Free Republic

Intellectuals are supposed to speak truth to power. Unfortunately, some seem to be more interested in saying what everyone expects them to say, which only reinforces the status quo. Thankfully, a few scholars are resisting this trend, fighting for what is true rather than what is popular. Case in point: a recent Hoover Institution paper on "A Pro-Growth Fiscal Consolidation Plan for the United States" by economists John Cogan, Daniel Heil and John Taylor, which makes the case for a reduction in spending now in order to positively impact the economy. It's refreshing to see their research, considering that we...

Joe Biden began unraveling a new agenda that makes the Democrat presidential nominee appear more similar to the socialist senators he faced in crowded primaries than the center-left “moderate” he portrays, which was always a myth to begin with. On Tuesday, Biden unveiled a new $775 billion proposal for government-run childcare with additional taxpayer programs for the elderly. The latest program comes just days after Biden announced a $2 trillion package to ensure “environmental justice” hashed out with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ team to pile onto the $7 trillion in spending already proposed, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis....

Authored by Michael Every of Rabobank Light at the end of the tunnel Yesterday had its fair share of positive developments. Foremost was news that the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine appears to show good potential in human trials. Yes, it might need two doses to work, which markets didn’t like so much, but frankly it was always going to be a slow, laborious, and hugely expensive challenge to develop, and then physically produce, and then practically roll out an effective vaccine to most of mankind. “Here’s a genie in a magic lamp – but you have to rub it twice...

Former Vice President Joe Biden is proposing that the federal government spend $7 trillion in new outlays — three times what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed in new spending in her unsuccessful bid for president in 2016. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Biden has developed a massive spending plan that includes policies aimed at dealing with racial inequality and “systemic racism”: Mr. Biden’s plan to address what he frequently calls “systemic racism” is grafted onto nearly all aspects of the $7 trillion-plus in new federal spending that the former vice president has proposed for the next...

According to the IMF, global fiscal support in response to the crisis will be more than 9 trillion US dollars, approximately 12% of world GDP. This premature, clearly rushed, probably excessive, and often misguided chain of so-called stimulus plans will distort public finances in a way in which we have not seen since World War II. The enormous increase in public spending and the fall in output will lead to a global government debt figure close to 105% of GDP. If we add government and private debt, we are talking about 200 trillion US dollars of debt, a global increase...

he California Legislature, facing a $54.3 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year beginning July 1, has chosen to increase spending in expectation of a federal bailout. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) on May 7 shocked the California’s Democrat leadership, that holds veto-proof control of state finances, that despite federal disaster funding of $26.625 billion from the Cares Act and a $10 billion in loan to pay for unemployment claims, the state faced an $85 billion deficit over the next 14 months. As a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown, California has suffered a huge economic decline with...

Writing for FiveThirtyEight.com, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux has a dire warning for Congress if it fails to bail out the states. “Without a lifeline from the federal government,” she writes, “states would have no choice but to start slashing budgets and raising taxes.” Meanwhile, governors like Gavin Newsom of California are threatening to shut down first responders, hospitals, and police services if they don’t get a big check from Washington. This is called hostage-taking, and Republicans in Congress would be foolish to pay the ransom. Behind this reasonable-sounding statement is a slew of flawed presumptions. One is that the federal government has...

The worst part about spending $6 trillion or more on coronavirus recovery isn't what's in it. The worst part is what happens if it doesn't destroy us. (snip) --- The issue of our constitutional rights being suppressed is a huge one, but it’s not the biggest. I know what you’re thinking… “How can you say it’s not the biggest?!?!?!” Don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely huge. But it’s not nearly as destructive to the United States of America as the little-known consequence of all of these bailout bills, including the proposed $3 trillion bill Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi...

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is warning that federal coronavirus stimulus spending could drive the national debt to $40 trillion by the end of the pandemic. “The governors are talking about opening the economy back up, but they're talking about doing it under limited circumstances, and they're all warning they will shut it right back down if they see an increase in the numbers of COVID infections. And there's no reason to believe the numbers won't increase when they open it back up,” Massie said during an interview with Just the News. “We've spent $7 trillion — spent or loaned. I...

House Democrats eager to limit White House spending authority introduced a bill Wednesday intended to increase transparency and heavily penalize violations. House budget committee Chair Rep. John Yarmouth, appropriations committee Chair Rep. Nita Lowey and oversight committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney sponsored the 59-page Congressional Power of the Purse Act. Similar Senate legislation is expected from Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. The House bill, in preparation for months, addresses what Democrats in Congress see as a series of abuses by the executive branch of President Donald Trump in withholding or redirecting funding to benefit his personal and political agenda. Trump's disputed...

