Fiscal hawks have been sounding the alarm about rising debt levels for decades, but their nightmare scenario of runaway inflation hasn't come to pass. How do we know if this time is different?
Legislators view the disease as a license to spend like there’s no tomorrow.
We will likely grapple with the consequences of ill-advised COVID-19 policies for years to come.
The Democrats' COVID bill showers billions of unneeded dollars on state and local governments.
Biden's proposed stimulus spending might give a modest boost, but in the long run it'll slow the economy.
Most states managed to avoid much-predicted fiscal crises during the pandemic. Congress wants to shower them with more federal aid anyway.
The market's failure to produce an ideal outcome cannot alone justify activist policy, because governments can also fail to produce the ideal.
Plus: Uber abandons self-driving autos, on being "both loud and silenced," and more...
Despite Elizabeth Warren's contention that it is the "single most effective economic stimulus that is available through executive action," forgiving student debt is a bad idea.
She once suggested that if Americans care about the deficit so much, maybe we should make Libya pay for it.
If we can't trim the Pentagon's budget this year, will we ever?
The president-elect promised record levels of spending and taxes on the campaign trail. Will he succeed?
Trump plans to steal less of other people’s cash then Biden does, though neither has any serious suggestions for paying for their spending schemes.
There's a fox, a goose, and a bag of grain. And a hippopotamus in the middle of the river.
After years of federal fiscal recklessness, is Washington's bill finally coming due?
When it comes to limiting the size and scope of government and protecting individual liberties, America's 45th president has been actively malign.
Even without further spending increases, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt will hit 107 percent of GDP in 2023.
The Congressional Budget Office warns that higher levels of debt will slow economic growth significantly in the years ahead.
Skyrocketing debt, higher borrowing costs, and a hobbled economy are predicted in the latest Congressional Budget Office report.
Biden is proposing about $3 trillion in new taxes, mostly on the rich, to pay for up to $11 trillion in new spending. That's a recipe for even bigger budget deficits.
The Congressional Budget Office says the deficit will hit $3.3 trillion this year. The national debt will exceed the size of America's gross domestic product for the first time since the end of World War II.
Research suggests reducing spending will boost consumption in the short- and long-run.
More spending means more debt and more future taxes.
The next Democratic president will be all too happy to govern by pen and phone too, say the Reason Roundtable podcasters.
Congress is currently debating what should be included in the next trillion-dollar (and counting) stimulus bill, but nothing is likely to pass this week.
Remember when $1 trillion annual deficits were worryingly large? Last month’s budget gap was $864 billion.
When COVID-19 arrived in America, Uncle Sam was already deep in debt.
Debt held by the public equals about 100 percent of GDP. That's hurting growth and will fuel a major crisis.
Even in a healthy economy, rising debt and deficits posed challenges. The current crisis has magnified those problems.
The Trump-era GOP lends credence to the idea that Obama-era Republicans cared about deficits only as a means of hampering a Democratic president.
It's obvious that there will be more government spending in response to the coronavirus, but distinguishing the essential from the nice-to-have is more important than ever.
"The more we lock down the economy, the more we harm those individuals who are most vulnerable, who don't have the cash cushions or the white-collar jobs that allow them to keep going."
The war between Openers and Closers shouldn't be seen as a fight between idiot death-worshippers and unnecessarily frightened tyrants.
And more coronavirus stimulus spending could send that number soaring higher.
The Club for Growth prides itself on holding lawmakers accountable "by publicizing their voting record." Except, well…not right now.
The Kentucky Republican took on Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi to fight against the $2 trillion coronavirus spending package. He's just getting started.
The CARES Act plunges the nation into a crash course on experimental economics.—and we're the lab rats.
The coronavirus is going to crater tax revenues and hike spending. And the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit was going to exceed $1 trillion even before all that.
Having failed to be fiscally responsible when it would have been relatively easier, our elected officials will now likely hike spending even further.
While the 2017 tax cuts didn't deliver the results promised by Trump and his magical-thinking supporters, the administration has delivered some economic expansion, some job creation, and some investment growth.
There was a deficit of debt talk at the conservative conference.
Instead of taking a little off the top, Trump needs to give farm subsidies a buzz cut.
"Absent policy changes, the federal government continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal path," America's top auditor warns. But is anyone listening?
Federal outlays per person have increased $1,441 since 2016, to a grand total of $14,652 per person.
The president’s plan calls for modest cuts made easy by unlikely growth.
And whether it balances at all depends on some creative accounting. Meanwhile, it proposes $2 billion in new spending on the border wall.
