Inside Sources – As the federal debt has gone from astounding to unbelievable to incomprehensible, a new problem has emerged: The U.S. government is actually running out of places to borrow….
Since 1975, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has been the unbiased voice in the room where budgetary matters are concerned. Its stock in trade, and sole reason for existence, is to provide Congress with clear budgetary projections from which legislators can plan…
The Salt Lake Tribune – News of an executive branch “deal” with Amazon.com is bad news for the online retailer’s Utah customers. Starting Jan. 1, Amazon will collect state and local sales taxes (determined by buyers’ Zip codes) on all orders shipped to Utah addresses and then remit (most of) the revenue to the State Tax Commission.
Real Clear Markets – After a nearly six-week recess, Congress returned this week for a brief lame-duck session to wrap up final legislative items on its plate before adjourning for the year. The top priority will be to pass a government funding bill, although whether to do so through an omnibus spending bill or yet another…
Philly.com – Forty-eight percent of millennials believe the American dream is dead, according to a 2015 Harvard University Institute of Policy study. Their pessimism is understandable, especially if we believe the American dream is that one can achieve success through hard work.
US News & World Report – On its current trajectory, the federal government is unsustainable. This has been apparent for decades. The problem is so big that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton even dare to discuss it on the campaign trail, seemingly hoping that it will go away if ignored. But it won’t.
Intercollegiate Review – In pointing to the need for an independent judiciary, Hamilton stressed that the president and members of the judiciary could only be truly independent if they did not have to rely on Congress for their paychecks. Without this independence, the other two branches…
Inside Sources – U.S. Department of Interior wants to ban mining on 10 million acres of federal lands in order to protect the habitat of the greater sage grouse. That proposal, if implemented, would withdraw from resource development an area four times larger than Yellowstone National Park.
Daily Caller – Philadelphia’s City Council held a hearing on the 11th of this month about the embattled soda tax, sometimes also called the grocery tax by its opponents. If passed, the legislation in question would place a three-cent tax on each ounce of non-diet soda, including most sugar-sweetened beverages, such as teas and sports drinks…
FEE – With roughly a year left to his presidency, President Obama chose to speak to America’s next five to ten years rather than report on the state of the union, which is his constitutional charge. In many ways, he brought his presidency full circle on Tuesday evening…
Trib Live – Christmas is a time of hope, and the New Year is a time of change, which makes this a good time to assess what’s happened since President Obama rode the wave of hope and change to the White House in 2008…
The Hill – This month, the economic think-tank Fraser Institute published its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report. Anyone interested in finding solutions to the problems of poverty, child labor, gender and income inequality, and the environment should take a long look…
Inside Sources – When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence 239 years ago, he placed equality and liberty at the heart of the American experiment. His argument was at once philosophical and political: In light of one self-evident truth, equality, humans are by nature free…
Trib Live – This month marked the 3,000th day since the Federal Reserve last raised interest rates. For more than eight years, the U.S. economy has been bingeing on low-interest credit and there is no end in sight…
Trib Live – Patrick Henry, who famously declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” was born 279 years ago last week. His is perhaps the most well known of all American Revolution slogans, rivaled only by “No taxation without representation!” Taken together, these two…
Trib Live – In its 2008 report to Congress, the IRS said, “The most serious problem facing taxpayers is the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code.” Apparently, Gov. Tom Wolf hasn’t read the report, because he just can’t wait to complicate the Pennsylvania tax code further…
Town Hall – Every fiscal crisis is an opportunity to play budget games. This week’s panicked attempts by Congress to deal with the sequester presents a special opportunity for federal agencies to remind the public just how addicted the agencies are to federal spending. These…