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SKEPTICS MAY question whether 'laissez faire' economics ever has been practiced at all except in college classrooms and in the musings of elderly professors of economics. Roughly translated from the [...]

With the reckless activities of the Federal Reserve and the United States Treasury over the past several years, some among the punditry are starting to fret that America may soon [...]

On Wednesday, July 21, President Obama triumphantly signed the latest plank in his bid to outdo Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Depression-era radical expansion of federal government powers. While Obama's overall program [...]

FOR YEARS now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States [...]

It is argued that while the US Army protects the country's independence, it is the US businessmen that protect the nation's booming economy.

IT WAS THE SPRING of 2011, and Barack Obama was preparing for a Big Speech about the deficit. He wanted to counter the draconian budget plan released by Pep. Paul [...]

IN THE MOVIE Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character is forced to relive a single day over and over and over-waking up to the same song every morning, meeting the same [...]

AMONG THE MANY ritual ablutions a Republican presidential contender must perform is the signing of Grover Norquist's 'Taxpayer Protection Pledge,' a document the length and subtlety of a bumper sticker [...]

You may remember the moment when Barack Obama declared war on the Republican game plan--or so it seemed. Five days after negotiating a budget-cutting deal that averted a government shutdown [...]

ITEM: An Education Week blog for February 14, in a piece entitled 'Obama Proposes Modest Hike in Education Spending for FY 2012,' reported that 'education is a bright spot in [...]

When newly elected Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) proposed cutting aid to Israel, the howls of protest from all across the bipartisan political spectrum were painfully revealing. Matthew Brooks, executive director [...]

As Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney take the stage in Tampa next week, the ghost of an Austrian economist will be hovering above them with an uneasy smile on his [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED Almost immediately after the so-called grand bargain between President Obama and the Republican speaker of the house, John Boehner, unraveled last July, the two sides quickly settled into [...]

Byline: Clive Crook President Obama's speech to Congress (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/address-president-joint-session-congress) was impressive. Good to see some leading from the front, for a change. The tone was commanding, confident, and purposeful. Crucially, [...]

Byline: Megan McArdle So we've been standing by all week for Obama's big jobs speech, promised in response to the awful jobs numbers last month. Here are the details, as [...]

Byline: Ta-Nehisi Coates I think Jon Chait's point (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/magazine/what-the-left-doesnt-understand-about-obama.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share&src=ISMR_HP_LI_LST_FB) about the overestimation of Bush's domestic successes is a good one. Leaving aside the tax cuts (which as Chait notes Bush [...]

When Congress finally reached an agreement to lift the debt ceiling, a week ago, many predicted that investors would react with a sigh of relief. After all, on the surface [...]

Byline: Frank Rich After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live to give New Yorkers permission to laugh again. But Mayor Bloomberg never did tell us when we could [...]

Like a stand-up comedian working out-of-the-way clubs, Chris Christie travels the townships and boroughs of New Jersey/, places like Hackettstown and Raritan and Scotch Plains, sharpening his riffs about the [...]

Language freezing civilian federal employees' pay for two years has made it into a stopgap funding bill to keep the government running through March 4, 2011. In keeping with President [...]

The 112th Congress is unlikely to let the Obama administration move full-speed ahead on its initiative to bring contractor jobs back in-house, a consultant and a Republican Senate staff member [...]

The panel charged with reforming federal spending on Wednesday reinforced its support for freezing federal pay, along with changes to employees' health and retirement benefits. Similar to a draft version [...]

In addition to a freeze on base pay, civilian government workers will see no locality increases in 2011, President Obama announced on Tuesday. In a letter (http://govexec.com/pdfs/113010l2.pdf) to Congress, Obama [...]

This story has been updated from the original version. Federal employees will not receive any pay increases for two years, Obama administration officials announced on Monday. President Obama's proposed pay [...]

Byline: Daniel Gross Republicans are officially in open revolt against the policy actions of a Republican economist who served in the Bush White House before being appointed by Bush to [...]

Is it time for the federal government to close down some of its agencies? Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the likely next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, [...]

The federal government can save between $25 billion and $54 billion a year by changing the way it buys goods and services, according to a new report from the Center [...]

So how exactly would the leaders of President Obama's fiscal commission trim federal spending ( http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/fiscal-commission-draft-document-200-billion-in-savings-20101110)? You may have heard a three-year civilian pay freeze ( http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=46495&oref=todaysnews) is on the [...]

With Republicans planning a full-on assault to reduce the federal deficit during the next Congress, a nonpartisan research and management organization has outlined a plan to cut costs and improve [...]

A panel of policy analysts on Tuesday delved into the pay debate, arguing that federal employees earn more than private sector workers, which could have a negative effect on the [...]

When President Obama unveiled an array of new tax-cut and spending proposals last week, one word was noticeably missing from his speeches: 'stimulus.' Republicans, meanwhile, energetically set about decrying the [...]

Economy: Ongoing Government Role In Mortgages Foreseen * 'Panelists at an Obama administration conference to determine the future of the nation's housing finance system agreed' Tuesday 'the federal government should [...]

New legislation would eliminate 12 mail delivery days for the U.S. Postal Service, but the agency says the measure would not save enough money. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, recently introduced [...]

A few years ago, while working on a profile of Mayor Bloomberg for this magazine, I had dinner with his deputy mayor for economic development, Dan Doctoroff, at an Italian [...]

Want to prevent bouts of speculative mania like those that sparked the current financial crisis? Here's a simple but effective cure: impose a small tax on the sale or transfer [...]

Some are born radical. Some are made radical. And some have radicalism thrust upon them. That is the way with Ben Bernanke, as he struggles to rescue the American financial [...]

In the years leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the president was the Harold Hill of international affairs, sharing the contents of his sample bag (W.M.D., mushroom clouds, fear) [...]