Larry Kudlow
L
awrence Kudlow is CNBC’s senior contributor. He was previously host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report.
He is the host of The Larry Kudlow Show, which broadcasts each Saturday from 10 A.M. – 1 P.M. on WABC Radio, and is syndicated nationally by Cumulus Media.
Kudlow is a contributing editor of National Review magazine, as well as a columnist and economics editor for National Review Online. He is the author of American Abundance: The New Economic and Moral Prosperity, published by Forbes in January 1998.
During President Reagan’s first term, Kudlow was the associate director for economics and planning, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, where he was engaged in the development of the administration’s economic and budget policy.
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Extraordinary Commitment Award from St. Patrick’s Church of Redding, Connecticut; the Bishop’s Humanitarian Award from the Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens; the Humanitarian Award from the Pregnancy Care Center of New Rochelle, New York; the Distinguished Communicator Award from the Brooklyn Diocese; and the Ambassadors for Mission Award from the Pontifical Mission Societies of the United States.
In addition, Mr. Kudlow received the Spirit Award from Hazelden Foundation of Center City, Minnesota; the Exemplary Achievement Award from Covenant House of New York; the Ethical Angel Award from the Guardian Angels of New York; the Reagan Great Communicator Award from the New York Young Republicans Club; the Discovery Award from Sacred Heart University; the Visionary Award from the Council for Economic Education; the Community Recognition Award from Positive Directions; the Reflection Award from Good Counsel; and the President’s Award from Silver Hill Hospital.
Kudlow received an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) from Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, in 2009 and an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Rochester in 2013. He was a 2014 Media Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
He is presently on the board of directors of the Catholic Cluster School of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, a member of St. Patrick’s Church parish council, and a former Fordham University board of trustees member.
Kudlow is CEO of Kudlow & Co., LLC, an economic research firm (www.kudlow.com).
He was formerly chief economist and senior managing director of Bear Stearns & Company. He started his professional career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he worked in open-market operations and bank supervision.
Kudlow was educated at the University of Rochester and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
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Don’t expect any miracles from the economy. But don’t expect a collapse either. In political terms, it’s kind of a Mexican standoff. Team Obama says they saved us from another Great Depression. And they point out that 3.1 ... -
A Challenge for Hillary Clinton: Return to a JFK Growth Agenda
When John F. Kennedy was elected president he surprised both Democrats and Republicans with a bold tax-cutting plan to solve the problem of a moribund economy. He had campaigned on “getting the country moving again,” and had set a 5 percent ... -
Curb Your Economic Pessimism
The economy has been in a tepid, soft, slow recovery for the past five-and-a-half years. It’s the weakest rebound in generations. The Commerce Department’s revision of fourth-quarter GDP shows that nothing much has changed. Over the past year, ... -
King Dollar Naysayer Nonsense
Despite the conventional criticisms of the financial commentariat, both theory and evidence argue for a strong, stable, and reliable currency as a crucial channel to prosperity. Just think of the reverse: If you could devalue your way into prosperity, Argentina ... -
Captain Rick Perry
‘More than any election since 1980,” ace pollster Kellyanne Conway tells me, “2016 will be a national-security contest.” And she says former governor Rick Perry may have the best chance to convince voters that he can be commander-in-chief. Let’s think on ... -
What Scott Walker Actually Said
Yes, believe it or not, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker actually spoke at some length at the dinner this past week where Rudy Giuliani charged that President Obama doesn’t love America. All the hullabaloo went to Giuliani, but in terms ... -
After Mitt: A GOP Message of Incentives, Sound Money, and Growth
Mitt Romney showed once again that he is truly a class act. In his announcement that he will not be running for president in 2016, he stated, “I believe that one of our next generation of Republican leaders, one who may ... -
Jindal’s Brilliant Take on Radical Islam
‘Let’s be honest here. Islam has a problem.” Those are key sentences in an incredibly hard-hitting speech that Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal will give in London on Monday. It is the toughest speech I have read on the whole ... -
Optimism for 2015
Politics and the economy are both looking up. President Obama’s big-government spending, planning, and executive-branch overreach were crushed at the polls. Elections matter. The GOP has been rejuvenated. Republican governors will lead the way. And the Republican majorities in ... -
Lower Oil Prices Are a Free-Market Victory
Seldom has so much good news been portrayed so negatively. Oil prices continue to fall in the U.S. and around the world, but near everyone in the media is grumpy about it. The headlines today are among the silliest ... -
Marriage Is Pro-Growth
The greatest economic challenge of our time is how to restore economic growth. Over the past dozen years, average real growth has slowed to 1.8 percent annually, under both Republican and Democratic presidents and congresses. It’s a bipartisan problem. And ... -
For 2016, Hillary Had the Worst Night
We all know the Republican midterm landslide was largely a repudiation of President Obama’s policies and his handling of the job of chief executive. And of course, we don’t know who will succeed him in 2016. But buried deep ... -
The Optimistic GOP Story Everyone Is Missing
The vast majority of political journalists — and I include some of my conservative colleagues — are missing a very big story. The Republicans are going to recapture the Senate, picking up more seats than most any forecaster expects. And the House ... -
How about a Little Optimism?
