Economic Policy News

Early Monday morning, congressional negotiators released text of a massive omnibus appropriations bill that would fund the government through Sept. 30. The bill is expected to pass later this week with bipartisan support and avoid a government shutdown. While the bill does make progress on issues like additional defense funding and increasing border security, it…

It’s sometimes hard to fully visualize a massive sum of money. Take $3.854 trillion for instance—the amount the federal government spent in 2016. That’s a lot of money, but America is a large country. It may be easier to picture if we knew how much spending each household would be responsible for if households all…

This week, Congress returns to Washington to address government funding. Unfortunately, two costly corporate welfare programs could be expanded. In the 2014 farm bill, Congress created two massive programs whose projected costs to taxpayers have nearly doubled. Originally projected to cost $18 billion over five years, the programs are now projected to cost a shocking…

And so it begins. The GOP surrender in the budget battle. Despite all the campaign promises to “rein in government” and “get the country’s fiscal house in order,” the groundwork is already being laid by Republican lawmakers to explain why they just aren’t going to be able to put the brakes on spending after all….

Should a landlord be required to rent an apartment to the first “qualified” person to appear on his or her doorstep? The city of Seattle seems to think so. Its imposition of this obligation, however, is being challenged by the free market-oriented Pacific Legal Foundation, a watchdog organization that litigates nationwide for limited government, property…

Could the U.S. economy be growing more than the official growth figures let on? In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, “Why is Growth Better in the United States Than in Other Industrial Countries,” Martin S. Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, suggests that government statisticians have been underestimating…

Today, many people argue that trade disproportionately hurts poor Americans. They say free trade creates a wage gap between low- and high-income earners, and constructs barriers that make it increasingly difficult for the less fortunate to climb the economic ladder. But recent data from The Heritage Foundation shows that this simply is not true. The…

Last Sunday, economic freedom and sound governance took a hit in Ecuador. Lenín Moreno, the nation’s former vice president and socialist candidate, won by a narrow margin amid widespread charges of electoral fraud. The outcome all but secures a fourth consecutive term for outgoing President Rafael Correa’s socialist Alianza Pais party. Ecuadorian law prevented Correa…

America must kick its addiction to spending before it becomes an insurmountable crisis. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released its “2017 Long-Term Budget Outlook,” which lays out budget and economic projections for the next 30 years. The report shows that time to fix the nation’s skyrocketing debt levels is running out and Congress must…

When then-North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed H.B. 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act (commonly known as the “bathroom bill”), into law on March 23, 2016, critics argued that corporate backlash against the measure would cost North Carolina dearly. Now, more than a year later, the Associated Press has provided an updated estimate…

Americans who are concerned about unsustainable and reckless government spending have faced a fundamental problem: It’s hard to track what their representatives are doing to either curb, or increase, spending. But thanks to a new tracking tool, those days may be coming to a close. The Coalition to Reduce Spending has just released a tool…

President Donald Trump’s long-awaited skinny budget is finally here. This slim budget reprioritizes defense spending and reverses eight years of Obama-era shifts in spending from a core constitutional priority toward the president’s domestic pet projects. Federal agencies, beware: The era of fiscal profligacy may be coming to an end, and quickly. Trump’s first budget plays…

In 1990, with the fall of the Soviet Union and following eight years of military buildup under President Ronald Reagan, the American people seemed to agree: The United States was spending enough on the military. Fast forward to 2017, and it’s obvious that sentiment has gone the way of the dinosaurs. A Gallup poll released…

A new report from the United States trade representative links America’s trade deficit with other countries to trade deals entered into going back to the Reagan administration. Those deal include the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Uruguay Round Agreements that created the World Trade Organization, China’s 2001 Protocol of  Accession  to  the  World Trade…

Last weekend, Ecuadoreans did something they haven’t done since 2006: They voted in significant numbers against the socialist Alianza Pais party of three-term leftist President Rafael Correa. After a suspiciously delayed ballot count, electoral authorities finally certified on Feb. 23 that more than 60 percent of Ecuadoreans voted for a candidate other than Correa’s hand-picked…

The news of Michael Novak’s death Feb. 17 saddened close friends and colleagues in the community of think tank scholars who drew so much from his writings and lectures. Novak’s perspectives expanded our conceptual grasp of economic liberty beyond dry formulas to include a more complete picture of the creative, human, and virtuous nature of…