Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University constructed the diagram below using data from the Congressional Budget Office during the very early stages of the Great Recession and before the Obama presidency. It shows the increase in marginal tax rates required to fund entitlement spending for 2010, 2050 and 2082. The required increase...

by Ashley Muchow Long has it been the case that Washington politicians turn to the Zandi multiplier to justify stimulus spending under the conjecture that such spending triggers economic growth.  Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Economy.com, is regularly consulted by politicians and the press for his “Fiscal Economic Bang for the Buck” chart postulating that spending initiatives, such...

by Kate Piercy The Mercatus Institute’s Veronique de Rugy used “data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to compare recent changes in government expenditures to those in private domestic investment.” What did she find? Government consumption and investment have generally grown more quickly than private expenditures and investment during the last decade. In the last...

That is about how much it would cost to close the US budget deficit for 2010. Using data from the Tax Foundation, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center has created a chart which shows the average increase in tax burden per taxpayer required to balance the annual federal budget.  The cost to close the...