Think Tank West

I haven’t seen any media attention paid to it yet, and I don’t recall the president mentioning it in his speech Tuesday night.  Regardless, p.37 of today’s budget blueprint calls for “Making Saving for Retirement Easier as the Economy Recovers.” Although it sounds innocuous, I believe the contents could be cause for alarm: “Over the [...]

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Appearing on HITN’s “Destination Casablanca,” Cato analyst Juan Carlos Hidalgo discusses Latin American policy, Cuba and the future of the drug war under the Obama administration. “It’s not Washington’s business to try to impose or suggest an agenda for Latin American countries,” Hidalgo says. For more videos, subscribe to Cato’s YouTube channel.

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Total federal spending in FY2000:  $1.79 Trillion. Total estimated FY2009 deficit according to today’s budget blueprint: $1.75 Trillion.

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Yesterday Cato filed a brief in what will be one of the most talked-about cases in the current Supeme Court term, Ricci v. DeStefano. In Ricci, the City of New Haven, Connecticut developed an exam for firefighters seeking promotion to command positions. The city went out of its way to ensure that the exam was [...]

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Weak Health Care Stocks Drag Market Lower       – Associated Press, February 26, 2009 Obama Proposes $634 Billion Fund for Health Care       – Washington Post, February 26, 2009 So the government wants to take over one-seventh of the U.S. economy and the market drops.  I’m shocked. 

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Here are some notes on the tax proposals in the new federal budget:  (See Table S-6; All figures are 10-year totals) There are $770 billion in “tax cuts for families and individuals.”  However, the fine print on page 129 shows that $326 billion of that is actually spending, or the “refundable” portion of the tax changes. That [...]

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Page 14 of the President’s FY2010 budget “blueprint” contains a section called “Fiscal Irresponsibility” that deserves scrutiny: “Another manifestation of irresponsibility is the large budget deficits we are inheriting. These deficits, over time, will harm economic growth and impose burdens on our children and grandchildren.” True. “Between 2000 and 2008, real Government outlays increased at [...]

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You can’t. And the federal government knows it. On Tuesday, Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, told a House subcommittee that the government’s experiences in the reconstruction of Iraq, hurricane-relief programs and the 1990s savings-and-loan bailout suggest the rescue program could be ripe for fraud…. Gene Dodaro, [...]

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“As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President’s Day… Not because I believe in bigger government — I don’t. Not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited — I am.”      –President Obama to congressional joint session, February 24 President Obama said [...]

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I have been thinking for months about canceling my print subscription to the Washington Post, but I just can’t seem to pull the trigger. Now I have a new reason for holding onto the messy things just a little while longer: those full-page advertisements for the F-22. They have appeared almost every day for the [...]

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