fiscal cliff

February 26, 2013

Beware the Yeast of the Bureaucrats

With the most recent fiscal cliff approaching this Thursday (February 28), it is worth asking, “How did we get into this mess?” My answer: a little leaven works its way through a whole lump of dough…. Continue Reading...

January 08, 2013

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Intergenerational Justice

So … what happened? With regular coverage of the US “Fiscal Cliff” running up to the new year, PowerBlog readers may be wondering where the discussion has gone. While I am by no means the most qualified to comment on the matter, I thought a basic summary and critique would be in order: With six minutes to read this 157 page bill, the US House of Representatives passed it. Continue Reading...

December 30, 2012

Samuel Gregg: United States succumbing to ‘Eurosclerosis?’

In the New York Post, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at “the spread throughout America of economic expectations and arrangements directly at odds with our republic’s founding” and asks what the slow walk to “Europeanization” means for the long term. Continue Reading...

December 28, 2012

The ‘Ghost of Fiscal Future’

Matt Mitchell at Neighborhood Effects offers an interesting perspective regarding the fiscal cliff. As we hurriedly approach the edge, Mitchell’s insights ought not to be ignored, whatever the outcome of today’s last minute meeting at the White House. Continue Reading...

December 06, 2012

The FAQs: The Fiscal Cliff Proposals

Now that we know what the fiscal cliff is all about, what are the plans for dealing with it? Below are the four approaches that have been proposed: The Democrats’ Plan Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner offered the White House’s fiscal cliff proposal to Republicans in the last week of November. Continue Reading...

December 05, 2012

The FAQs: What is the Fiscal Cliff?

What is the “fiscal cliff”? The term “fiscal cliff”, which is believed to have originated in Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, refers to the substantial changes to tax and spending policies that are scheduled to automatically take effect in January 2013. Continue Reading...

November 29, 2012

Calvin Coolidge, Excessive Taxation, and the Moral Economy

Below is an excerpt from a 1925 Washington Post editorial on President Calvin Coolidge’s Inaugural Address. The comments speak directly to the moral arguments Coolidge was making for a free economy. Continue Reading...

November 16, 2012

Is the Fiscal ‘Cliff’ Just a Bump in the Road?

Over at Think Christian I take a look at the looming fiscal “cliff,” which we are being told from every conceivable quarter represents a significant danger to America’s fragile economic recovery: But apart from the numbers themselves, the framing of the issue by politicians and pundits ought to give us pause. Continue Reading...