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November 20, 2019|Federal Reserve, fiscal policy, John Maynard Keynes, monetary policy, Public Debt

The Fed Will Be Forced to Choose: Inflation or Insolvency?

by Antony Davies|

United States Federal Reserve Bank building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. (Rob Crandall / Shutterstock.com).
It is simply a matter of time before the Federal Reserve finds itself having to choose between inflation and federal insolvency.

November 20, 2019|budgeting, fiscal policy, National Debt

Restoring Fiscal Conflict

by James Wallner|

U.S. Capitol (Tono Balaguer/Shutterstock.com)
Regardless of who wins in politics, the national debt grows, and America, it seems, has entered a new age of debt.

November 10, 2017|Accountability, competition among the states, Federalism, fiscal policy, state and local tax deductions, state cartels

How Eliminating the Deduction for State and Local Taxes Promotes Federalism

by John O. McGinnis|

The total elimination of the deductibility of state and local taxes in the Senate Republican tax plan will cost me money, as I live in the high tax state of Illinois. Nevertheless, I strongly favor this proposal. It is rare that a change in tax law can reinforce the basic structure of our Constitution, but this one does.

Our Constitution is premised on government accountability and our federalism on competition among the states. Deductibility of state and local taxes undermines both.  Because the deduction tempers the full force of the tax burden that states and localities impose, the accountability of state and local legislators for tax and spending becomes more attenuated. And this lack of responsibility is not ideologically neutral: state officials tax and spend more taxpayers’ money than they would if they could not slough off some of the costs on people who cannot vote them out of office.

Second, federalism is supposed to encourage competition among the states for efficient provision of public goods. But this deduction reduces the keenness of the competition.

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May 25, 2017|constitutional amendments, Deficit Spending, fiscal policy, James Buchanan, James Buckley, neo-Keynesians

Amending the Constitution with Buchanan and Buckley

by Michael S. Greve|

US Constitution Historical Documents with Quill Pen

Along with Michael Rappaport, I participated in Michael McConnell’s “Big Fix” conference, held at Stanford Law School this past week. “Should We Amend the Constitution?” was the subtitle of the fun event. You can talk me into that, provided law profs don’t get to vote. A dismaying number of amendment proposals aimed to Europeanize the U.S. Constitution (for example, by importing the European and Canadian courts’ “proportionality” tests into our ConLaw, which I had thought could not get any worse). Others sought to make the republic yet more “democratic”—an endeavor that for n reasons, some ably stated by Brother Rappaport, merits firm resistance and, in the event of success, a bulk purchase of OxyContin.

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May 23, 2017|Austerity, Conservative Party, fiscal policy, Jeremy Corbyn, Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May

Burying Thatcher’s Legacy

by Theodore Dalrymple|

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - MAY 19: Prime Minister Theresa May gives a speech at the launch of the Scottish manifesto in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images)

In politics, there are no final victories and no lessons that are learned for good: error, like hope, springs eternal. Moreover, what counts as error for some may be wisdom, or at least temporary advantage, for others. There is no catastrophe, political or economic, from which someone does not benefit.

In modern democracies, promises to tax-and-spend are like sin, a permanent temptation: only that they are worse, in so far as they are an instrument for some to gain and (as they hope) to keep power. And so the pendulum swings, seemingly for ever, between extravagance and retrenchment, the former always being more popular than the latter.

In Britain, Mrs. May has overthrown the legacy of Mrs. Thatcher, though nominally she is of the same political party.

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November 10, 2016|Benefit Cost Analysis, fiscal policy, Office of Management and Budget

The Public Interest and the Regulatory State

by Brian Mannix|

How can we ensure that government officials use their powers in the public interest?

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August 18, 2015|European Union, fiscal policy, Keynes, monetary policy

The French-German Disconnect

by Theodore Dalrymple|

A recent article in the French newspaper Le Monde drew attention to an important difference between the French and the Germans. The French, said the author, think that the government spends other people’s money; the Germans think that the government spends their own money. This, if true, is important because each attitude must affect the politics as well as the economic policy of its respective country.

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May 11, 2015|Austerity, EU, fiscal policy, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Sweden

The Culture and Politics of Economic Growth

by Theodore Dalrymple|

O'Connell Street - Dublin

‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’ asked Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, expecting no proper answer. In another context, that of economics, he might have asked ‘Why can’t one country be like another?’

I thought of Henry Higgins as I read a letter recently in the Financial Times. It was written by an Irish civil servant in praise of German efforts to save their weaker brethren of the European Union.

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May 14, 2014|David Cameron, Entitlements, fiscal policy, The State, Welfare State

The Eagle and the Insect

by Theodore Dalrymple|

RevenueThe expansion of the state and the services it provides, well or badly as the case may be, inevitably changes the relations between citizen and state. Among other effects, it corrodes the idea of privacy and even the very possibility of privacy: for the more the state does for citizens, the wider its locus standi to interfere in their lives. It becomes, in the wonderful phrase of the Marquis de Custine about Nicholas I in his great book, Russia in 1839, eagle and insect: eagle because it soars above society, taking its capacity for an overview as an entitlement to direct everything, and insect because it bores into the smallest crevices of what lies below, though perhaps nowadays vulture and termite might be a better zoological metaphor.

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April 29, 2014|China, Financial Regulation, fiscal policy, Niall Ferguson, Overregulation, Public Debt, The Great Degeneration

A Doomsaying Primer

by Sven Wilson|

The satisfying aspect of Niall Ferguson’s latest book can be described the same way as the unsatisfying aspect: I wanted more. The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die comes in at well under 200 pages of large, widely-spaced type, including notes, and is in every way a highly readable book. It is based on a series of BBC lectures. Ferguson has adhered to the wise speaker’s rule, which is the same as Polonius’—that brevity is the soul of wit. For books, this is not always the best rule. In many ways The Great Degeneration is yet the latest example…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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