Stephen Moore

Illinois fiscal policy must be revised

The media has hyper-obsessed over the Kansas tax hike this year and has sold this as a repudiation of "supply side economics." But the real story in the states has been the catastrophic effects of "tax and spend" fiscal policy in Illinois.

June 24, 2017

Economy will grow in 2017

Every day there are legions of new economists who dismiss the Donald Trump economic agenda and his forecast of 3 percent growth as a wild-eyed fantasy. The consensus is that the economy "can't possibly grow at 3 percent" says The Wall Street Journal. "Slow growth is the new norm, so get used to it," writes Rucir Sharma, Morgan Stanley, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley in Foreign Affairs magazine this month.

June 18, 2017

Father’s Day must show appreciation for Greatest Generation

This will be the first Father's Day that I won't be able to talk to my dad by phone or in person. He died at the ripe old age of 94 back in February. Wish you could have known him.

June 15, 2017

Over The Counter Hearing Aid Act will up consumer choices

I'm technically disabled -- but not mentally disabled the way some of my foes on CNN seem to believe. No, my disability is hearing loss (in one ear I'm nearly deaf).

June 11, 2017

Climate change hypocrites violated past treaty

Maybe the phoniest and most laughable reaction to President Donald Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord was the European and Chinese leaders who blasted Mr. Trump and America for "surrendering its world leadership" role. The sanctimonious leaders in Asia and European nations pledged to move full speed ahead on clean energy with or without the United States. Be my guest.

June 4, 2017

Obamacare failure not caused by Trump

It's finally official. Obamacare is a public policy flop of epic proportions. That's the only possible conclusion from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City announcement last week that it will drop out of many markets in Kansas and Missouri.

May 28, 2017

Venezuela is a human rights disaster

I often say only half-jokingly to students on college campuses who are all in with Bernie Sanders that if they think socialism is such a wonderful economic model: how about a one-way ticket to Caracas?

May 21, 2017

The sickening effect of Obamacare taxes

In many ways was a massive trillion-dollar tax increase masquerading as a health reform plan called Obamacare.

May 14, 2017

Health insurance in America does not work

I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone in Washington or in the media has the slightest clue what insurance is? Here is a standard dictionary definition of the term: "Insurance -- A promise of compensation for specific potential future losses in exchange for a periodic payment. Insurance is designed to protect the financial well-being of an individual, company or other entity in the case of unexpected loss."

May 7, 2017

Economic growth will lower the deficit

As sure as the cuckoo clock chimes at midnight, the left is bloviating that the Trump tax plan will "blow a $5 trillion hole in the deficit." Many of the people complaining loudest were in the Obama administration and helped preside over a $9 trillion tidal wave of new debt. Now they are fiscally chaste. Sure.

April 30, 2017

Coal will have a big comeback

Buried in an otherwise humdrum jobs report for March was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Labor Department that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016 and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs.

April 16, 2017

Government makes poor people poorer

For all the obsession in Washington and in college faculty lounges over income inequality, why isn't there more outrage over government policies that exacerbate the problem? There are hundreds of programs that make the poor, poorer and increase poverty in America. Many of them were exposed last week by my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation forum on this very topic.

April 9, 2017

Medicaid’s poor design shows Congress’ poor planning

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more poorly designed program in the federal budget than Medicaid — the federal health insurance program for the poor. The costs are shared between the states and the feds, which means that the more money a state wastes under Medicaid, the bigger the check that Washington writes to the state. No wonder the program costs keep spiraling out of control.

April 2, 2017

Liberalism is false compassion

Last week on CNN I debated a liberal commentator who complained that the problem with the Trump budget blueprint is that it lacks "compassion" for the poor, children and the disabled. This woman went on to ask me how I could defend a budget that would cut Meals on Wheels, after-school programs, and special-ed funding, because without the federal dollars, these vital services would go away.

March 28, 2017

Donald Trump fiscal policy makes conservatives cheer

What hypocrites liberals and the media are. For weeks on end they've been beating up President Trump for not taking the initiative on the $10 trillion debt build-up under Barack Obama or the runaway entitlement programs that could bankrupt our nation.

March 19, 2017

Energy security requires not going ‘green’

If you listen to the media narrative on climate change and "clean energy," you'd think that the rest of the world has moved smartly and seamlessly toward 21st-century green energy, while the U.S. is the high-polluting laggard that just won't get with the program to save the planet.

March 12, 2017

Saying yes to 4 percent growth

Imagine if John F. Kennedy's advisors had told him in 1961, we will never put a man on the moon. Or what if Ronald Reagan's advisors had assured the Gipper: the Cold War is unwinnable; we should sue for peace. Actually many naysayers told JFK and Mr. Reagan exactly these things, but fortunately these presidents were visionaries. They asked: "Why not?"

March 5, 2017

States pleading poverty, demanding new taxes

Stop me if you've heard this story before. Governors and state legislators are pleading poverty again and they are demanding tax hikes of every imaginable kind. More than half the states are facing big deficits this year and they are mostly blue states like California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois and New York and Oregon. (See chart.) These are the highest tax states with some of the deepest pools of red ink. There's got to be a message here.

February 26, 2017

Federal regulation is stifling business

At the first meeting of the Trump Leadership Council -- an advisory group consisting of top CEOs from major companies -- President Donald Trump asked these business leaders what was their biggest problem. I expected the answer to be America's anti-growth tax system.

February 19, 2017