Stephen Moore

Topeka

Topeka

One of President Donald Trump's most urgent policy priorities is to cut taxes for businesses and workers. It's a promise that Republicans must fulfill if they want to restore American prosperity. But the tax plan—which one of us, Moore, helped write—has a $2 trillion to $4 trillion revenue…

One of President Donald Trump’s most urgent policy priorities is to cut taxes for businesses and workers. It's a promise that Republicans must fulfill if they want to restore American prosperity. But the tax plan—which one of us, Moore, helped write—has a $2 trillion to $4 trillion revenue…

Right after Democrats got routed in the midterm election, the left-wing group MoveOn.org blasted their activists with a message not to panic. Party leaders should, in fact, “double down on progressive policies.”

WHEN LARRY LINDSEY, George Bush’s top economic adviser, was asked to defend his latest upbeat economic forecast—a return to 3 percent growth by the end of the year and then clear sailing for as far as the eye can see—he cited as corroborating expert witnesses a handful of Wall Street economists who…

In the wake of the miserable May jobs report and the even more miserable first-quarter GDP numbers, Hillary Clinton revealed her long-awaited agenda to fix the economy: Raise the minimum wage; hike taxes on the rich; and spend a quarter-trillion dollars more on public works. Clinton is calling for…

Almost 40 years ago, the last “green" president, Jimmy Carter, went on national TV and glumly told the nation from the Oval Office: "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."

After the Great Depression, Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for 30 years—and with great success. Even though Hoover’s policies were anything but market-oriented—he greatly raised spending, taxes, and tariffs in response to the 1929 Wall Street crash—Republicans took the fall for Hooverism. It…

Two weekends ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City held its annual monetary conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The left flew in hundreds of protesters donning green T-shirts that demanded “Higher Wages for America” and chanting, “We’re Fed Up.” The crowd was an assortment of college kids…

Almost exactly 20 years ago, a gawky conservative renegade magazine publisher named Steve Forbes threw his hat in the ring for the 1996 GOP presidential nomination. Forbes’s run was first seen as a joke. But he wound up rocking the Republican establishment by injecting fresh and bold reform ideas…

In his press conference last Tuesday, Barack Obama said that America must reject the "borrow and spend" policies of the past in favor of a strategy of "save and invest." Sounds good. So why is Obama proposing to borrow and spend more than any president in the history of the republic? Already in the…

This week John McCain officially released the details of his economic recovery tax plan. The howls of protest from the left were both loud and predictable. The Obama campaign ripped into the McCain plan with the mantra of "tax cuts for the rich," while leftwing special interest groups claimed that…

It didn't get much attention on the East Coast, but in late February the town of Vallejo, California, came within an eyelash of becoming the first city since Bridgeport, Connecticut, back in 1991 to declare bankruptcy. This San Francisco Bay suburb of 120,000 residents was threatening to take this…

It wasn't so long ago that politicians assured voters that they would "raise taxes only as a last resort," as Michael Dukakis put it in 1988. When lawmakers did increase taxes, they would wring their hands and somberly declare how painful and distasteful this decision was. But nowadays in the…

PRESIDENT BUSH'S PLAN TO CREATE personal retirement accounts for Social Security, which seemed so promising a few months ago, is now officially floundering. Senate Republicans are now crafting a compromise proposal that takes personal accounts off the table. Meanwhile, House speaker Denny Hastert…

WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH HINTED LAST week that he might be willing to raise the payroll tax cap to "pay for" Social Security reform, he opened the door to the largest federal tax increase endorsed by a Republican since George Bush Sr.'s "read my lips" debacle 15 years ago.

IF JOHN KERRY HAD BEEN elected president, one of the clearest consequences would have been a bleak future for the major tax cuts signed into law by President Bush in 2001 and 2003 (most of which are scheduled to expire between 2008 and 2010). The tax issue was the most contentious issue of domestic…

OF ALL THE policy recommendations in the president's acceptance speech last week, none got more applause than his promise to revamp our antiquated and antigrowth IRS tax code. But even a mild cynic has to wonder whether this call for a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth tax code" was just a flirtation…

DUMP DICK CHENEY? It won't happen, and if it did, it would be a terrible idea. The president would be losing his most intelligent and experienced adviser. And conservatives would be losing one of our most consistent and effective champions, at home and abroad.

IF THERE IS ANY PLACE in America where the anti-immigration message should receive a receptive hearing, it would seem to be Colorado. Few states have been as heavily affected by the influx of immigrants over the past dozen years. The number of immigrants has nearly tripled in that time, and…

IN THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE California governor Gray Davis's job, no one bothers to defend the Davis record, not even Davis. Instead, in the September 24 gubernatorial debate, the lone Democrat Cruz Bustamante conspicuously distanced himself from Davis's policies, treating the governor like a political…

SEVERAL YEARS AGO an obscure Democratic governor from the politically inconsequential state of Vermont was the guest speaker at a Cato Institute lunch. His name was Howard Dean. He had been awarded one of the highest grades among all Democrats (and a better grade than at least half of the…

EVER SINCE the Bush tax cut passed nine weeks ago, the left has been foaming at the mouth over the supposed injustice done to low-income workers who were left behind with no income tax relief. Of course, anyone who even casually follows these debates knows the reason these workers did not receive…

