Bush Tax Cuts Still Working — For Now

By |2011-03-09T15:04:24-05:00March 9th, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published March 9, 2011 on The American Spectator website.

During President Obama’s 2008 campaign, he termed the Bush tax cuts “the failed policies of the past.” But last December, with the economy in shambles under the Keynesian, throwback, 1970s-style economic policies of Obamanomics, it was the Bush tax cuts he turned to, agreeing to extend the tax cuts for everyone for two more years. That was directly contrary to his 2008 campaign pledge to allow the tax cuts to expire for singles making over $200,000 per year, and for couples making over $250,000.

At the time […]

Public Employee Unions

By |2011-03-05T19:05:34-05:00March 5th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published March 3, 2011 on Townhall.com.

With all of the union strife in Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey, and indications of more to come, it might be time to shed a bit of light on unions as an economic unit.

First, let’s get one important matter out of the way. I value freedom of association, and non-association, even in ways that are not always popular and often deemed despicable. I support a person’s right to be a member or not be a member of […]

Gutting Medicare By Refusing To Pay The Bills

By |2011-03-03T18:50:52-05:00March 3rd, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published March 3, 2011 on Forbes.com.

The full extent of the future cuts to Medicare under ObamaCare is revealed in the little noticed 2010 Financial Report of the U.S. Government, released in December by the Treasury Department. What the data in that report show effectively is that under current law Medicare will be rendered dysfunctional in future years by draconian, arbitrary cuts in payments to doctors and hospitals for the promised health care for America’s seniors. The essential health care needed by the sickest to save their very lives or their […]

They're All Detroit Democrats Now

By |2011-03-02T10:56:12-05:00March 2nd, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel and Director of Policy for the Carleson Center for Public Policy Peter Ferrara was published March 2, 2011 on The American Spectator website.

House Republicans have fulfilled their campaign pledge to cut $100 billion in spending in the first year, passing a continuing resolution (CR) on February 19 cutting that much for this year from President Obama’s 2011 budget, which was exactly their pledge. That involves a $61 billion cut for the rest of this year from the baseline of the CR that is now funding the government through March 4.

The deficit in President Obama’s 2011 budget is […]

It's Time To Block Grant Welfare To The States

By |2020-04-23T21:58:20-04:00February 26th, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel and Director of Policy for the Carleson Center for Public Policy Peter Ferrara was published February 23, 2011 on Forbes.com.

If any liberal reform had been as wildly successful as the 1996 welfare reforms spearheaded by then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, every schoolchild in America would have been forced to memorize the details by now. The reforms of the old New Deal-era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program involved the ultimate welfare policy dream of President Reagan and his longtime welfare guru Robert Carleson, as explained in Carleson’s recent posthumously published book Government Is […]

American Dream or Socialist Nightmare

By |2011-02-26T03:32:56-05:00February 26th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published February 24, 2011 on The Washington Times website.

There are few things more galling than communists lecturing Americans on how we can live up to our “values.” A case in point is former Obama administration “green jobs czar” Van Jones rhapsodizing about the union rent-a-mobs in Madison, Wis., Indiana and coming to a city near you.

In his article “Introducing the ‘American Dream’ ” at the Huffington Post, Mr. Jones, who lost his White House job when his communist affiliations surfaced, says these “heroes and heroines” in the mobs will […]

Democracy Versus Liberty

By |2020-04-23T21:56:54-04:00February 24th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published February 23, 2011 on Townhall.com.

It is truly disgusting for me to hear politicians, national and international talking heads and pseudo-academics praising the Middle East stirrings as democracy movements. We also hear democracy as the description of our own political system. Like the founders of our nation, I find democracy and majority rule a contemptible form of government.

You say, “Whoa, Williams, you really have to explain yourself this time!”

I’ll begin by quoting our founders on democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper […]

Wisconsin Showdown

By |2011-02-23T09:45:51-05:00February 23rd, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published February 23, 2011 on The American Spectator website .

Nationwide, state and local government workers are paid on average 45% more than private sector workers, with an average hourly wage of $26.25, and $13.56 in hourly costs for benefits, for total hourly costs of $39.81, or $80,000 per year on average. This is true in Wisconsin as well. Indeed, the Manhattan Institute’s E.J. McMahon reports that for public school teachers in Milwaukee, the annual cost of family health coverage is $26,844, for which the teachers currently pay nothing.

Yet, state and local government workers are […]

Time to Recall AWOL Lawmakers

By |2011-02-22T16:41:05-05:00February 22nd, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published February 22, 2011 on FoxNews.com.

Newly elected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has moved expeditiously to propose legislation to close the state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit. But that legislation languishes in the state legislature because the Democrat minority in the state Senate has fled Wisconsin, depriving the Senate of a quorum to conduct business.

Wisconsin held an election in November, and the voters granted the Republicans a 19-14 Senate majority. But under the state Senate rules, a quorum of 20 is needed to conduct business. By refusing to even participate in Senate […]

In Case of Emergency, Break the Constitution

By |2011-02-17T15:38:26-05:00February 17th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published February 11, 2011 on The Washington Times website.

Did you know that the nation soon will undergo a test that will determine how effectively the president of the United States can seize control of the media in the event of an “emergency”? Well, that’s not the way the administration is putting it.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a press release on Feb. 3 outlining the plan for the “first-ever presidential alert.” On a date yet to be set, the presidential alert will go “to television and radio broadcasters, cable […]

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