Stephen Moore

Let the sunshine in at the Federal Reserve

I'm disappointed that I had to withdraw from the nomination to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board, because I do believe the Fed needs to change the way it operates. In the last month I started investigating how it makes its decisions that have such a dramatic impact on jobs, wages, interest rates and the overall well-being of the country. How does the board make its monetary policy decisions on setting interest rates, buying bonds and regulating our financial institutions?

May 5, 2019

Any climate change ‘solution’ that makes America poorer is not a solution

Every time a reporter asks me if I would support a carbon tax, I always say that I might if it led to a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income or payroll tax rates. And the new energy tax would have to replace onerous greenhouse gas regulations. And everytime I say this, the next day a headline reads: "Steve Moore Is For a Carbon Tax."

April 28, 2019

Why the immigration system must move away from family immigrants and more toward skill and merit

Of all America's immigrant visa programs, arguably the most successful for the U.S. economy has been the H1B program. This program admits highly-skilled foreigners that fill vital employment niches to make our Made in America businesses more successful in international markets. Larry Kudlow, the director of President Trump's National Economic Council, calls these immigrants the "brainiacs."

April 21, 2019

Is America running out of workers?

If you want one number that encapsulates the enormity of the economic turnaround under Donald Trump it is this: Today in America so far this year there have been between 7.1 million and 7.6 million unfilled jobs. This number is larger than the entire population of the state of Indiana. That is how powerful and relentless the hiring spree has been under Trump policies.

April 14, 2019

Holding commodity prices stable will help to avoid economic carnage

What caused the financial crisis and Great Recession of 20082009? A decade later, economists still don't have a good answer. Of course, the financial bubble in the housing market was the proximate cause, but this begs the question of what inflated the bubble that burst in the first place.

April 7, 2019

Elite universities sit on massive tax deducible endowments, and could be tapped to lower costs

The seething anger that Americans feel over the college admissions scandal with wealthy and well-connected families using money, influence and cheating to bump their kids up in line so they get accepted into elite schools is well-justified. Yet this scheme is small potatoes compared to the real scandal on college campuses from coast to coast. That scam is how much universities are charging families once they do get in.

March 31, 2019

The avalanche of green dollars in Barack Obama’s first term was a colossal waste of money

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal has been widely ridiculed for its massive disruption to the economy and a price tag of tens of trillions of dollars.

March 24, 2019

The Democrats’ $100 trillion agenda could easily tilt the nation toward bankruptcy

Remember when Democrats complained that $5.7 billion for a border wall was too expensive? Well, that's chump change compared to what many of the congressional Democrats and nearly all of those 15 declared Democrats in the presidential race are now rallying behind.

March 17, 2019

The Trump administration rallies behind car tariffs, but the car industry opposes them

In almost every case, whenever a tariff or quota is imposed on imports that tax is strongly supported by the domestic industry getting the protective shield from lower-priced foreign competition. The sugar industry supports sugar tariffs; textile mills lobby for tariffs on foreign clothing. The steel industry and the aluminum makers are getting rich off of the high taxes on imported metals.

March 10, 2019

Why Trump must veto the federal land grab bill

President Trump gave one of his most memorable and impactful speeches two weeks ago when he systematically dismantled the case for socialism. In that speech, he recalled the economic harm and destruction in nations that have adopted socialism, communism or Stalinism. "We will never be a socialist country," Mr. Trump pledged in his speech in Florida.

March 3, 2019

Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are careening off a progressive cliff

"This is the flip side (of) tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. The rich leave, and now what do you do?" — Andrew M. Cuomo, N.Y. governor (2/4/19)

February 24, 2019

Pro-trade Democrats go missing with Trump’s creation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement

Does anyone know where all those free trade Democrats went?

February 17, 2019

The Green New Deal would weaken the United States

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, has released her Green New Deal plan to the nation — and to great applause from the Democratic Party.

February 10, 2019

‘Democrats for border security?’

The government shutdown is over — for now — but the political ramifications are still being sorted out. The media has been chortling that Donald Trump "caved," and he may well have lost this battle with congressional Democrats. Their "victory," such as it is, is to notify American voters that they are so opposed to a wall and a secure border that they were willing to keep the government shut down for four weeks to ensure it doesn't happen.

January 27, 2019

Navigating the Nancy Pelosi shutdown

On Saturday President Trump shrewdly flipped the table on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the government shutdown standoff.

January 20, 2019

Democratic commitment to raising taxes punishes the rich, fails to help the poor

Oh how far the Democratic Party has fallen. In recent days we've seen the new darling of the Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, crusading for a 70 percent income tax rate.

January 13, 2019

Can red state and blue state America coexist?

In the months after the election of Donald Trump, there was a mini-political movement in California to get the Golden State to secede from the Union.

January 6, 2019

2018, the year of the worker

If 2017 was the year of the investor with stock market gains of more than 25 percent during President Trump's first year in office, 2018 was undoubtedly the year of the American worker.

December 30, 2018

The Federal Reserve’s logic for raising interest rates is flawed

In one of the most remarkable Abbott and Costello routines in modern times, the economic wizards at the Fed again raised interest rates on Tuesday. Their cracker jack logic for doing so is to steer America on a course toward recession so they have the tools in hand to end the recession that they themselves created. Can anyone tell us who's on first?

December 23, 2018

Follow the (climate change) money

The first iron rule of American politics is: Follow the money. This explains, oh, about 80 percent of what goes on in Washington.

December 16, 2018