Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett Today, the House Budget Committee, led by Chairman Jodey Arrington (R‑TX), is marking up a budget resolution for fiscal year 2025, released just yesterday. This latest fiscal framework, which sets priorities for federal spending and revenue, arrives directly on the heels of the Senate’s rival budget resolution, which we reviewed earlier this week. Compared to ...
Jeffrey Miron President Donald Trump has reportedly shown a strong interest in privatizing the US Postal Service (USPS). Proponents of the USPS applaud its mandate to provide mail service to every American at uniform rates; critics claim it is less efficient than private competitors and no longer financially viable (if it ever was). From its inception, the USPS was intended to ...
Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett Can the United States outgrow Social Security’s financing problem or inflate away the resulting debt? The answer is a resounding no. The program’s rising costs are baked into its structure, with benefits automatically increasing alongside higher wages (coinciding with higher economic growth) and inflation. With fewer workers supporting more retirees, there’s no realistic path to ...
Justin Logan Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a terrific, bracing speech today to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that deserves praise. For more than two years, European capitals have been encouraging maximalism regarding the Ukraine war, and more generally encouraging the doddering US president’s romantic ideas about the transatlantic relationship. It all came crashing down today. Hegseth made clear, inter ...
Jeffrey A. Singer A doctor who intentionally performs cruel and medically unjustifiable procedures that cause pain and suffering could face criminal charges. If the patient dies, the doctor could face homicide charges. Apparently, those rules don’t apply to law enforcement. On February 11, the Arizona Supreme Court approved a death warrant permitting the Arizona Department of Corrections to perform the ...
Walter Olson The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched an investigation of all-news San Francisco radio station KCBS 740 AM over its coverage of a Jan. 26 federal immigration raid in San Jose. Speaking on the “Fox & Friends” show, FCC Chairmen Brendan Carr cited conservative claims that the station, in relaying reports from persons at the scene, had identified ...
Nicholas Anthony Both the House and Senate held hearings on the issue of debanking last week. Perhaps the most disappointing occurrence was the repeated claim by some members of Congress that debanking is a “fake” issue. Were that not enough, other members of Congress took this moment as an opportunity to promote levying even more restrictions on the financial system. ...
Mike Fox As a former public defender, my clients often faced an impossible choice: plead guilty to a crime they knew they didn’t commit or one I believed the prosecution couldn’t prove or go to trial and fight it. To the uninitiated, the answer might seem obvious. But that couldn’t be more wrong. Take the case of seventeen-year-old George Alvarez. Mr. ...
Jai Kedia The Federal Reserve recently released a Monetary Policy Report to Congress which discussed, among other items, policy rules. Unfortunately, although unsurprisingly, the Fed criticized monetary policy rules instead of embracing them. Here is the Fed’s assessment of the limitations of such rules-based monetary policy: As benchmarks for monetary policy, simple policy rules have important limitations. One of these limitations ...
Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett On February 7, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R‑SC) released a budget resolution for fiscal year 2025. A budget resolution is meant to establish a responsible fiscal framework that sets priorities for federal spending and revenue. With this year’s deficit approaching $2 trillion as Congress is running up against the federal debt limit in a ...