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March 5, 2026
States Can Strengthen Families and Fight Welfare Dependence and Fraud
For six decades, Washington has waged a War on Poverty with ever‑increasing sums of money. According to the House Budget Committee, federal means‑tested welfare spending now exceeds $1 trillion a year, with more than $12 trillion projected over the next decade. When counted as income for recipients, all that spending has reduced poverty, even as it has left growing…
February 25, 2026
On the Federal Deficit, Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit Won’t Be Enough
If you look closely, you can see some progress on cutting federal spending. At least that’s the conclusion of the respected Kim Strassel, writing recently in the Wall Street Journal before the Congressional Budget Office released its broad budget and economic forecast for the coming decade. Strassel compared the past two fiscal years and found that “overall discretionary spending is down by $1 billion.”…
January 27, 2026
How to Prevent a Repeat of Massive Fraud and Abuse
Welfare fraud scandals in Minnesota have focused the nation’s attention on benefit abuse, and the US Department of Labor recently detailed a team there to investigate whether unemployment insurance (UI) benefits have been ripped off. There’s a good chance the answer is yes, and that some of the blame resides with how we pay for…
October 21, 2025
Reliability of Government Data Often Requires Asterisks, a Hazard That Predates Liberal Gripes About Trump Manipulating Statistics
Seattle slugger Cal Raleigh this year matched what once stood as a signature baseball record: Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs for the 1927 Yankees. Roger Maris first surpassed Ruth’s record, hitting 61 homers in 1961, but for decades his achievement was accompanied in record books by the most famous asterisk in history. Maris played a 162-game season, the asterisk…
September 23, 2025
A Second Reconciliation Bill Should Focus On Reducing Deficits
Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to debate a second budget bill, following the One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on the Fourth of July. That law extends and expands the first Trump tax cuts, which overall increase already large deficits projected ahead. Meanwhile, news accounts suggest Republicans are having…