All Posts Tagged With: "national debt"
The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History
Today’s most crucial policy battles are about federal spending and the scope of government power. Cato Institute scholar John Samples reminds us in this book that those battles have their origins in the Progressive era, the New Deal, and the Great Society. Early in the twentieth century Herbert Croly (cofounder of The New Republic) argued [...]
24Aug2011 | Greg Kaza | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Debt Sky
Some pundits wonder if the economy can “weather the budget cuts” (sic).
5Aug2011 | Sheldon Richman | 18 comments | ContinuedDefault … or Renege?
Via Don Boudreaux, Roger Garrison notes that one cannot choose to default. As he wrote to Boudreaux: You mention, though, that the government could “choose to default.” Well, if default means that you’re unable to pay, then “choosing to default” must mean that you “choose to be unable to pay.” Hey, that really does sound [...]
30Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedU.S. Default Would Not Be Unprecedented
Why do the media and politicians persist in saying the U.S. government has never defaulted on its “obligations” before? It most certainly has. Marc Joffee, a consultant in the credit assessment field, writes in “Correction: The US Has Defaulted Before and It Can Default Again”: One troubling aspect of the political debate over the debt [...]
29Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedRichman Interviewed on Liberty Conspiracy
FEE friend and Freeman contributor Gardner Goldsmith interviewed me yesterday about the debt-ceiling controversy on his Liberty Conspiracy program. Listen here.
28Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedDefault Not Inevitable
Freeman columnist Don Boudreaux puts the “default” scare into perspective in an op-ed in The Daily. Choice quote: After paying creditors [in August], the government will have $87.8 billion on hand in ready cash in August to spend on its myriad programs — such as Social Security, wars in the Middle East, subsidized farming and maintaining [...]
27Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedContradicting Keynes: Bernanke’s Debt Default Scare
Did the person supposedly in charge of determining interest rates in the United States through Federal Reserve credit creation really say that?
27Jul2011 | James C. W. Ahiakpor | 9 comments | ContinuedBondholders and Victims
Victims of the State have a stronger claim to resources in its possession than those who freely speculated in and hoped to profit from its power.
22Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 19 comments | ContinuedThe Taxes Are Coming!
Should Congress raise taxes to shrink the deficit? Or should it only cut spending? However you come down on the matter, Mario Rizzo reminds us that higher taxes are already on the way.
21Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedTaxation Is Still Robbery
It is sad that most self-styled lovers of humanity embrace a money-raising system grounded in the threat of physical force – violence — against people who themselves have not used force.
15Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 28 comments | ContinuedAbout that Debt Limit
Consenting government creditors – people who chose to buy T-bills – count on getting repaid with stolen property, aka tax revenue, which in my book taints the contract.
8Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 14 comments | ContinuedThe Threat Is in the Spending
The lack of a plan to control government spending poses a much greater threat to America’s credit standing than uncertainty over whether the debt limit will be raised.
6Jul2011 | Christopher Lingle | 22 comments | ContinuedDefault in the Future
An economist makes a persuasive case that the powers that be will decide a default on the government’s debt is the best available alternative.
1Jul2011 | Sheldon Richman | 20 comments | ContinuedBudget-Cutting Resistance
So here’s the problem: While polls show that people want the government’s budget deficit and the national debt reduced, they don’t want the biggest spending items cut. In the April 17 ABC News-Washington Post poll, 59 percent said that the deficit should be reduced through a combination of unspecified spending cuts and tax increases. But [...]
22Jun2011 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | ContinuedBudget-Cutting Resistance
If libertarians are to expand the sphere of freedom while shrinking the sphere of force, they first need to be understood.
22Apr2011 | Sheldon Richman | 29 comments | ContinuedDebt Ceiling Shattered April 15
Much attention is directed to the approaching congressional vote on raising the debt limit, which makes the following mysterious. According to the U.S. Treasury, the $14.294 trillion limit was exceeded on April 15. See it for yourself here. The latest figures to the penny: Total Public Debt Outstanding April 14: $14,270,792,119,184.89 April 15: $14,305,336,580,992.11 April [...]
21Apr2011 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Costs of the Civil War
Even after 150 years, the Civil War evokes memories of great men and great battles. Certainly that war was a milestone in U.S. history, and on the plus side it reunited the nation and freed the slaves. Few historians, however, describe the costs of the war. Not just the 620,000 individuals who died, or the [...]
23Mar2011 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 7 comments | Continued-
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