The fraud cases involving Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community highlight nonprofit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing social services for government. Do private NGOs improve social services? Reporting by Ryan Thorpe and Chris Rufo at City Journal brought attention to the fraud. The investigations have already led to indictments or convictions. The frauds total around $1 billion and […]

The national debt exceeds $36 trillion with a projected $1.9 trillion to be added in 2025. Critics contend that placing entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare off limits dooms Uncle Sam to bankruptcy. Can we contain entitlement spending? Let’s first be precise about entitlement programs. Despite the name, the U.S. recognizes no right to […]

Elon Musk has stepped away from DOGE to run his companies full time. Numerous commentators suggest that DOGE has failed. I see DOGE as a crucial step in disrupting Washington’s culture of spending. DOGE could never cut spending by $2 trillion by itself. Discretionary Federal spending, the portion approved by Congress annually, was only $1.8 […]

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and subsequent arrest of Luigi Mangione have provoked wide-ranging reactions.  Sympathy for Mr. Thompson’s family and condemnation of a cold-blooded murder are normal, human responses.  Elevating Mr. Mangione to folk hero status is disturbing and invites exploration of the anger toward American healthcare. The murder of Mr. […]

Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  Will the DOGE find the promised $2 trillion in wasteful spending to cut?  Eliminating “wasteful” spending may prove harder than expected. Federal spending is seriously out of kilter.  The fiscal year 2024 deficit was $1.8 trillion despite the nation at […]

Each side in the recent presidential campaign accused the other of not only promoting ill-advised policies but threatening democracy. While perhaps just campaign hyperbole, let’s consider who might oppose democracy based on their views and values. Losing candidates to start. They may contend that voters failed to fully comprehend the issues at stake. But because […]

Vice President Harris’ campaign has proposed $25,000 in government downpayment assistance to help Americans afford homes. Many economists, however, have criticized this. Why might government cash not help families buy homes? Housing has certainly become less affordable. The National Association of Realtors’ affordability index hit an all-time low in 2022 and got worse in 2023. […]

Home ownership, a core component of the American Dream, appears increasingly out of reach for many. Much of the concern involves affordability, driven partly by high mortgage interest rates. But corporations own an increasing number of homes which are available only for rent. Are Americans becoming captive renters? I have some statistics on corporate ownership […]

The new twelve-team College Football Playoff (CFP) has colleges seeing dollar signs. But will the increased revenue prove sustainable, and will the best team now win? All top teams should land playoff spots, and if no team with a good chance of winning gets excluded, the best team should be determined on the field. However, […]

The Harris campaign’s economic plan includes a national law against price gouging and excessive profits in the grocery industry. Are grocery stores gouging consumers and can price controls prevent inflation? Attributing inflation to a sector or corporate greed is dubious. As the great economist Milton Friedman observed, “Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon.” […]

Whether the rich pay their fair share of taxes remains contentious. Regardless of your position on this, accurate numbers on the rich’s current tax burden should inform this discussion. I will consider percentages of Federal individual income tax revenue from Tax Foundation analysis of IRS data. These numbers are sometimes inaccurately described as of all […]

President Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently criticized “shrinkflation”. The details are secondary to the larger question of who decides how to respond to changing economic conditions, businesses, or government officials? I will consider Sen. Warren’s comments here, as President Biden largely repeated her points. If you have never heard the term, shrinkflation refers […]

Economic growth in 2023 far exceeded economists’ expectations. Has the Federal Reserve engineered a “soft landing” while reducing inflation? And is the economy as strong as the Biden Administration insists that growth number demonstrates? Real GDP growth in the fourth quarter was 3.3%, putting growth for the year at 2.5%. The latest quarterly figure may […]

The federal government issues thousands of pages of new regulations annually (over 90,00 in the Federal Register in 2023). The costs of regulation are largely hidden but can be estimated them. A recent study from the National Association of Manufacturers puts the total at $3.1 trillion annually, over 10% of GDP. The study was undertaken […]

The rhetoric is certainly ramping up approaching the presidential election. Many Americans think poorly of their fellow citizens on the opposite side of the political spectrum. A recent Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll provides more evidence, with the headline, “One-in-Five Democrats Want Donald Trump to be Permanently Imprisoned, Exiled, or Executed if Convicted over […]

A recent Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll found widespread irregularities in the 2020 election. While whether this proves theft of the presidential election is debatable, it certainly demonstrates serious issues with voting by mail. The poll was conducted during the first week of December with 1,085 respondents. Thirty percent of respondents claimed to have […]

Everybody makes mistakes, but government accountants seem particularly error prone.  With 70 million Americans receiving Social Security payments annually, mistakes are inevitable. But the Social Security Administration aggressively pursues repayment years or even decades later as detailed in Social Security Horror Stories by Lawrence Kotlikoff and Terry Savage. The repayment efforts can cause immense hardship. […]

Is the economy booming?  Economist Alan Blinder recently argued that the economy is strong despite many Americans’ claims to be struggling.  Paul Krugman believes that claims of malaise reflect Republican hostility to President Biden, not reality. Do the numbers validate the lived experience of struggling Americans? Statistics, at best, reflect averages across the economy. Life […]

The freedoms to speak and criticize public officials are crucial to ensuring that government serves the people. But must this include the freedom to propound evil, hateful beliefs?  Free speech has always faced criticism but has recently come under considerable scholarly attack. Let’s consider difficult cases for free speech absolutism, starting with the Nazis. Nazi […]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust case against Google over its dominance of online search is unfolding. This marks the first tech industry antitrust trial since Microsoft a quarter century ago. Does Google unfairly dominate online search? With a market share of between 86% and 96%, Google is certainly dominant. Microsoft’s Bing is a […]

Brexit and Donald Trump’s election highlighted a global surge in populism. The Economic Freedom of North America Network, of which the Johnson Center is a member, has discussed conservative populists’ growing hostility to markets. Populists should, I hope, embrace free markets and limited government. We first need a definition of populism. Prior to 2016, left-wing […]

The Fraser Institute recently released the 2023 Economic Freedom of the World and the U.S. improved one spot to rank fifth globally. Hong Kong has fallen from the top spot for the first time, signifying a looming dilemma for China. Economic freedom refers to the freedom of individuals “to choose for themselves and engage in […]

Slavery was a moral abomination now thankfully consigned to the dustbin of history. But should Americans who were never slaves receive compensation for their ancestors’ victimization? Reparations are widely viewed as left-wing policy. Many conceive reparations as racial justice: a past offense by Whites against Blacks demands compensation today. Viewing people exclusively as members of […]

Whales have been dying off the East Coast of the United States near where offshore wind turbines are being or about to be built. The North Atlantic Right Whale faces extinction, with only perhaps 340 left in the wild. Should endangered species take precedence over energy production? NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service denies a link […]