The best way to head off an economically damaging tax increase while protecting core services is to keep overall spending growth modest during good economic times.
RALEIGH — As Americans continue to struggle with a sluggish economy, policymakers could learn useful lessons from a president who served in office more than 80 years ago. That’s the view of Amity Shlaes, director of the Four Percent Growth Project at the George W. Bush Center, nationally syndicated columnist, and author of three New York Times best-sellers, including a biography of the 30th American president, Calvin Coolidge. Shlaes outlined Coolidge’s successful record for a recent John Locke Foundation Headliner event. She also discussed Coolidge during an interview with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.
Any plan for rejuvenating North Carolina’s economy by drawing down and spending more federal money is a plan for failure.
When it comes to following wise economic policies, government should not act all that differently from households or businesses.
Government spending does not stimulate; it depresses. Government austerity and private-sector prosperity are complements, not substitutes.
Those who believe government spending cuts will lead to an economic slowdown do not understand basic economic principles.
A Republican takeover of the General Assembly has sparked the Left’s interest in the annual “disappearance” of government jobs in summer months.
Liberal they may be, but daily newspapers are also businesses that are governed by economic realities.
To “spread the sacrifice evenly over the state workforce” is to fail to make critical distinctions – both among employees and among state programs.
We simply can’t afford our government at its current size and scope. Given our fiscal and economic situation, it’s impractical.
Legislators heading to Raleigh in January will have to fill a large budget hole.