So President Obama gives a major economics speech towards the end of last week, and the next week stocks get clobbered. It was the worst correction in many months. There’s probably no direct cause and effect here. But it’... -
The Return of King Dollar
Maybe the U.S. economy, a weakling for the last six years, is finally starting to flex some muscle. We’re referring to the return of King Dollar. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the greenback is in ... -
A Bold and Optimistic GOP Can Create a Wave Election
If the Republican party adopts a clear, optimistic, growth-and-reform message to turn America around, it can win big in November. It could still be a wave election. But so far it hasn’t done it. The party is essentially asking ... -
The Obama Bank Shakedown
The $16.65 billion settlement by Bank of America over financial-crisis-era mortgage securities “highlights a pattern of the government extorting the banks,” Dick Kovacevich said on CNBC this week. (Italics mine.) Kovacevich is the former Wells Fargo chairman and CEO. I’ve ... -
Governor Perry Still Looks Strong
The so-called “abuse of power” indictment of Texas governor Rick Perry is not only not going to hurt him in the 2016 GOP sweepstakes, it might actually help him. I say that because Perry immediately fired back at the charges with ... -
Lower Benefits, Higher Jobs
Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor of California, just recounted in the Wall Street Journal his week on the streets of Fresno posing as a homeless man looking for work. At the end of his op-ed, Kashkari lamented that ... -
What if Obama Defended American Business?
Just for once, wouldn’t it be great if President Obama actually defended American business, instead of attacking it? Just once? Wouldn’t it be great if Obama acknowledged that U.S. firms are overburdened by the highest corporate tax ... -
The Recovery at Five Years
The following testimony was offered by Larry Kudlow before the congressional Joint Economic Committee on July 15, 2014. As we all know, the current economic recovery is sub-par. In fact, at roughly 2 percent average real growth over the past five years, it’... -
GOP: Just Say No to Ex-Im
Why in the world would Congress want to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank? Known as “Bank of Boeing,” Ex-Im is the perfect example of corporate welfare, crony capitalism, fraud, and corruption. Get rid of it. It’s a government-sponsored menace that ... -
David Brat, Right on Free-Market Economics
Listening to David Brat on election night, following his upset win over Eric Cantor in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, I heard a principled, free-market, pro-growth individual who is going to make an excellent Republican House member. Mr. Brat, the ... -
Immigration Reform Is Pro-Growth and Pro-GOP
Tea-party activist Sal Russo offered an eye-opening remark this week. He said “Conservatives should be leaders in the immigration-reform movement.” Then tax-reform activist Grover Norquist organized a media conference call, in which he reinforced his support of immigration reform. American ... -
Anti-Business Obama Strikes Again
When President Obama holds back approval of the Keystone pipeline, for the umpteenth time, it’s bad enough that he’s politically pandering to Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire and manic radical opponent of fossil fuels. If he gives in ... -
Charles Koch Fights Back
Is it too farfetched to connect the dots between a brilliant Wall Street Journal op-ed by Charles Koch, the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, and the continued sluggish recovery in jobs, business investment, and the overall economy? I don’... -
Deflating Russia Can Be Done
President Obama has ramped up his second round of economic and financial sanctions on Russia, and on Vladimir Putin in particular. Some of this is already working. But if anybody believes it will be easy to financially deflate Russia, they ... -
Bitcoin Is Not Real Money
Just before the bankruptcy of the Mt. Gox bitcoin digital-money (or virtual-currency) exchange, Japanese finance minister Taro Aso predicted the inevitable failure. “No one recognizes them as a real currency,” he told reporters. “I expected such a thing to collapse.” ... -
Janet Yellen’s Problem
Stock markets cheered Janet Yellen’s maiden congressional testimony this past week, as the new Fed chair emphasized the word “continuity” and offered no boat-rocking surprises. Continuity? I assume she means a steady diet of tapered bond purchases that will ... -
Left Turn in the Emerging Markets
There’s a new cynical perception among international investors that Brazil is becoming Argentina and Argentina is becoming Venezuela. But these investors are starting to boycott all the so-called emerging markets, since nearly all them are moving to the left, ... -
Fort Lee Mayor Says Christie’s Story Lacks Credibility
Fort Lee, N.J., mayor Mark Sokolich told me on last night’s Kudlow Report that New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s statement regarding the politically motivated closure incident at the George Washington Bridge lacks credibility. Here’s the video ... -
Enough Pot Happy Talk
