If the Trump administration fails to implement real reform, Main Street taxpayers could once again be conscripted into subsidizing lucrative Wall Street deals.
The lesson from the Moody's credit downgrade is that the U.S. cannot borrow its way to prosperity.
The administration shows no coherent commitment to free market principles and is in fact actively undermining them.
We don't need more of the same. We need evidence of a serious turnaround.
If anything, they sabotage the very forces—dynamism, adaptability, innovation—that create the economic opportunities struggling workers need.
Far from delivering industrial renewal, Trump's tariffs have already led to layoffs at manufacturing plants.
The government currently collects revenue in an arbitrary and distortionary manner, with loopholes that benefit special groups.
Lower-income families who spend the largest shares of their income on goods—and who have been badly hurt from the recent inflation—will likely suffer the most.
Our manufacturing output, even adjusted for inflation, is near all-time highs.
More education dollars are funding more bureaucrats, who, by and large, are not improving student outcomes.
Since Congress began requiring annual audits in 2018, the Department of Defense has never passed.
Entitlements are a much bigger expense, but that doesn't mean the waste doesn't matter.
If the Department of Government Efficiency goes about this the wrong way, we could be left with both a presidency on steroids and no meaningful reduction in government.
At the current rate of inflation, the dollar will lose 33 cents of purchasing power within a decade.
It tries to offset as much as $4.8 trillion—mostly for tax cut extensions—with only $1.5 trillion in supposed spending reductions.
The agency—an unelected regulator with a blank check—has spent much of its short life making things harder for the consumers it set out to protect.
Even if the Department of Government Efficiency eliminates all improper payments and fraud, we'll still be facing a debt explosion—which requires structural reform.
"Personnel is policy" has shaped past administrations. Kevin Hassett, who has been tapped to lead the National Economic Council, will have a hand in tax reform, debt reduction, and more.
The stark disconnect not only runs the risk of choking off much of the global commerce the president claims to welcome but threatens to stick U.S. consumers and businesses with higher costs.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This rogue agency stifles innovation, drives up costs, and infantilizes consumers—all while operating without accountability.
Not doing so could be harmful for just about everyone.
For all the excitement about the incoming administration and a return to the 2019 economy, market stability rests on the precarious assumption that the government will eventually put its fiscal house in order.
With inflation risks persisting and entitlement spending surging, the situation cannot be ignored. But we never should have gotten to this point to begin with.
The high cost of complying with our tax code encourages wasteful tax avoidance strategies and distorts work and investment decisions.
Privatization isn't about cutting corners; it's about unleashing and leveraging the ingenuity and competitiveness of the private sector to deliver better services at lower costs.
By one account, regulations cost American households over $15,000 per year. Here's hoping DOGE can help.
Doing nothing will lead to Medicare benefits being cut by 11 percent and Social Security Benefits being cut by 23 percent in less than a decade.
Most people don't realize it, but if you're a U.S. citizen, the IRS wants to know about all the money you earn, no matter where in the world you earn it.
Despite its enormous budget and vast regulatory powers, the agency has failed to detect major frauds while wasting time and money on relatively useless disclosures.
Trump is talking about cutting government spending, but that's mostly in Congress' hands.
From art to vice to games and maybe a little magic, Reason's staff is here to help you with your gift giving.
In the Abolish Everything issue, Reason writers make the case for ending the DEA, ICE, the SBA, and everything else.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan used the state to achieve political aims that have nothing to do with keeping markets competitive. J.D. Vance has said she's done "a good job."
Like all government perks, SBA lending creates unseen victims.
Even before the pandemic spending increase, the budget deficit was approaching $1 trillion. The GOP has the chance to embrace fiscal sanity this time if they can find the political will.
If Musk is truly serious about fiscal discipline, he'll advise the president-elect to eschew many of the policies he promised on the campaign trail.
The bipartisan embrace of industrial policy represents one of the most dangerous economic illusions of our time.
Even the poorest citizens of free countries fare better than the middle classes in economically repressive nations.
Both candidates have promised a litany of special favors to handpicked constituencies. If you don't fit into the right categories, you'll pay the price.
As it stands, the program effectively redistributes money from younger and poorer people to richer people.
When they entered the White House, the budget deficit was a pandemic-influenced $2.3 trillion, and it was set to fall to $905 billion by 2024. It's now twice what it was supposed to be.
If the former president wins the 2024 race, the circumstances he would inherit are far more challenging, and several of his policy ideas are destructive.
The America of the past grew in spite of tariffs, not because of them.
The idea, proposed by former President Donald Trump, could curb waste and step in where our delinquent legislators are asleep on the job.
Housing costs, job availability, energy prices, and technological advancement all hinge on a web of red tape that is leaving Americans poorer and less free.
Both campaigns represent variations on a theme of big, fiscally irresponsible, hyper-interventionist government.
A new poll challenges the protectionist narrative currently dominating both sides of the political aisle.
The campaign promise from Donald Trump sounds nice, but it would be disastrous when considering the program is already racing toward insolvency.
Do you care about free minds and free markets? Sign up to get the biggest stories from Reason in your inbox every afternoon.
This modal will close in 10
