All Posts Tagged With: "big government"

The Case for Big Government

Could it be that our already immense government is still too small? That’s what some people, including economic journalist Jeff Madrick, would have us believe. The first sentence of The Case for Big Government reads, “It is conventional wisdom in America today that high levels of taxes and government spending diminish America’s prosperity.” While this [...]

20May2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

Obama and the Public

Barack Obama says the people have a growing sense that “something is broken” in Washington. He attributes this to hyper-partisanship and a consequent lack of civility, and thinks public disillusionment can be reversed through better manners, bipartisanship, compromise, and cooperation. But to what end? Presumably greater government management of medical care, finance, education, and energy. [...]

20Apr2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

Corruption in Government? Shocking!

It’s funny how the people who push hardest for government intervention in more and more areas are the first to gripe that everything has become politicized. What were they expecting? Did they forget that government is a political institution? Paul Krugman and Chris Matthews, among other Progressives, are apoplectic because two senators of the minority [...]

20Apr2010 | | 3 comments | Continued

Government: More Incompetent than Ever

Most intellectuals support big government, and millions of people depend on it. So why, with thousands of laws, millions of employees working to carry out those laws, and trillions of dollars spent, is it in trouble? The most popular big-government programs–like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–are going broke. These entitlements account for more than half [...]

19Apr2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

House Democrats May Back Off on Public Insurance Plan

“Two House Democrats who favor a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, acknowledged Sunday it might have to be sacrificed as negotiators work out a final agreement with the Senate.”(AP, Sunday) Who says this isn’t the giving season. FEE Timely Classic: “The Return of Activist Government” by [...]

28Dec2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

TGIF: Government Run Amok

The “federal” government, particularly the executive branch, can do almost anything it wants. The limits are few, and those that survive can often be gotten around through chicanery. Much of what government does is out of public view, thanks to off-budget accounting and other dubious methods that would get the rest of us prosecuted. Even [...]

15May2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

Systemically Risky

I have more to say about government as a systemic risk here. A teaser: The Obama administration and congressional leaders assure us that the government can protect us from the “systemic risk” posed by big banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds.But who will protect us from the government?

30Apr2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

TGIF: Government Bias

Anyone discussing social and economic problems with a hardcore free-market advocate hears a string of indictments against the government. At some point the nonlibertarian interlocutor will think he’s figured things out: “I get it. You are biased against government.” This is a charge to which I have to plead guilty. The latest TGIF is here.

17Apr2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

What We Believe

The Foundation for Economic Education, publisher of this magazine since 1956, is now in its seventh decade, and I am now in my seventh month as its president. As we expand the outreach of our programs and publications, now is a good time to remind our readers who we are and what we believe in. [...]

2Mar2009 | | 8 comments | Continued

The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power

Gene Healy relates a sad and disturbing “kids say the darndest things” anecdote in his new book. The story typifies an attitude toward government that Healy, senior editor at the Cato Institute, rightly identifies in his book’s title as The Cult of the Presidency. A little girl, on hearing that President Kennedy had been murdered [...]

2Mar2009 | | 6 comments | Continued

The War Between the State and the Family: How Government Divides and Impoverishes

Sympathy and compassion help make humans caring, moral beings. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, understood that, as illustrated by his emphasis on sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Often, however, sympathy and compassion are transformed from tools of moral judgment and action into weapons of blind ideology, irrational emotionalism, and cynical politics. [...]

22Jan2009 | | 3 comments | Continued

Small Isn't Beautiful?

Bill Kristol writes that when it comes to government, “small isn’t beautiful.” Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative. And he campaigned in 1980 more as a tax-cutter and national-defense-builder-upper, and less as [...]

9Dec2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

Freedom Is Not the Issue? It Just Ain’t So!

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, Terrorism and Tyranny, Lost Rights, and other books. The Friends of Leviathan are once again encouraging people to forget about freedom. In a May op-ed piece in the New York Times, columnist David Brooks announced, “The central political debate of the 20th century was over the [...]

1Sep2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

Whom Should We Thank for High Gas Prices?

I am writing this after having just filled my tank with gasoline at $3.99 per gallon. Oil is over $125 a barrel. Big Oil and their CEOs are the hands-down favorite to win the Snidely Whiplash People’s Choice Award. Since Big Oil is our favorite villain, no one really wants to hear about the other [...]

1Jul2008 | | 4 comments | Continued

Influence-Peddling

Since the New York Times published its page-one story alleging an inappropriate link between Senator John McCain and telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman, we’ve heard much more about the evil of “influence-peddling.” The day the Times story ran, Senator Barack Obama debated Hillary Clinton, saying, “Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die. [...]

1May2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

Wartime Origins of Modern Income-Tax Withholding

Wars have always been the most important occasions for the introduction of new forms of taxation. At the outset of a war the state suddenly needs greatly increased revenues to pay for personnel and matériel to prosecute the war. Although governments typically increase the rates of existing explicit taxes and raise the rate of the [...]

1Nov2007 | | 3 comments | Continued

Ending the Welfare State Through the Power of Private Action

Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. Despair about the current direction of American public policy is easily understood. In whichever direction we look, government seems to be growing larger and more intrusive. For example, in February the Associated Press (AP) reported that in spite of the 1996 welfare reform, which has reduced the number [...]

1Apr2007 | | 0 comments | Continued
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