Downsizing the Federal Government

02/04/2021

My oped in The Hill discusses how raising the minimum wage to $15/hr would eliminate entry level jobs and damage small businesses. A national minimum wage also makes no sense in such a diverse country with different regional wage levels and economic structures.

We all want to get back to the broad-based income growth and historic fall in poverty we enjoyed before the pandemic, but that was based on market-driven growth, not federal interventions.

09/17/2019

How fast is government spending growing under Trump? I compare to past presidents here https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/presidential-spending-update

03/23/2018

The next president will come into office in early 2021, and, without a policy change between now and then, the nation will be facing the most dangerous budget situation in peacetime history. Who would want to be president? https://buff.ly/2I0HVfs

03/23/2018

"The usual story of federal budgeting is that 'the president proposes, and Congress disposes.' The president issues his annual budget, and then lawmakers put most of the proposals in the trash unless the president really fights for them.

But under Trump, the pattern is shaping up differently; it is 'the president proposes, and the president disposes.'" https://buff.ly/2pvPQeb

03/23/2018

Congressional leaders agreed to an omnibus spending package for 2018:

"You could say that the (nominally spendthrift) Democrats took the (nominally frugal) Republicans to the cleaners. But the real problem is that the great majority of members in both parties love federal spending. They think it unambiguously helps people; they are oblivious to constitutional federalism; they are willing to load more debt onto young people; and they have no idea about the negative consequences of government spending, such as the crowding out of private-sector activities."

Congressional leaders have agreed to a 2,232-page omnibus spending package that allocates federal discretionary spending for 2018. Defense and nondefense spending levels are jacked up, budget caps are blown through, and the deficit is soaring.

02/08/2018

As we head toward our first trillion-dollar deficit in six years, why do no leaders of in either party seem to care?

"Margaret Thatcher once said the problem with the modern welfare state is that 'eventually you run out of other people’s money.' We are rapidly approaching that point, but nobody in Washington seems to care. Unified Republican control of government was supposed to save us from big-spending Democrats. It hasn’t quite turned out that way."

Regardless of how one feels about the ups and downs of the Russia saga currently engulfing Washington, one of its worst aspects is the way in which it sucks all the oxygen out of the room, relegating other vital issues to near invisibility.

02/08/2018

Congress just agreed to a budget deal that raises discretionary spending by $300 billion over two years, but may increase spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade:

"The sad irony is that December’s Republican tax cut is supposed to save Americans $1.5 trillion over 10 years. But the new spending is essentially a $1.5 trillion tax hike imposed on people down the road."

02/06/2018

A recent audit of the Defense Logistics Agency found that it failed to properly document over $800 million in construction projects. The Pentagon suffers from the same structural failures as other federal bureaucracies.

Just as Congress is preparing to hike defense spending, a new report suggests the inefficiency that has plagued the Pentagon for decades continues unabated.

02/06/2018

The Fat Leonard scandal is a classic case of bureaucratic failure:

"The upshot: If so many Navy leaders were easily seduced by an old-fashioned con artist, does it mean that America’s other military and intelligence services are just as vulnerable to low-tech bribery and infiltration?"

The Washington Post does not do much investigating of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies anymore, but it has done a great job with the Fat Leonard Navy corruption scandal.

02/02/2018

British prime minister Theresa May just appointed a Minister of Loneliness.

"Obviously, there is a proper role for government, and the limits of that role will always be the subject of political debate. But perhaps the next time we encounter a problem in society, we should think twice before asking government to solve it for us."

The Western world can breathe easy. British prime minister Theresa May has solved one of the great crises of our time: She has appointed a Minister of Loneliness.

02/01/2018

In the State of the Union, the president discussed building "gleaming new" infrastructure projects instead of fixing existing systems:

"In short, President Trump has fallen for the politician’s fallacy of preferring ribbons over brooms – that is, building new infrastructure rather than maintaining the old."

Remember America’s crumbling infrastructure that supposedly needs trillions of dollars for maintenance and rehabilitation? President Trump doesn’t.

01/31/2018

The answers to many of the policy issues President Trump raised tonight can be found at

A department-by-department guide to cutting the federal government's budget.