There are bad deficits and there are good deficits. What makes a fiscal deficit good or bad depends on both the context in which the deficit is run and the reason that the deficit is rising. The belief that it is unquestionably foolish to adopt policies that directly or indirectly increase the...

In this Article, I critically examine the assumption that the Social Security system faces a financing crisis and that the government can avert the crisis only by acting now to cut benefits or to raise taxes. The best conclusion we can draw from the current evidence is that the system is not...

In response to increasing calls for policies to raise the U.S. saving rate, proposals are once again being offered in Congress to change the tax base from income to consumption. Beyond the important issues of income distribution (that is, outright unfairness) inherent in such a plan, it would...

Calls either to balance the federal budget on an annual basis, or to pay down all or part of the national debt, are based on little more than uninformed intuitions that there is something inherently bad about borrowing money. We should not only ignore calls to balance the budget or to pay down...