Free Republic

For years, both Republicans and Democrats alike have played "day of reckoning" politics with America's fiscal and monetary policy. Racking up over $20 trillion in debt—$13.7 trillion of which came under just the past two administrations alone—artificially inflated economic data like the GDP and the official employment rate, the costs of government meddling can only remain hidden for so long.Thanks to the reckless spending and money printing policies of the past decade, we now have a federal bill that will be very difficult to pay off, a Social Security system that is projected to go insolvent in just 15 years,...

Paul Ryan and his fellow members of Congress are forging ahead in an attempt to rearrange the deck chairs of our tax system before we all sink under the code’s voluminous verbiage. Many House members -- particularly in the Republican Party -- have moved toward simplification. T.R, Reid has authored A Fine Mess, his take on our tax system and how it compares to other countries, which some people are using as a benchmark for how to tackle the current tax entanglement. Mr. Reid has produced a very readable analysis of taxes with very few errors considering he is a...

A recent front-page story in The Wall Street Journal proclaims that 3 percent economic growth isn't achievable. We are told that 2 to 2.5 percent growth is the best we can do, because of low labor-force and productivity growth. If that were true it would be dismal news for the country. The long-term growth path for the U.S. economy from 1950 to 2000 was 3.3 percent. Now we can't even strive for a number below the average? Almost every year he was in office, President Barack Obama forecast that he would achieve more than 3 percent growth -- but...

One potential benefit that can come from last week’s March on Washington 2013, which commemorated the 1963 civil rights event, is the various data publicized about the current state of affairs of black America vis a vis the rest of the country. In particular, it has been an eye opener for many to see how little progress has been made over the last 50 years in closing the economic gap, on average, between blacks and whites. I call shining light on the data a “potential” benefit because there is no benefit if real remedial action is not taken to improve...