Actually, contends every 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, the economy is in really bad shape. It is only working for the wealthiest among us while leaving behind the poor, the working class and the shrinking middle class. Now, I suppose one could forgive the socialist contingent of the party for offering knee-jerk class-based bromides &ndash…

In welcome pre-holiday news last week for everyone except those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Labor Department announced that job growth exceeded all expectations last month, as U.S. employers added 266,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate plummeted to a 50-year low of just 3.5%.  Just as significantly, employee wages jumped…

As the American economy continues to defy naysayers and reach unprecedented heights, a funny thing has occurred.  Namely, leftists and Obama apologists have shifted from insisting that President Trump’s economic policies would trigger a catastrophic depression to claiming that all of this is actually Obama’s doing.  Last week…

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail. Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos. Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela are unfree, poor and failed states. Baathism &mdash…

When most Americans think of the Federal Reserve, to the extent that they do at all, they naturally associate it with its primary role of stabilizing our currency through regulation of the nation’s money supply.  And even on that task, the Fed’s performance record is debatable, to put it charitably.  Given its spotty record…

Democrats see your paycheck as fair game for their endless social improvement projects. Every Democrat vying for the White House backs federal legislation that would guarantee workers nearly three months of paid family medical leave every year to care for newborns and the sick. Sounds wonderful. Who doesn't want to work nine months a year and get paid…

Try to reconcile this contradiction.  On the one hand, Barack Obama and his apologists claim that he deserves credit for halting an economic recession that actually bottomed out in the fall of 2008 before he was elected, and officially terminated less than five months into his tenure – long before any of his policies had taken effect, or…

For those of you who survived the Great GOP Tax Cut Massacre, things are finally looking up. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent last month, the lowest level since 1969. We've now experienced over a full year of unemployment at 4 percent or lower. The economy beat projections, adding another 263,000 jobs in April. Wages are rising. It was Larry…

If you're looking for work, this is the best job market in 50 years. The economy is soaring. But Democrats running for president are pitching plans that will destroy millions of jobs, doubling the number of people out of work. Consider "Medicare for All." It could wipe out a staggering 2.5 million health insurance and health care jobs nationwide…

Remember how Barack Obama repeatedly rationalized the economic malaise that defined his presidency by scapegoating everything from the 2011 Japanese tsunami to ATMs?  This was Obama in 2011, when it was already clear that his economic policies were failing:  There are some structural issues with our economy, where a lot of businesses have…

"The recession talk in late 2018 got way, way out of hand," New York Times economic reporter Neil Irwin tweeted a few days ago. Indeed it did. Irwin's tweet came shortly after the government released figures showing the economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the first three months of this year. The number was good by anyone's measure, significantly…

House Democrats are demanding the Internal Revenue Service hand over President Donald Trump's tax returns. Not that Speaker Nancy Pelosi or other Dems making the demand are willing to disclose their tax filings. Fat chance. Not in the House of Hypocrites. White House staff and the president's lawyers are making it crystal clear that Trump's returns…

If Trump thinks he can get more than 3% economic growth, he’s dreaming.   —Los Angeles Times economic columnist Michael Hiltzik, May 19, 2017  Expect a lot of boasting, but 3% growth is still nonsense.  —New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, January 28, 2018  Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic…

Should low-tax states like Tennessee, Texas or Florida subsidize high-tax states like New York, California or Illinois?  Indeed, do low-tax states even owe a moral duty to support their high-tax brethren states?  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo somehow thinks so.   He considers it “diabolical” and an “injustice…

Ever since Amazon's breakup with New York on Valentine's Day, dejected Mayor Bill De Blasio is complaining that corporations shouldn't be able to play off one local government against others for tax breaks. "I don't think it's really fair to pit city against city and state against state," De Blasio whined like a jilted suitor. Grow up, Mr…

Democrats, now the majority in the House of Representatives, are trying to turn that body into the House of Resistance. They vowed to use the State of the Union to voice their claims that the nation is in bad shape, rigged to benefit only the rich. But facts are stubborn things. Fact No. 1: An amazing 304,000 jobs were created in January, according…

After a decade of decline, the United States is finally enjoying a renaissance in economic freedom.  So says the just-released 2019 edition of the Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, which for twenty-five years has ranked the world’s nations in terms of property rights, rule of law, taxes, government spending,…

Leftist Democrats eyeing the White House in 2020 are plotting new ways to confiscate Americans' hard-earned money and give it away. Claiming economic inequality is a national crisis, they want to take money from those they say have too much. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pushing a wealth tax. Never mind that it's unprecedented and unconstitutional…

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand, Lord, don’t they help themselves, y’all? But when the tax man comes to the door, Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah… —Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Fortunate Son” Although more ‘60s-vintage hyperbole than economics textbook prose, CCR’s lyric…

The U.S. Department of Labor jobs report, released Friday, shows eye-popping gains, concluding a year that has been great for workers. Hourly wages shot up after 10 years of stagnation and real household income topped its highest level in history. Basically anyone who wants a job can get one. "If we're not right at full employment, we're very…

A relatively stable and sound economy has become the new normal, something too many of us are starting to take for granted. But just two years ago, things weren't quite so rosy.  As one trip back down Memory Lane, note this Wall Street Journal observation in a September 13, 2016 article entitled "CEOs See Sluggish Growth":  The…

In a contest too close to call, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski is running to slash Connecticut taxes and bring Trumponomics to the state. The nation is watching to see whether a fiscal reformer can sell President Donald Trump's tax-cutting approach to voters who disdain Trump. Critics call Stefanowski's proposal to phase out the…

This month, for the first time since 2008, the United States regained its spot atop the World Economic Forum's annual ranking of the world's most competitive economies.  It's about time.  For eight long years during the Obama Administration, the United States endured the most sluggish cyclical economic "recovery" in recorded history…

This month, as expected, Canada agreed to join the trade accord reached earlier between the United States and Mexico, updating the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Although the fine print remains to be parsed as Congress moves toward ratification, one important fact is already clear:  the renegotiated accord constitutes…

The most striking difference between Democrats and Republicans is not their views on #MeToo, affirmative action or the Supreme Court. It's how they view the economy. Republicans deplore socialism. But more than half of Democrats view socialism favorably, according to a recent Gallup poll. The Democratic Party's left flank is turning the midterm elections…

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.  The 2016 election of Donald Trump was supposed to usher in an era of economic mismanagement and market decline, while our European exemplars flourished under their more enlightened socialized model.  The late satirist H.L. Mencken once observed, "Democracy is the theory that the common people…

"U.S. Has More Jobs Than Jobless." Savor for a moment that astonishing front-page headline this week from The Wall Street Journal.  Well into the second year of the Trump economy, America literally has more jobs than the number of people in the labor force to possibly fill them:    For the first time since such record…

When you read the budget message President Donald Trump sent Congress earlier this year, you soon come across a concession that Washington insiders have been making for years — just before they vote for bills they know will massively increase the federal debt. "The current fiscal path is unsustainable," Trump said, "and future…

Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to announce a plan that guarantees every American "who wants or needs one" a lifetime government job paying at least $15 an hour, with health insurance and other perks. This new progressive workforce will then, according to the Washington Post, build glorious "projects throughout the United States aimed at…

Here we go again. State politicians want to take more of your money. This time, their scheme is to tax everything you buy on the internet. On Tuesday, the money-grabbing states made their case to the United States Supreme Court. If the Justices go along with it, you'll be paying more when you make a purchase on eBay, Etsy, Amazon or another platform…