There was way too much giddiness in the media about the first day of legal pot selling in Colorado. Instead of all the happy talk, I think it’s time for some sober discussion and a strong dose of education ... -
Ryan Saves GOP from Itself
Did Paul Ryan’s budget deal save the Republican party from itself? I think it did. Everyone acknowledges that Ryan-Murray is not a great deal. But the fact is, its passage will avoid a government shutdown. That’s crucial. If ... -
Yellen Needs Rules
The greatest central banker in my professional lifetime was Paul Volcker. His signal achievement was bringing down the inflation rate from roughly 15 percent to about 3 percent more than three decades ago. The simplest way to look at the economic evils ... -
Attack Obamacare, but Talk Growth Too
There’s no question that the catastrophic debut of Obamacare — including the website breakdown and the millions of pink-slip cancellations — will be a great card for Republicans to play on the way to the 2014 midterm elections. No question. The president ... -
No Delay, GOP
One huge political question surrounds the catastrophic launch of Obamacare: Will the administration double-talk, cancelled insurance contracts for millions, terminated doctor-patient relationships, sticker shock from higher premiums and deductibility, and damage to job hiring and economic growth get the GOP ... -
Republicans Must Get Wise to Obama’s Hard-Line Fiscal Strategy
Judging from the speech Obama gave following the deal to end the government shutdown, Republicans better get wise to the president’s next fiscal gambit when the three-month stop-gap budget and debt measures come due. As was the case with ... -
Obama’s Reckless Default Fear-mongering
Never before has an American president threatened and risked the U.S. economy and financial markets the way Barack Obama has in recent days. For his own narrow political ends, Obama and his minions have actually accused the Republican party ... -
Sell the Individual-Mandate Delay
The defeat of Senator Ted Cruz’s defunding strategy may not be the end of the fight to overturn Obamacare. In some sense, for free-market conservatives who want consumer choice and private-sector competition, this whole debate is about good versus ... -
Rules over Politics at the Fed
When Montana Democratic senator Jon Tester announced last Friday that he would vote against Larry Summers’s putative candidacy for Fed chairman if it came before the Senate Banking Committee, he put a dagger in Summers’s Fed career before ... -
Geithner to the Rescue?
When it comes to Fed policy, one of the hottest topics on Wall Street is the next Fed chair. Who will replace Ben Bernanke? And believe it or not, Timothy Geithner’s name may be resurfacing. Is it possible that ... -
Summers’s End
The Federal Reserve made news this past week in two separate events. The first came with the Fed’s policy meeting on Wednesday, when the central bank gave no hint that it would taper or slow its QE bond purchases ... -
A Kemp Growth Plan for Detroit
With Detroit filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, everybody knows major root-canal cutbacks are coming. Cutbacks of out-of-control government spending, pensions, and health benefits. Major cutbacks. We know that. We also know that the downfall of Detroit is again proof positive that ... -
Bernanke’s Bumpy Ride
No matter how many monetary officials try to sugarcoat it with damage control, the fact remains that the Ben Bernanke Fed wants to end its quantitative-easing bond-buying operations over the next year. That was Bernanke’s statement at his last ... -
Bernanke Jumps the Gun
Without intending to — and perhaps without even realizing it — the normally cautious Fed head Ben Bernanke may have launched a major tightening policy during his news conference on Wednesday. The de facto policy shift immediately sparked a rout on Wall ... -
Scandals, Jobs & the Economy
When President Richard Nixon collided with the Watergate scandal he was a very unpopular man. The nation at the time was suffering one of the worst recessions in history, and one of the highest inflation rates, too. So Watergate sunk ... -
Tax Reform Is the IRS Fix
Apart from criminal prosecution, the best way to strip the power of politics and corruption from the IRS is to initiate broad-based, pro-growth tax reform and simplification. It’s the complexity of the tax code that nurtures the corruptness of ... -
No Less Than a Special Counsel
An independent special counsel with subpoena power is the only possible solution to the IRS mess. This counsel must find out exactly what happened and who was involved, and then come up with a fix so it never happens again. ... -
Immigration Reform Is Pro-Growth
At the end of the day, the battle over immigration reform is not about dollars and cents. It’s about the soul of a nation. President Reagan reminded us that America must remain a “beacon” and a “shining city on ... -
April Jobs Aside, We’re Falling Behind
The really good news from April’s employment report is that all the pessimistic, end-of-the-world, spring-swoon forecasters were wrong. It wasn’t a fabulous report. But it handily beat Wall Street expectations. Stock markets soared on the news. The bad ...
