Free Republic

Chris Rong did everything right. A 23-year-old dentistry student in New York, Chris excelled at one of the country’s top high schools, breezed through college, and is now studying dentistry at one of the best dental schools in the nation. But it may be a long time before he sees any rewards. He’s moved back home with his parents in Bayside, Queens—an hour-and-a-half commute each way to class at the New York University’s College of Dentistry—and by the time he graduates in 2016, he’ll face $400,000 in student loans. “If the money weren’t a problem I would live on my...

In the face of a stagnating economy and national debt topping $17 trillion, many policymakers in Washington, D.C. are seeking ways to reduce spending. Given that many states increasingly rely on federal spending to craft their state budgets, the necessary federal spending reductions could pose a serious fiscal threat to states that fail to prepare. What’s more, those federal funds come with serious strings attached, which often hamper state autonomy and effectiveness in policymaking. A recent report from State Budget Solutions based on Census data reveals that on the whole, states received 31.6 percent of their total revenue from the...

Unusually harsh winter weather appears to be behind recent signs of weakness in the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday, suggesting the central bank was poised to press forward in ratcheting back its stimulus. Testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said the Fed would watch carefully to ensure weather was indeed the culprit, but she reiterated that it would take a "significant change" to the economy's prospects for the Fed to put plans to wind down its bond-buying program on hold.

In order for our current level of debt-fueled prosperity to continue, the rest of the world must continue to use our dollars to trade with one another and must continue to buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates. Of course the number one foreign nation that we depend on to participate in our system is China. China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the planet (including the United States), and most of that trade is conducted in U.S. dollars. This keeps demand for our dollars very high, and it ensures that we can import massive quantities...

It hasn't been a good week for the housing market. Sales of previously owned homes fell 5.1% in January -- the fifth drop in the past six months -- to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million, the lowest level in a year and a half. New home construction fell 16% in January compared to December -- the biggest percentage drop in almost three years -- and permits slipped by more than 5%. Homebuilders reported a 10-point decline in their confidence index for February to 46 -- below the key 50-point level which separates a growing market from a...

In the time Barack Obama has been President of the United States the public debt of the country has more than doubled. Using the U.S. Treasury’s Monthly Statement of the Public Debt our friend Terence P. Jeffrey of CNSNews calculates the public debt of the federal government has climbed by 106 percent while President Barack Obama has been in office, increasing from $5,749,916,000,000 at the end of January 2009 to $11,825,322,000,000 at the end of January 2014. How could this happen if Republicans, allegedly the Party of fiscal discipline, have been in the majority in the House since the 2010...

U.S. Senator John Cornyn will visit Estacado High School this week to showcase a new web-based financial literacy curriculum. The curriculum, which was underwritten by Prosperity Bank, uses the latest in new media technologies, including video, animation, 3-D gaming, avatars and social networking, according to a news release from the Lubbock Independent School District. The program is designed to bring complex financial concepts to life for today’s digital generation. It will assist hundreds of students each year in understanding money management principles.

When the $787 billion federal stimulus was signed into law exactly five years ago this Monday, the U.S. economy was losing almost 800,000 jobs per month. Now? More than 4.2 million jobs have been added since March 2009. Also at this time five years ago, the unemployment rate was 8.3% and would climb to a high of 10.0% just months later. Now it stands at 6.6%. But on this fifth anniversary of the stimulus – passed mostly along party lines in response to financial crisis and Great Recession – Democrats and the White House have responded so far with …...

Senators Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn say they put the country first. The debt ceiling needed to be raised. Ted Cruz opposed raising it. So McConnell and Cornyn voted to shut down Ted Cruz. They voted to cut off debate on raising the debt ceiling so that it could be raised. McConnell and Cornyn have both been very clear about this. John Cornyn told the Austin American-Statesman “I think it would have been bad for the economy, bad for the American people, and I don’t think it would have been good politics either.” Mitch McConnell declared it his job to...

Why dwell on a single national tragedy? When people consider the worst that could happen to their country, they think of totalitarianism. Given communism’s failure, that fate no longer seems likely. If Indonesia were to boil over, its citizens would hardly turn to North Korea as a model; the governments in Madrid or Athens are not citing Lenin as the answer to their euro travails. The real danger is inadvertently becoming the Argentina of the 21st century. Slipping casually into steady decline would not be hard. Extremism is not a necessary ingredient, at least not much of it: weak institutions,...

