Testimony Before the Committee on Finance United States Senate Chairman Baucus, Ranking Member Hatch,…
FYI: Heritage WebMemos are now called Issue Briefs. Congressional leaders have agreed to maintain extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits while reducing maximum benefit duration to one-and-a-half years. The legislation moves in the right direction, but in an improving labor market, Congress…
Abstract: In his third State of the Union address, President Obama, pointing to two years of job growth and the fastest job creation since 2005, argued that America’s economy is roaring back. These positive numbers lack context: In normal economic times they would represent…
Last week, President Obama said he would soon propose a set of policies that would eliminate tax breaks for businesses that move jobs overseas and reward businesses that bring jobs to the U.S. as part of his new “insourcing” agenda. If the President proposes more of…
Abstract: Congress enacted the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 in the wake of a financial crisis followed by a serious economic recession. Regrettably, many of the provisions of the Dodd–Frank Act contravene basic American principles and inhibit rather than…
From The Heritage Foundation, I'm Ernest Istook. …
Chairman Conrad, Ranking Member Sessions, Members of the Senate Budget Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is J.D. Foster. I am the Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are…
Every year, no later than July 15, the White House is supposed to release an update on the economy and the state of the federal budget. In addition to its tardiness, the first essential feature of this year’s Mid-Session Review (MSR),[1] released by the White House on September…
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It comes in at some 2,300 pages, so it should surprise no one that dozens of regulatory deadlines have been missed, and a multitude of agencies are months behind in their rulemaking schedule. It is…
Private-sector job creation initially recovered from the recession at a normal rate, leading to predictions last year of a “Recovery Summer.” Since April 2010, however, net private-sector job creation has stalled. Within two months of the passage of Obamacare, the job market stopped improving. This suggests that businesses are not…
Abstract: Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl dispels the stimulus myth, lays out the evidence that government spending does not end recessions--and…
Revised and updated July 06, 2011. Washington’s reckless spending spree of the past several years and unwillingness to confront the mountains of debt coming soon from unreformed federal entitlement programs threaten the economic and social…
Abstract: The economist Friedrich Hayek attempted in his writings to spotlight the interlocking set of ideas—constructivist rationalism, scientism, socialism, “the engineering mentality”—that was leading the West down what he famously called the road to serfdom and to propose in its place a return to…
The new White House proposal to impose a Medicare tax on investment income would reduce demand for investment, which is the last thing that the economy needs right now. It would slow recovery, reduce employment opportunities, and hinder wage growth. A dynamic macroeconomic analysis helps one see…
Today’s Employment Situation Report by the U.S. Department of Labor actually consisted of two employment reports, and they paint two different pictures of the U.S. labor market. The household survey reported that the unemployment rate remained flat at 9.6 percent because many Americans left the workforce.…
Despite the official end of the recession in June 2009, the labor market remains stagnant. Employment has fallen by nearly 7 million jobs since the recession began. Unemployment remains above 9 percent. This is the weakest recovery of the post–World War II era. Current policies have not stimulated business hiring.…
Abstract: Electricity is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy—it is essential for all transportation, and for manufacturing all food and consumer products on which Americans rely every day. Many small businesses and families…
Numerous governments across Europe have embarked on strict austerity programs. Europe is also sliding into a deep...…
If you told recovering alcoholic and drug addict Hermon Blount a year ago that he’d soon be getting up 3 or 4 days a...…
President Obama has a new role model for his Buffett Rule tax—Henry Ford. It’s an odd choice considering that Ford...…
A little over three years ago, President Barack Obama's advisers released a chart that purported to predict the future....…
According to a new report on President Obama’s stimulus package and its effect on the economy, the amount of stimulus...…
In the Super Tuesday primary, the economy was the number one issue on voters' minds, be they in Massachusetts, Georgia,...…
Ezra Klein, Mark Thoma, and Paul Krugman take issue with David Brooks for suggesting that the failure in recent years...…
Livid at delays in the confirmation process for 90 of the president's nominations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...…
President Obama has been accused of violating the Constitution with two high-profile decisions over the last month....…
Sure, the U.S. economy is recovering, but it's doing so at a very...slow... rate. Some on the left, including the...…
Director, Center for Data Analysis and Lazof Family Fellow
Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy
Assistant Director, Center for Data Analysis and Research Fellow
Senior Research Fellow in Retirement Security and Financial Institutions