. fiscal outlook is dire, but don’t blame it on tax reform. President Donald Trump’s budget demonstrates that the GOP-passed tax cuts are entirely sustainable—it’s the spending that’s the problem. It is worth remembering where we were before tax reform. Without the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, government scorekeepers projected that the government would…
    Adam Michel
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    • Opinion

    Budget Deal Is a Betrayal of Limited Government Conservatism

    Last week, Congress passed a continuing resolution that will keep the federal government funded through March 23. This is the fifth continuing resolution of the fiscal year—a sixth may be needed before March 23, since both parties have agreed to begin debate on an immigration bill this week. But as bad as the decision to…
    Sen. Mike Lee
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    • Opinion

    Economic Freedom Enables Great Escape From Poverty

    Hundreds of millions of people around the world are experiencing a “Great Escape” from poverty, and increasing economic freedom around the globe is the reason, according to the recently published 2018 Index of Economic Freedom. The Index of Economic Freedom, a publication of The Heritage Foundation, which, for two decades, has analyzed economic policies in…
    Anthony B. Kim
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    • Opinion

    What Trump’s Education Budget Gets Right, and Where It Can Improve

    The Trump administration released its budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 on Monday, and it contains some welcome requests in the sphere of education. The proposal suggests making needed cuts to the Department of Education’s labyrinth of ineffective and duplicative K-12 programs. Originally, it included $59.9 billion for the Department of Education, which would have…
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    Cartoon: Budget Busters

    Michael Ramirez
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    • News

    Conservatives Sound the Alarm on Budget Deal

    Conservative lawmakers warned that Congress was on track to pass a last-minute budget deal, pushed by Republican and Democrat leaders, that will raise caps on spending by $300 billion over two years. Update: The Senate approved the deal by a vote of 71-28  about 1:30 a.m. Friday, followed by the House, which passed it 240-186 around 5:30 a.m….
    Rachel del Guidice
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    • Opinion

    Podcast: The Consequences of the Terrible Budget Deal

    Just how bad is this new budget deal? The Heritage Foundation’s Justin Bogie joins us to explain what the short-term and long-term consequences of this big spending splurge could be. Plus: President Donald Trump attends the National Prayer Breakfast, and Vice President Mike Pence is bringing Otto Warmbier’s dad to the Olympics in South Korea.
    Katrina Trinko
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    • Opinion

    Good News. Economic Freedom Is Back on the Rise.

    Good news: For the first time in a while, the United States isn’t just economically stronger. It’s economically freer. How do we know? Check the just-released 2018 “Index of Economic Freedom,” an annual data-driven research project that scores and ranks almost every country. The U.S. isn’t alone, I’m glad to say. Since it began measuring…
    Ed Feulner
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    • Opinion

    The Senate’s Ugly Budget Deal Would Trample on the Success of Tax Reform

    The bipartisan budget deal to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two years is worse than you think. Not only would it bust the budget caps that have long kept federal spending under control. It also would renew a package of expired tax subsidies, marking the return of a corrupt ritual of…
    Adam Michel
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    • News

    Conservatives Criticize $300 Billion Spending Deal Proposed by Leadership

    Conservatives are voicing alarm over a Senate proposal announced Wednesday by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to increase existing statutory budget caps by $300 billion over the next two years. “This budget deal is a betrayal of everything limited government conservatism stands for and I will be voting no,”…
    Rachel del Guidice
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    • Opinion

    5 Things to Know About Congress’ Latest Budget-Busting Deal

    Congressional leaders on Wednesday announced their latest budget-busting deal. The plan would provide a much-needed boost to defense spending, but fails in almost all other areas. Over the next two years, it would raise the Budget Control Act caps by $296 billion with only a third of that being paid for. This agreement would raise…
    Justin Bogie
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    • Opinion

    The Constitutional Amendment That Would Rein in Spending

    Some people have called for a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution as a means of reining in a big-spending Congress. That’s a misguided vision, for the simple reason that in any real economic sense, as opposed to an accounting sense, the federal budget is always balanced. The value of what we produced in 2017—our…
    Walter E. Williams
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    • Opinion

    5 Principles the New House Budget Committee Chairman Should Follow in the 2019 Budget

    Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas was chosen last month to replace a fellow Republican, Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, as chairman of the House Budget Committee. With fiscal 2018 appropriations yet to be finalized, Womack finds himself in an uncertain position. If a deal is reached to raise the Budget Control Act caps for 2019, some…
    Justin Bogie
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    • Opinion

    To Promote Human Flourishing, Economic Freedom Must Be Increased

    We live in a Golden Age of economic progress. People living today enjoy long lives, good health, and high standards of living unimagined just a few generations ago. Billions of people around the world have escaped poverty. Things we take for granted—antibiotics, the iPhone, air travel—would have seemed like magic to our great-grandparents. These blessings…
    Steve Forbes
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    • News

    In US and Across the Globe, Record Numbers of CEOs Are Optimistic About Economy

    A record number of CEOs are optimistic about the the U.S. and global economies, thanks in part to the tax cuts President Donald Trump signed into law Dec. 22, according to consulting firm PwC’s new annual survey. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the U.S. corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent….
    Kyle Perisic
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    • Opinion

    Why Congress Needs to Reform Disaster Relief Spending

    In the coming weeks, Congress is set to vote on a spending bill that will include funding for federal disaster relief. Following a year of intense hurricanes and record-breaking wildfires, the congressional desire to continue the trend of expanding the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the bulk of relief funds to states affected by…
    Paul Fredrick
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    • Opinion

    New Short-Term Spending Bill Would Continue to Hamper the Military

    Lawmakers are discussing the possibility of passing yet another continuing resolution on Jan. 19 to keep the government from shutting down. If another continuing resolution comes to fruition, it will be the fourth one since the fiscal year started back on Oct. 1. As of now, we have already passed more than one-quarter of the…
    Frederico Bartels
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