Economic Policy News

The Lebanese people are suffering. A protest in the city of Tripoli turned violent mid-July when a hand grenade exploded, injuring five soldiers. Protests like this have become common in Lebanon due to the dire economic and political situation plaguing the country. Lebanon’s economic hardships were foreshadowed by heightened levels of public sector debt, illiquidity…

Giving to good causes is key to maintaining America’s free market system, the head of Philanthropy Roundtable says.  It’s not the job of government to meet the needs of all Americans, Elise Westhoff, the organization’s president and CEO, says. So “if we have a strong philanthropic sector,” Westhoff says, “I think that allows us to…

People around the world are hungry for economic freedom. They want the ability to choose how to make a living instead of having the government tell them how to do so. As a result of this desire, a shocking number of people have taken matters into their own hands. A recent International Monetary Fund report…

It’s no wonder why America’s youth are so enamored with the idea of socialism and big government while being vehemently opposed to free market capitalism. In a a survey of teenagers conducted by Junior Achievement USA and the Charles Koch Foundation in 2019, 93% of teens view economics as important, but struggle with grasping the…

Women’s battle for equal rights under the law has progressed significantly in a number of countries, but many other nations still have much room for improvement to establish societies that uphold women’s equality and dignity. So, what’s the solution to decreasing this gender gap worldwide? There’s considerable evidence that the best environment to promote equality…

The Indo-Pacific has become an increasingly more dynamic and critical part of the world’s foreign policy chess board. It’s home to at least five of the world’s trillion-dollar economies and hosts more than half of the world’s population in just two of its countries, India and China. Pre-pandemic, the Indo-Pacific was boasting an average economic…

Democrats are trying to push both a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and another $3.5 trillion spending package through Congress.  Although the former provides funding for traditional infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, the other and larger package provides trillions of dollars for a laundry list of left-wing priorities, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., says.  “They have…

It’s been almost half a century since the end of the Vietnam War, and the relationship between the United States and Vietnam, particularly in terms of trade and investment, has been steadily improving since the normalization of relations in 1995. According to a 2021 report by the Congressional Research Service, bilateral trade between the two…

Editor's note: Clean elections, lower taxes and spending, and back to the basics in education. All three are on the minds of The Daily Signal's audience, judging from the mailbag at [email protected]. Take a look.—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: The last thing we need is federal laws governing elections, the subject of Hans von Spakovsky's…

Even before the outbreak of COVID-19 and the spending binge that followed, the federal budget was on an unsustainable trajectory. The Republican Study Committee, the caucus of conservative GOP members of the House of Representatives, has put forward a comprehensive policy proposal to address the fiscal challenges the country faces in its recently released “Reclaiming…

If you listen to the narrative being promoted by President Joe Biden and his allies on the left, it would be easy to think that the federal government spends more than enough on the military and little on nondefense social programs. Yet the reality is exactly the opposite. The federal government has become home to…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that births in the U.S. reached another historic low in 2020. For the sixth consecutive year, the birthrate dropped—this time by 4%. The average annual drop in the five previous years was 2%. The rate at which American women are having babies is way below the rate…

The Biden administration’s recently released budget request would significantly expand the federal footprint on education through a greatly accelerated education spending spree. The administration requested nearly $103 billion for K-12 and higher education—a 41% funding increase—for the Department of Education. The president’s budget request includes significant funding increases for: School districts with students from low-income…

As the worst and most devastating initial economic impact of the global pandemic begins to fade, nations around the world face a number of challenges in rebuilding their economies. One of them is the specter of greater inflation. As a component of the monetary freedom score in the Index of Economic Freedom, higher inflation will…

The lack of economic freedom in the countries of the Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—has long been a consistent push factor of illegal immigration to the north. It did not suddenly cause the 2021 U.S. border crisis, and resolving it requires serious, lasting solutions.  There are a great number of interwoven factors behind why…