RANCHO MIRAGE, California (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signed legislation on Saturday that raises the U.S. debt limit through March 2015, taking the politically volatile issue off the table with congressional elections coming up this November. Without an increase in the statutory debt limit, the U.S. government would have soon defaulted on some of its obligations and would have had to shut down some programs, an historic event that would have caused severe market turmoil. On a long holiday weekend in a desert resort area in southern California, Obama put his signature on the legislation without fanfare, while behind closed...

If you have been waiting for the "global economic crisis" to begin, just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be "irrelevant" to their daily lives, but the truth is that the massive economic problems that are currently sweeping across Europe, Asia and South America are going to be affecting all of us here in the U.S. very soon. Sadly, most of the big news organizations in this country seem to be more concerned about the fate of Justin...

Fire Boehner CHQ’s Chairman Richard A. Viguerie said it the day after the disastrous 2012 election. Jenny Beth Martin, President and Co-Founder of the Tea Party Patriots is saying it. Now, bestselling author and talk radio powerhouse Mark Levin is saying what grassroots limited government constitutional conservatives have been thinking for a long time: John Boehner must go as Speaker of the House. Tea Party Patriots launched a “fire Boehner” effort and blasted him after he and the House GOP leadership released their "immigration principles" for amnesty legislation, and the debt ceiling vote only added fuel to the fire. “A...

Federal spending and debt are out of control If America does not change course, the future will be dramatically worse. Now more than ever, it is crucial that Americans understand what our nation's spending, taxes, and debt mean for them and their families. The Heritage Foundation's Federal Budget in Pictures offers a unique tool to learn about the federal budget in a clear and compelling way.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is acting in a bipartisan way to cover up the biggest single threat to the bipartisan political alliance that is stripping America of its wealth: the United States Congress. There is no question that the following policy is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are completely agreed that the following information should not get out to the American people, namely, that the present value of the United States government’s off-budget liabilities is over $200 trillion. The CBO has two sets of books. This is what any Ponzi scheme requires. It releases one set of books...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement regarding today’s debt ceiling vote: "Today's vote is yet another example that establishment politicians from both parties are simply not listening to the American people. Outside the beltway, Americans of all political stripes understand that we cannot keep spending money we don't have. "Some members of Congress care so much about being praised by the Washington media that they're willing to mortgage our children's future. They pretend we don't have a problem and can just kick the can down the road. "Let's be clear about the motive behind this vote --...

When Treasury Secretary Jack Lew recently gave notice that the federal government would once again hit the debt ceiling in February, the response from congressional Republicans—who twice took the nation to the brink of default—was decidedly muted. The official line? “We believe that defaulting on our debt is the wrong thing,” says House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “We don’t want to do that.” On Tuesday, the House duly voted to raise the debt limit without conditions, sending the action over to the Senate. This move represents a 180-degree turn from the previous strategy of trying to extract concessions from Democrats...

Washington (CNN) -- The Senate voted Wednesday to avert at least one chronic Washington political crisis for more than a year. With a snowstorm bearing down on the capital, it approved a House-passed measure that allows the government to borrow more money to pay its bills through March 2015. The White House signaled that President Barack Obama would sign the legislation, so the Senate vote was the last hurdle to resolving the debt ceiling issue until after the November congressional elections. Wednesday's result was a blow to tea party conservatives who oppose any kind of increase in federal borrowing. Filibuster...

It's a winner. The House passed a "clean" debt ceiling bill and sent it on to the Senate, accompanied by a lot of griping. The vast majority of Republicans voted against the bill, while nearly 200 Democrats carried it across the finish line. 28 Republicans voted “yes.” Speaker John Boehner, who usually does not vote, voted "yes," as did Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan voted "no." Cantor blamed the debt ceiling increase on Democrats. "House Republicans need more responsible and willing partners in Washington so we can finally and boldly address...

<p>For the next few years, deficits are looking pretty good. But the interest owed on the country's cumulative debt is set to nearly quadruple over the next decade.</p> <p>The Congressional Budget Office projects that interest will be $233 billion this year, or 1.3% as a share of the economy.</p>