The Heartland Institute

Heartland Institute Policy Advisor Brian Wesbury who is rightly well-known in America for his incisive analysis of markets and the economy has a new and excellent video on the debt ceiling debate and how not raising the ceiling will not lead to a default. It's part of his Wesbury 101 - Economic Video Commentary series on ...

" We put you in and we can take you out" seems to be the message Tea Party leaders are sending Republicans in Congress. Tea Party leaders referred to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as " John Maynard Boehner" and called Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and more than one dozen other Republican leaders RINOs -- Republicans-In-Name ...

President Obama s proposed budget calling for more than $3.7 trillion of spending including deficit spending of $1.65 trillion also projects $1.1 trillion of deficit spending the following year, which would give the nation four consecutive years of budget deficits exceeding $1 trillion annually. No budget deficit had ever come close ...

The Constitution of the United States tells us The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. Uniformity is hardly ...

A leaked memo obtained by blogger Adam Brickley at http://rightosphere.com reveals Democrats on Capitol Hill are bracing for " tens of thousands" of anti-Obamacare protesters today as part of the CODE RED rally being organized by the American Grassroots Coalition and the Tea Party Express, with help from other organizations including ...

Congress might approve spending bills, but it s the president s budget that initially grabs headlines. Big headlines greeted President Obama s fiscal 2011 budget proposal because everything about it is big the spending, the deficit, the tax increases. Spending: $3.8 trillion. Projected deficit: $1.6 trillion. Tax increases: $2 trillion ...

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Tom Hoenig issued a warning yesterday about where the nation s economy is headed, a warning that calls into question much of what the Federal Reserve, Presidents Bush and Obama, and Congress have done in the years leading up to the economic downturn and in response to it: [T}he ...

The sale of automaker Chrysler was delayed but not derailed in June, as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of the sale. The Court s June 9 decision did not rule on the merits of claims by Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who objected on behalf of state pension funds that ...

With the Indiana state government enjoying a $1 billion-plus budget surplus while most states are reporting deficits and some are asking the federal government for bailouts and other help, Indiana citizens aren t the only ones taking note of the turnaround in the state under Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) leadership since he took office ...

Since the end of May 2008 the federal government has added $1.2 trillion to its public debt to buy up, bail out, or take over major banks, the world s largest insurance company, automakers, and other entities. Many analysts project the federal budget deficit to hit $1 trillion this fiscal year and the national debt to approach ...

One sign of how rapidly government spending has been growing in recent years is the $3.1 trillion federal budget President George W. Bush introduced in February. When Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget was under $2 trillion. "All in all, the new budget tops off eight years of remarkably spendthrift policies ...

Why is anyone surprised? That's what some experts are asking in the wake of June revelations that victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 may have fraudulently spent $1.4 billion of disaster aid on items ranging from lavish vacations to a sex-change operation. "There's always going to be this kind of fraud in ...

Hurricane Katrina developed in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico before slamming into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last August 29--but two major symbols of Katrina's fiscal storm sit more than 3,000 miles away at the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska. Alaska is where the now-infamous "Bridges to Nowhere" are to ...

As the costs of recovery from damages caused by Hurricane Katrina mount, so do calls for cuts in other discretionary spending by the federal government. But there is little indication most members of Congress are heeding the call. "We get strange looks [from fellow Congressmen] for even suggesting that we offset this disaster ...

Spa visits, stays in luxury hotel suites, an $850 steak dinner, and four nights of hotel room rentals for the 2002 Super Bowl in New Orleans are among more than $200,000 of expenses Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has charged to a city credit card since being elected in 2001. Detroit Free Press reporters M.L. Elrick and ...

Here are some examples of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's personal spending with the city's charge card since he was elected in 2001. The information was obtained from city credit card records and reported by the Detroit Free Press : $52.55 for Pearl Moon swimwear and $265 at the Four Seasons Spa for Kilpatrick and bodyguard ...

In introducing his proposed budget for the 2006 fiscal year, President George W. Bush spoke of his commitment to spending controls, even though the budget calls for an overall spending increase of 3.6 percent. Since Bush released his budget proposal on February 7, some of the key spending controls he cited have disappeared ...

Chicago businesses and residents, who already pay some of the highest local taxes and fees in the nation, will soon see many taxes and fees climb still higher if Mayor Richard M. Daley's proposed 2005 budget passes as presented. Daley submitted a proposed budget of $5.08 billion on November 9, up from $3 billion when ...