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October 3, 2024
America’s political leaders have a spending problem. They know entitlement programs feature benefit promises far exceeding their tax base, but have done nothing to make them sound. Meanwhile, both parties demand more spending increases — despite the national debt soaring to $35 trillion, or more than $100,000 for each American, rich and poor alike. Under rosy assumptions, over $20 trillion in…
August 15, 2024
A recent study confirms that universal basic income—no-strings-attached benefit checks offered to recipients regardless of need or contribution to the program—discourages work. That’s relevant to the presidential race. Kamala Harris has called more than once for paying UBI-like benefits. Participants in the UBI program worked nearly 1½ hours less a week on average, and unemployment rose. Other adults in…
August 1, 2024
As a U.S. senator, Vice President Kamala Harris had a remarkably slim record of accomplishments, shepherding only a handful of minor resolutions across the finish line. But that’s far from the last word on her legislative record. In fact, two bills she introduced (that went nowhere) may best define her past, and potential future, priorities…
May 30, 2024
Politicians regularly vie for the support of parents with promises of good schools, bigger family benefits, and tax relief. President Joe Biden did just that last week in calling for increased funding for public education, child care, and more. Sometimes just the language of the proposal—like the president’s call to expand the child tax credit (CTC)—appears to…
May 8, 2024
Higher prices aren’t the only kind of inflation coming out of Washington these days. Wildly inflated group names are on the rise, too — and they’re being used as a tool to expand government welfare benefits given even to able-bodied adults without dependents. That’s the term long used by the Department of Agriculture to describe those in their prime working years…
April 8, 2024
One of the first programs Congress created to assist Americans thrown out of work by the pandemic was the unprecedented Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. PUA expanded unemployment benefits to millions of independent contractors, the self-employed, and others never before eligible for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) checks. But in some of the worst policy choices of…
April 4, 2024
President Biden’s rhetoric about his new budget proposal suggests it is full of tax relief for working families. For example, one White House fact sheet is headlined “The President’s Budget Cuts Taxes for Working Families and Makes Big Corporations and the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share.” Taking from the rich to give more to working (and even non-working) families is a…
March 7, 2024
Few were surprised when deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) retired in December. While Republican leaders tend to exit quickly after losing committee gavels or leadership posts, the additional departure of other respected senior lawmakers in both parties is damaging legislative capacity on the Hill. Congress is losing the sort of policy-making veterans it needs to craft and pass important legislation. Their reasons for leaving vary and often include Congress’s general inability to pass needed legislation. That dysfunction is evident…
February 9, 2024
Congress doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, but if it did, digesting our new report on pandemic fraud would be a good one. Released last week, the new report (“Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions”) details the how and why of record unemployment benefit fraud during the pandemic. Enacting even some of our policy resolutions…
January 11, 2024
With the national debt soaring past $34 trillion, liberal politicians hoping to expand the federal leviathan face a conundrum. How can they convince Americans wary of the effects of runaway government spending—painfully evident in recent elevated inflation and interest rates—to nonetheless support even greater expenditures? As President Biden and others demonstrate, one way is to cast new…