Category: Deficits

Unemployment insurance is probably one of the more useful government programs you’re going to run across. It’s designed to be temporary in nature, it often provides a useful benefit to people who actually pay taxes, and it fills a genuine need. A lot of people don’t have large cash reserves. That means, if they lose […]

I might not always agree with Alan Greenspan, but it’s fair to say he’s forgotten more about the economy than most people will ever know. And what he’s saying right now about spending is exactly what conservatives are saying, exactly what the Tea Party is saying, and exactly what much of the country is saying: […]

Americans are already paying for the lack of fiscal restraint exercised by their own elected leaders, but the proposed bailout of Greece would have them paying for the financial foibles of another country’s government as well. Since the proposed bailout would effectively be paying off Greek loans to German, Swiss, French and other European banks, […]

In order to keep the deadbeats in Greece from going down the tubes, defaulting on their debt, and creating a huge new economic tsunami, their fellow Western European nations are going to pony up more than 100 billion Euros. The scary news? Number one, it may not work over the long haul. Number two, it […]

Jim Bunning and Tom Coburn have, unsuccessfully, tried to force the Democrats in Congress to pay for extensions of unemployment benefits. This has ultimately failed each time. That’s not because it’s a bad idea;:  it’s because it’s an easily demagogued position. “You don’t want to extend unemployment benefits? That means you have no compassion for […]

Getting government spending under control, like securing the border, is something “everyone” supposedly agrees on. Whether they’re liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat — it doesn’t matter — every politician insists:  he’s:  : the one you can trust on the budget. Yet, what do we get in practice? Bad (The Republicans) and much, much, much worse (The Democrats). […]

…What kind of future does our country have if our budget numbers look exactly as they’re projected to on this chart? Bonus Question: Can our country run this kind of enormous debt, year after year indefinitely, and still present future generations of Americans with the sort of opportunities we’ve had? Hat tip to The Corner […]

One thing the Founding Fathers realized is that a democracy can destroy itself through the unlimited expansion of government. That’s part of the reason why we have a 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or […]

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury…” — Often attributed, probably incorrectly, to Andrew Tytler […]

I know, I know. Yet another article about how scary our debt is. You’ve heard it a thousand times. Yet and still, my friends, these numbers beg for further consideration: As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to […]