July 5, 2024

Restoring Moderation in Fiscal Policy

For centuries, the commonsense notion of balanced budgets served our nation well. Elected officials as well as citizens accepted the discipline of balanced budgets as the basis for fiscal policy at all levels of government. At the federal level, this...

June 25, 2024

A Hail Mary Solution to the Debt Crisis

Every U.S. citizen now owes roughly $100,000 in federal debt. That is the grim news from the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO data show that federal debt has been growing at an unsustainable rate for decades a...

March 27, 2024

Gold Hill School: A symbol of freedom in Colorado

The Gold Hill school in Boulder, Colorado was established at the height of the gold mining boom in 1873. Initially, it was a one-room log cabin constructed by local citizens. In that year, the Boulder County News named Gold Hill’s new...

February 28, 2024

Fiscal Rules and ‘Learning by Doing’

An important discovery in understanding productivity change and economic growth is the phenomenon of “learning by doing.” One of the first discoveries of this phenomenon was in the aircraft industry during World War II. Defense contractor...

January 28, 2023

The Debt Ceiling Fight in Historical Perspective

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his Republican colleagues refuse to negotiate an increase in the debt ceiling without a reduction in federal spending. They propose capping discretionary spending in 2024 back to 2022 levels. This would require...