News
WSJ | Spain Wields $36 Billion Budget Ax
Spain unveiled its most severe budget cuts in decades on Friday as it finds itself once again cast as a central battleground in the fight to contain the euro-zone crisis.
CNN Money | 'Hidden spending' makes government bigger
The issue of so-called tax expenditures is of great importance today, as politicians and presidential candidates debate how to control government spending, which is a measure of how big government is.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | The Endless Spending Spree
From George Washington to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the national debt tended to grow in wartime and shrink in peacetime. Because the dollar was generally convertible into gold or silver at a fixed and statutory rate, the central bank, when there was a central bank, couldn't just materialize money as the Federal Reserve does today.
WSJ | Federal Lending Is as Rotten as Federal Borrowing
The big bump in federalized lending came in August 2008 when the government took over failing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With the addition of these two giants, the federal government now has a $5 trillion mortgage portfolio, much of it of dubious value.
Blogs
Daily Capitalist | Germans Channel Austrians As They Prepare To Do What the U.S. Should Have Done Last Decade
The Germans, who along with the French took the lead last decade in violating the Maastricht Treaty’s limitations on fiscal deficits for eurozone member states, are uniting to reject pleas from advocates of loose monetary and fiscal policy in Europe
