Tag: debt
Why is college so expensive?
January 19, 2024 | Post
To find out why college is so expensive and why student debt has reached crisis point, we need to dig deep into a maze of factors that ultimately leave the government with a lot to answer for.
Has interventionism jeopardized America’s future?
February 13, 2023 | Post
President Washington famously warned against entangling alliances in his farewell address to Congress. But now more than ever, it seems that escalations across the globe are tempting the United States to become increasingly involved in other countries’ dilemmas. American citizens and legislators must remember part of what made the American experiment so unique and resist the temptation of interventionism. Here’s why…
We cannot continue to ignore the root causes of America’s debt crisis
October 16, 2021 | Post
Addressing the debt ceiling may have been pushed further down the road, but the root causes of America’s debt crisis need urgent attention.
Don't raise Uncle Sam's credit limit
April 2, 2017 | Post
Once again, the United States government is rapidly approaching a fiscal debt ceiling. After March 16, 2017, Uncle Sam is not legally allowed to borrow any more money to cover its budget deficits, unless Congress votes to raise the debt limit like it has every time in the past. Uncle Sam’s debt has been growing […]
Entitlements driving Washington to trillion-dollar deficits
March 29, 2017 | Post
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released the “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027.” This annual report provides the federal government’s most comprehensive analysis of the current state of federal spending, taxes, and debt. It also provides a framework within which to analyze the President’s budget proposal and upcoming Congressional legislation. The news is […]
Defense spending: Why we pay for the permanent war economy
March 22, 2017 | Post
The defense budget is about to balloon again, but there’s no reason to assume we need more military spending.
It’s never worth playing the Olympic game
March 22, 2017 | Post
Budapest has done the sensible thing and withdrawn from the competition to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Finally a refutation of the standard point about economists – that the more united their view on a subject the less attention anyone else pays to them. For the truth about the Olympics is that they are a […]
Entitlement reform key to fixing America’s fiscal future
March 18, 2017 | Post
Without substantive entitlement reform, it will be exceedingly difficult to address the country’s long-term fiscal problems, and it will only get harder if needed changes are delayed.
What interest rates really are and what happens when governments change them
February 1, 2017 | Post
The first thing to clarify is what an interest rate is not.
The black hole of Pentagon finance
December 27, 2016 | Post
The Pentagon suppressed a 2015 study exposing $125 billion—yes, billion—in administrative waste, over a five year period, in order to protect its own budget from being slashed.
Highlights from the Reddit AMA with Professor Antony Davies
December 5, 2016 | Post
If you missed Antony Davies’ Reddit AMA last week, fear not! We’ve taken the liberty of compiling some of the highlights for your viewing pleasure.
A Proposal to Reform Welfare and Rebuild American Community
September 26, 2016 | Post
Local communities have a better understanding of their communities’ needs than far off centralized government anti-poverty directives.
Friday Links
September 16, 2016 | Post
Saturday, September 17th will be the five year anniversary of the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street protests. This week’s links cover the protests and what they did (or didn’t) accomplish. The Lasting Effects of Occupy Wall Street, Five Years Later Throwback: What Reason Saw at Occupy Wall Street Protests What Occupy Wall Street Got […]
Suspended Licenses Are The New Debtor’s Prison
August 23, 2016 | Post
Suspending driver’s licenses in the face of unpaid court costs is an ineffective way to force people to pay up.
Candidates Divided on the One Issue That Is Ruining Millions of Young Lives
June 30, 2016 | Post
Hundreds of thousands of college students graduated last month, and for many, their biggest concern is how to pay off their college debt. Americans currently hold $1.3 trillion in student debt—even more than they hold in credit card debt—and its preventing them from making investments, buying homes, and successfully meeting their financial obligations. That’s a […]
Government Goes into Debt to Help the Poor, Ends up Stealing from Them Instead
June 16, 2016 | Post
We all know government debt is bad for the young. But it’s also bad for the poor. Hurting the Kids to Help the Elderly The well-known political philosopher Loren Lomasky recently reminded us of why debt is bad for the young. We might be able to justify spending now, and borrowing to finance the spending, […]
The Size of the U.S. Debt, Redux
February 12, 2016 | Post
What a difference just five years will make. The U.S. national debt reached $19 trillion. How can we grasp such an unfathomable number? Here at Learn Liberty, we’ve been trying to answer that question for years. In fact, our very first video attempted to contextualize the size of the then $14 trillion debt. With help […]
How to Fix Our Fiscal Crisis
January 26, 2016 | Post
The Congressional Budget Office announced last week that the growth of the federal budget deficit will outpace the growth of the economy in 2016 for the first time since 2009. The drag this places on economic growth is hard to overstate, but what can be done to solve this problem for the future? Harvard University’s […]
Will Taxing the Rich Fix the Deficit?
December 22, 2015 | Post
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have never met a tax they didn’t like. They argue that it will balance the budget and act as though it was a silver bullet to the U.S. government’s fiscal woes. But will taxing the rich really fix the budget deficit? Professor Antony Davies tackles that question in this Learn […]
A Five Minute Crash Course on the Greek Crisis
November 3, 2015 | Post
The economic and financial turmoil in Greece has been in and out of headlines frequently over the last few months. The Greeks claim austerity measures have only made things worse, while the EU claims Greece continues to fail the austerity measure put in place to receive future bailouts. In this video, we explain what has […]
Greece Should Default
November 2, 2015 | Post
Newly reelected Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras expects that by early 2017 Greece will be able to access bond markets, from which it has been virtually cut off since it lost investor confidence in 2010. If it is unable to meet this timeline, it will be forced to rely on further bailouts or go bankrupt. […]
‘Loonie’ Canadians Elect Spendthrift Regime Despite Success with Cutting Spending
November 2, 2015 | Post
Last week, Canada elected a new Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who has vowed to massively boost public spending and run several years of deficits, arguing that the “infrastructure deficit” is bigger than the fiscal deficit. He claims that such stimulus spending will spur economic growth. But in the video below, economist Stephen Davies looks […]
New York Times’ Solution to Fiscal Problems: Eat the Rich
October 28, 2015 | Post
The New York Times came out with an article last weekend claiming how much good raising taxes on the country’s wealthiest could do: [W]hat could a tax-the-rich plan actually achieve? As it turns out, quite a lot… the government could raise large amounts of revenue exclusively from this small group, while still allowing them to […]