(A) Social Policy, Transfers and Entitlements

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

By Paul Ryan – U.S. fiscal policy is on a collision course with monetary policy. The economic devastation resulting from a debt and currency crisis could inflict enormous—possibly irreparable—damage. Predicting precisely when a huge debt and high deficits will unleash economic disaster is difficult. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency gives the U.S. unique advantages, but no country can defy the laws of economic gravity forever. The U.S. has run up large budget deficits and debts before, but those moments of national emergency, such as world wars or global financial crises, were usually—at least until recently—followed by periods of fiscal repair. Read More

By Phil Gramm and John Early – The Census Bureau fails to count two-thirds of all government transfer payments to households in the income numbers it uses to calculate not only poverty levels but also income inequality and income growth. In addition to not counting refundable tax credits, which are paid by checks from the U.S. Treasury, the official Census Bureau measure doesn’t count food stamps, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, rent subsidies, energy subsidies and health-insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. In total, benefits provided in more than 100 other federal, state and local transfer payments aren’t counted by the Census Bureau as income to the recipients. If the Census Bureau had included the missing $1.9 trillion in transfer payments, child poverty would have been only 3.2% in 2017, compared with the official rate of 17.5%. Government transfer payments that were distributed in 2017 had already cut child poverty by 82%. Read More