Multiple liberal outlets fumed at how conservative donors have funded groups who have supported lockdown protests across the country. But they avoided reporting how the left is outspending the right in this election cycle to outside groups by over $100 million. Records reveal that all top liberal donors listed by Open Secrets (59) spent a whopping $191,827,021 combined so far on liberal groups. To contrast, all the top conservative donors listed by Open Secrets (44) only spent $87,767,208 combined on conservative groups. That’s a $104,059,813 disparity. It’s not even close.

ancy Pelosi looked more like she was on the set of "Contagion" the sequel than the U.S. Capitol building ... as she and her entourage all strolled in wearing masks. The House Speaker arrived Thursday to the nation's capital as the House of Representatives begin debating several coronavirus-related issues and, hopefully, vote and approve the new stimulus package to help the reeling economy and specifically small businesses. The Senate already approved the nearly $500 billion relief bill.

The president of the State Senate asked for $40 billion to help the pension system, fund unemployment insurance and aid hospitals and cities. Illinois needs more than $40 billion in relief from the federal government because of the coronavirus pandemic — including $10 billion to help bail out its beleaguered pension system, according to a letter the Illinois Senate president sent to members of Congress. The letter, sent this week by State Senator Don Harmon, also seeks a $15 billion grant to “stabilize the state’s budget,” $9.6 billion in direct aid to Illinois’s cities, $6 billion for the state’s unemployment...

Governments can create money, but creating money does not create wealth. Wealth comes from productivity. Putting ink on small pieces of paper does not make wealth. You can visualize this fact quite easily. Imagine that our government officials keep businesses closed "to protect us from the virus," but they send everyone large checks every month. Our benevolent leaders made sure we had lots of money, so we are all taken care of, right? Without productive people, the true engine of wealth, Atlas would shrug, and the world would fall into its natural state, which is poverty. Anything that destroys productivity...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, is holding up the House-passed coronavirus relief bill and preventing it from being delivered to the Senate for a vote. The House was expected to make technical corrections Monday to the bipartisan measure, passed by the House early Saturday, but Gohmert is insisting on reading them, a Democratic leadership aide confirmed to NBC News on Monday. The technical corrections package has not yet been finalized and the House wants to pass it by unanimous consent because the House is on recess this week. If one member stands in opposition, the House can’t send the...

On Monday, the House of Representatives will have to vote on a revised version of the coronavirus relief package that passed early Saturday morning, after “technical changes” were hastily added to the bill, (Roll Call) reported. After hours of negotiations between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, H.R. 6201, (the Families First Coronavirus Response Act) sailed through congress with a vote of 363-40-1. Democratic legislators voted in lock-step for the bill while 40 Republicans voted against, bucking President’s Trump’s stated support for the emergency relief package. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) cast the abstaining vote. The revisions didn’t make...

veryone knows that living in California comes with a price: Its residents pay some of the nation’s highest taxes on the money they earn, the gas they pump and the clothes they wear. But for the moment, at least, it appears voters have had enough. The defeat Tuesday of the largest borrowing proposal in the history of California schools — $15 billion for repairs — has opened the question of whether Californian voters put a temporary halt to the growth of government debt because of the unsettled political scene, or because they are on the cusp of a tax revolt...

Liberal billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer spent over $1 billion in their attempt to oust President Donald Trump from office, an effort that began even before their 2020 presidential campaigns. Adding Steyer’s 2017-2018 spending ($123 million) to both billionaires' current estimated campaign spending totals, a whopping $1,063,718,074 was spent in an attempt to oust Trump. To put this into perspective, that’s just less than approximately $600 million shy of Steyer’s entire net worth estimated at $1.6 billion.

In liberal billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to buy the White House, recent data show that he’s averaging tens of millions of dollars spent plastering the airwaves and the internet with ads. Advertising Analytics’ latest report revealed that the liberal billionaire 2020 candidate has been spending an average of $37.4 million on TV, radio and digital media per week since he announced his candidacy in November 2019. There was one qualifier: “[H]e [Bloomberg] was only off air the week of Christmas.” [Emphasis added.] The report noted that Bloomberg “has nearly doubled the cumulative total” spending of the Democratic field,...

The economic indicators all show the economy is booming. Unemployment is at record lows. The stock market is seeing record highs. Wages are up, and taxes are down. Stifling regulations are being lifted. Everything seems to be working just fine. There is much truth in this perception of a boom. Part of this can be attributed to less government interference and taxation. Unnecessary government regulation and spending always hurt the economy. When markets are freer, profits tend to come galloping back. And much has galloped back. However, beneath the surface, major problems threaten the boom. These problems have long plagued...