Columnist.
A trade deal with China could finally be here! It's a good one, too, according to President Donald Trump, who said last week, "So, we just made what, I guess, is one of the biggest deals that's been made in a long time, with China."
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services increased to $54.9 billion in August, up from $54.0 billion in July. That's because imports grew more than exports overall.
There are many bad ideas flying around right now in Congress. The recent proposal by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to give some taxpayers a rebate check funded with the tariff loot is one of those ideas.
Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute recently complained on Twitter that those who cared about cronyism when Barack Obama was president are suddenly very quiet about President Donald Trump's bailout of farmers. There is some truth to his complaint.
Does capitalism help or hurt women? I recently participated in a debate on the topic at the Cato Institute.
On the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump said that, if elected, "We're going to win so much. You're going to get tired of winning. You're going to say, 'Please Mr. President, I have a headache. Please, don't win so much.'"
In his book "The Art of the Deal," President Donald Trump described his communication style as "truthful hyperbole." Hyperbole, sure. Truthful, questionable.
It's a fact that President Donald Trump has a remarkably large number of supporters among the voters and pundits who label themselves as "free market." They usually say something like, "Sure, I don't like his trade and immigration policies, but the rest are good." I disagree.
The U.S. government's debt — that is, our and our children's debt as taxpayers — is growing. This growth is largely driven by rising Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid obligations.
When it comes to trade policy, President Donald Trump and his adviser Peter Navarro provide endless examples of incoherent economic thinking.
Corporations don't pay taxes. People do.
There are no valid free market arguments for a nationwide, one-size-fits-all federal plan to provide paid leave. But should experimentation with this policy be off-limits to states?
This year, the deficit will end up being the fourth highest in U.S. history. It's gigantic, and it will hit a little over $1 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. It's also larger than previously projected.
When he testified before Congress last week, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell made an interesting comment: "We don't have any basis or any evidence for calling this a hot labor market."
It has always puzzled me that anyone would believe that protecting the U.S. market with tariffs is a good idea.
President Donald Trump likes to keep score. Well, here's a score for him: America, zero; while the rest of the world keeps tallying up free trade points.
When I was pregnant with my first child 16 years ago, I asked my doctor how much it would cost to pay for the birth out-of-pocket. He had no clue. The truth of the matter is that in most cases, neither doctors nor their patients have any idea what their treatments cost. That's because the health care market is not a real market.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same" is the best way to describe the lack of original thinking that is prevalent in politics. Take the recent resurgence of calls from politicians on both sides of the aisle to implement industrial policy.
The air always swirls with popular myths that, when repeated constantly, are taken by some to be indisputably true.
It's amazing what can be done to a cause in a mere four years. Back in 2015, there was widespread agreement in Congress that the Export-Import Bank — the U.S. government's export credit agency — was nothing but a crony bank, mostly serving the greedy interests of Boeing and other large companies.
