Principles Of Government

All material on this site is for educational purposes only.
This site is designed to generate ideas for a supplementary section on think tank websites.
An online subscription to the Wall Street Journal is required get full use of this site.
(A) Articles are foundational content and (B) Articles are urgently important but may be replaced as they become dated

(A) Fiscal Policy

  • Categories

    • Trump’s Tariffs Are as Bad as Bidenomics A

    By Phil Graham and Donald J. Boudreaux - April 14, 2025

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    · ·

    By Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux – Not since Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff has a president chosen to disregard a larger body of informed opinion than President Trump did when he instituted his protectionist trade policy. Based on a series of verifiably false grievances—wages haven’t grown in 50 years, manufacturing has been hollowed out by imports, countries with trade surpluses are “ripping us off”—Mr. Trump used constitutionally questionable powers to abrogate congressionally approved trade agreements and undermine the world’s trading system. Markets convulsed in anticipation of the massive wealth annihilation that would accompany the shredding of global supply chains and a transition to a more protectionist world. Read More

    Welfare Is What’s Eating the Budget AA

    By Phil Gramm and Jodey Arrington - Sept. 11, 2024

    Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

    · ·

    By Phil Gramm and Jodey Arrington – Means-tested social-welfare spending totaled $1.6 trillion in 2023. Welfare spending now absorbs an astonishing 72.6% of unobligated general revenue (total revenue net of Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes and premiums and mandatory interest on the public debt) and is larger than the claims against unobligated general revenue by Social Security (4.1%), Medicare (23.5%) and defense (37.2%) combined. Read More

    Government Policies, Not Low Rates, Are Driving Inflation A

    By David Malpass - Sept. 11, 2023

    Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

    · ·

    By David Malpass – The Fed’s bond purchases make matters worse by enabling Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility.

    The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is broken. Normalization of interest rates has been needed for years to allow markets, not regulators, to allocate capital. But with interest rates at 5.5% and the dollar strong, the inflation battle must shift to the problem of government spending and regulation. The Fed’s silence on the fiscal and regulatory roots of this inflation crisis, and its insistence on using an antiquated inflation model that blames growth and jobs for price hikes, risks an even weaker U.S. economy. Read More

    How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage AA

    By Fred Siegel - Jan. 25, 2011

    Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

    · ·

    By Fred Siegel – But there was another “rights” movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The looming public-pension crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, county and state governments had its origins in those same years when public employees, already protected by civil-service rules, gained the right to bargain collectively. Read More

    Congress Once Constrained Government Debt AA

    By John F. Cogan - Jan. 23, 2023 

    Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

    · ·

    By Judy Shelton – Entitlement programs have accounted for all the growth in federal spending relative to gross domestic product in the past 60 years, causing the persistent budget deficits during that period. Entitlement expenditures are determined differently from so-called discretionary programs. Spending on the latter programs is set by fixed appropriations of money. Entitlement expenditures aren’t fixed in advance but determined by the program’s level of benefits, its eligibility rules and economic factors. Jurisdiction for entitlement legislation is dispersed among more than a dozen committees in each congressional chamber….In this system, no committee is accountable for total spending. Each committee has a reason to expand its programs and resist attempts to restrain them, but none have an incentive to keep overall spending down. It’s analogous to the classic tragedy of the commons. Read More