LIFE DOESN'T GET any better than this if you're a Republican. The decisive triumph in Iraq has sent President Bush's approval ratings soaring back above 70 percent, according to an April 15 NBC poll. If things go right for Republicans in '04 they could really go right. Under many plausible…

Tallahassee, Florida

NOT SINCE RECONSTRUCTION had a Republican won a governor's race in Georgia--until last November, when Sonny Perdue pulled off a stunning come-from-behind victory over incumbent Democrat Roy Barnes. But after 120 years of Republican exile from the governor's mansion, it took Gov. Perdue only about…

LAST WEEK the machinists' union indignantly rejected the latest contract offer by bankrupt United Airlines, complaining that they were being unfairly rushed into a bad deal. One could only wonder whether the union bosses have lost all sense of economic reality. With $2 billion in debt and daily…

THE ELECTION NIGHT returns were not even fully revealed before liberals began handing out recriminations. Across the country, Democratic activists and deep-pocket donors were devastated by the failure of party leaders to use the sagging economy to deliver a knockout punch to the Republicans. But…

LOS ANGELES California, the sixth largest economy in the world, is in economic and fiscal freefall. It has by far the bleakest budget outlook of any of the 50 states. Deficit projections have been revised upwards every six weeks or so. The latest two-year forecast points to $24 billion in red ink,…

FEELING BUOYANT and mighty relieved by the stream of good news on the economy for the first quarter of this year, the Bush administration refuses to leave well enough alone. The White House has been issuing triumphant press releases about how the president is responsible for this apparent recovery.…

IF YOU THOUGHT the $15 billion airline bailout bill was a bloated corporate welfare handout, wait till you see what Congress has planned for Amtrak. In the wake of September 11, with the airlines in precarious financial condition, the government-operated passenger rail service is now regarded on…

ON WEDNESDAY, November 28, two days after the U.S. economy was officially declared to be in recession, George W. Bush issued an impassioned and persuasive plea to Congress to send him "a significant package of tax cuts" that he could sign into law by Christmas. It was a terrific speech. Bush…

REPUBLICAN LEADERS at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue say the greatest danger the GOP faces today is that it might fail to pass a promised tax cut this year. They are wrong. An even bigger danger is that it might pass a tax cut so diluted of economic growth incentives as not to revive a sluggish…

FORGET ABOUT THE PRESIDENCY for a minute. Has anyone looked at what the elections have done to the world's most deliberative body? They've turned it into a chamber of horrors.

This year's congressional spending bills are coyote ugly, with federal spending exceeding the Republicans' own self-imposed budget caps by close to $ 100 billion. Republicans no longer have a credible anti-big-government agenda to promote. Nowhere is that more evident than in this year's farm bill.

WHO DESERVES the credit for balancing the federal budget? Coming after a 30-year string of budget deficits, this seemingly miraculous feat has large political ramifications. For many Americans, it is one of the great public policy accomplishments of recent times. Whichever party can lay claim to it…

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that warns: "Too little food, one problem. Too much food, many problems." What an appropriate diagnosis for this year's farm "crisis." This summer the media have saturated the airwaves with Norman Rockwell-type portraits of beleaguered family farmers in their…

AS THE HOUSE AND SENATE hammered out the final details of the more than $ 13 billion "emergency" spending bill for Kosovo last week, the real issue was never whether this extra military funding would be approved, but how it would be paid for.

ALBERT EINSTEIN IS PURPORTED to have once remarked that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. My favorite example of the power of compounding effects was recounted recently by George Gilder: The emperor of China was so excited about the game of chess that he offered the…

THROUGHOUT 1995, RALPH NADER, Joan Claybrook, and the rest of the Washington "consumer advocacy" lobby spewed venom at congressional Republicans for the death and carnage that would result from the GOP's budget and regulatory policies. On no issue was the hysteria more inflated than on what may…

As congressional Republicans reload for a new round of budget battles with the White House, they might well take the advice that critics used to give John F. Kennedy: less profile, more courage.

ON MAY 8 THE WINE INSTITUTE, one of Washington's most effective lobbying groups, held a reception at the Library of Congress attended by some 300 senators, House members, pals of the administration, congressional staffers, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees, and businessmen. Even by…

LAST YEAR BILL CLINTON, liberally dispensing vetoes, triumphed in the battle of the budget -- yet the Gingrich revolutionaries just may be winning the war.

LAST YEAR BILL CLINTON, liberally dispensing vetoes, triumphed in the battle of the budget -- yet the Gingrich revolutionaries just may be winning the war.

FOR THOSE WHO-fresh from the annual purgatory of doing their taxes -- already regard the Internal Revenue Service with dread, IRS commissioner Margaret Richardson has a solemn warning: Tax cheats and law-abiding citizens alike, get ready for the audit from Hell.

CANDIDATE BILL CLINTON'S RALLYING CRY was that America needed "the courage to change." After four years of George Bush, who could have argued? President Bill Clinton, apparently. Last week the White House released a 50-page manifesto listing 82 reasons for the president's veto of the GOP balanced…