Entitlement spending, defense spending, and interest payments on the debt continue to climb.
Price controls are seductive because any benefits are highly and immediately visible, while their grave costs are often harder to spot.
Even the best-case scenario means less investment, slower wage growth, and a budget increasingly spent on past obligations.
China does present some real national security challenges. But the Trump administration's policies have made it harder to address those, all while damaging American prosperity.
Lawmakers have to show they'll back the national debt with future fiscal surpluses, which means reining in government spending.
J.D. Vance would like to give money to people for choices they're already making—without a workable plan to actually pay for it.
As the president liberalized the market for beef, he also imposed new 50 percent tariffs on some $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Americans will suffer.
And both are hiding behind a lie of omission.
Many entrepreneurs with high net worths don't actually have much cash. What bank lends $100 million against illiquid stock in young companies that may or may not succeed?
In under five months, waiving the protectionist law opened up whole trade routes and sent fuel to areas that needed it. Why go back?
Federal ownership of private companies has become routine. And it is happening on the right, even as conservatives point fingers at the left for its socialism.
Researchers estimate that discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could leave the American economy 0.7 percent to 1.3 percent smaller—equivalent to losing the entire economy of Utah or South Carolina.
Automation will destroy some jobs—and create others.
Once the trust fund is empty, Social Security can pay out only what it collects. Yet few candidates are talking about this in any serious way.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government presents a bustling city where prosperity comes from voluntary cooperation and leaders know their place.
Some safety recommendations are treated as essential—while others become negotiable once influential people object.
Raise the price of an activity and people do less of it or restructure how they report it. Mobility was never the sole issue.
No poor country has ever achieved decent living standards without first getting richer.
Thomas Piketty's plan is a comprehensive program for global managed decline dressed up in the language of climate justice and equality.
Vermont passed single-payer legislation in 2011 and abandoned the plan after three years of failure. Why?
One upcoming ballot measure would expand the state's taxing power. A lesser-known measure would limit it. Which will win?
They cost each American household roughly $1,000 in 2025, with more coming in 2026.
Central planning from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump, and others reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes private markets work.
The fiscal objection is serious. But the deeper problem is that the proposal misunderstands the saving behavior of the households it aims to help.
Every dollar of well-intentioned government assistance comes with a behavioral price tag that we've largely refused to count.
And the government's "solution" is making it worse.
The United States has the most progressive income-tax system in the developed world.
It would be easy to wave it away and move on. But that's how the U.S. got in such a dire fiscal situation.
The reversal wasn't because the economics changed. It is because their biggest shareholders turned toward industrial policy.
Lawmakers used to offset its emergency spending. They don't anymore.
The state's funding crisis is driven by a third-party payment system in which roughly 90 cents of every American health care dollar is paid by someone other than the patient.
The problem is not that the government collects too little. It's that the government spends too much.
The employer insurance exclusion has chained workers to their employers, practically eliminated consumer price sensitivity, and suppressed wages.
American businesses and consumers absorbed nearly 90 percent of the 2025 tariffs' economic burden, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found.
The cost of paying the interest is now the central story, and it's a grim one.
Inflation is a silent tax—and the most painful way to finance government promises.
Across advanced economies, they have repeatedly been narrowed or even repealed after delivering disappointing revenue, tax avoidance, capital flight, and costly administrative battles.
Such attempts try to engineer outcomes while acting like political favors can substitute for market incentives.
Many Republicans are now openly embracing ideas from the progressive playbook. Call them "Depublicans."
The real squeeze comes from government-distorted markets, not economic decline.
Medicaid fraud has been endemic at the state and federal levels for decades. Focusing on a single official or state misses a deeper lesson.
Yes, the status quo is unsustainable. But Romney's proposed solution risks making those problems harder to fix while foreclosing opportunities for the next generation.
History shows clearly that the societies most capable of generosity and liberalism are not those trapped in poverty but those that have escaped it.
Social insurance programs are compatible with a basic safety net. But what we have now is a slow-motion generational fleecing.
The strange new alliance between democratic socialists and nationalist populists isn't a sign of political healing. It's a sign that people have lost their grip on basic economics.
Panicked about holiday shopping? Reason staffers and contributors are here to save the day.
When voters believe they're living through an economic apocalypse, they're willing to embrace the very policies that would create one.
Most countries emerged from a shared language, lineage, or ancient heritage. The United States built a state first and then had to discover what it meant to be a nation.
Celebrate your independence with a subscription to Reason magazine, your most trusted source of honest, insightful news and analysis.