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Snarking Hillary Is Not the Way to the White House
A number of GOP candidates are engaging in Hillary-bashing over allegations that she used her office as secretary of state to help her husband’s business dealings, prop up speech-making fees, and grease the path for foreign governments to donate ... -
Tougher Sanctions Necessary to Force Iran to Change Its Terrorist Ways
If recent news accounts are to be believed, the framework of agreement between the U.S. and Iran is on the rocks. Iran’s top officials, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, are saying economic sanctions must end ... -
Petraeus Puts the Icing on Bibi’s Iran Cake
Don’t just rely on Benjamin Netanyahu’s passionate advice to Congress on his way to reelection that Iran is our arch enemy. Now we have the counsel of retired general David Petraeus, who gave a remarkable interview this week ... -
Hillary’s Judgment Problem
Hillary acknowledging that it would have been better to use two e-mail accounts is about as close to an apology from the Clintons you’ll ever get. But the matter of “convenience” is just nonsense, as everyone knows. Even a ... -
Ruling the Fed
Fed chair Janet Yellen testified this week on the state of the economy. The only interesting thing to come of it was some sharp-edged criticism by Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee. That includes committee chair Jeb Hensarling, ... -
Presidents’ Day Musings
Let me begin with Presidents’ Day. It’s a nice long weekend. But it says nothing about the greatness of certain American presidents. Whatever happened to Washington’s Birthday? Or Lincoln’s Birthday? Of course, I could go for Reagan’... -
Commonsense Economics: Capital = Consumer Spending
It’s too easy to label President Obama’s State of the Union as more tax-the-rich and redistribution. We know that. Rather than name-calling, Republicans must draw a clear line in the sand between their worldview and Obama’s. I’... -
Corker’s Folly
What can Senator Bob Corker be thinking? On his first Sunday-news-show appearance of the year, right at the beginning of a new Republican Senate era, does Corker communicate a new GOP message of growth and reform? Does he talk about ... -
Lower Oil and King Dollar Are Unambiguously Good
We all know that the American energy revolution, led by the new technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, has created a flood of new shale-oil and natural-gas production that has overwhelmed world markets and driven prices down by roughly 40 ... -
What about the Brainiacs?
Is this immigration game really worth the candle? I think not. And I say this as someone who is an immigration reformer, not a restrictionist. The free movement of trade, capital, and labor is strongly pro-growth. History shows that legal ... -
Prescription for a Stronger Economy: Marriage
I spoke at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation dinner last week. Nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas wrote this column about my remarks: At a dinner sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation last Thursday (I am an unpaid national advisory ... -
A Return to the JFK-Reagan Economic Model
Election Day will produce a new Republican Congress, or so the latest polls tell us. If so, the huge losses for the Obama Democrats — both in 2010 and this year — will have come in large measure from the economic failures of ... -
Lower Oil Prices Are Unambiguously Good
Steep stock market corrections often create shrouds of pessimism that do bad things to people’s brainpower. And one of the absolutely stupidest things I have heard in recent weeks is that the recent drop in oil prices is bad. ... -
None Can Call It Treason
A couple of weeks ago at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, several hundred people went to their feet to applaud a speech delivered by David H. Koch. The occasion was the opening of the Met’s new faç... -
Support Obama’s New ISIS Plan
I know he’s made a million mistakes. And I have opposed nearly all his domestic and international policies. But after watching Obama’s intense ISIS speech Wednesday night, and reading the text several times, I think the president basically — ... -
Blame Socialism, Not Shinseki
The VA problem is not Shinseki, it’s socialism. The Veterans Affairs health-care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review editor Rich Lowry calls it “an island of socialism in American health care.” He ... -
On Mike Pence
The New York Times front page profile on my friend, Rep. Mike Pence, ’Star of the Right Loses His Base at the Border,’ is really all about the anti-immigration, far-right group led by Tom Tancredo of Colorado to oppose any ... -
Secular Stagnation Is a Cover-Up
John F. Kennedy campaigned for president in 1960 by belittling Dwight Eisenhower’s three recessions and declaring, “We can do bettah.” He was right. In the 1960s, after the Kennedy tax cuts were implemented, prosperity returned, the economy grew by almost 4 ... -
Where Is the GOP’s Better Deal?
Businesses created over 200,000 new jobs for the sixth straight month. Second-quarter GDP rebounded by 4 percent from the winter-weather doldrums. And the ISM manufacturing report exceeded all expectations, with big gains in new orders and employment. So on the surface the ... -
Obama Is Crushing the Reagan Link, and Putin Knows It
Across his remarkably successful presidency, Ronald Reagan repeatedly made the link between the U.S. economy and U.S. international security and defense. He consistently argued that weakness at home leads to weakness abroad. Reagan was aiming at the dismal ... -
Under the Good Jobs-Report Hood
Good news for the American worker: Employment in June surged 288,000, with a 262,000 gain in the private sector, easily beating the consensus forecast of 215,000 new payrolls. This marks the fifth consecutive monthly increase of 200,000 or more jobs, the best five-month stretch ... -
Steve Scalise, a Rising Conservative Star
‘Reinvigorating the leadership” is how one senior House staffer described the ascendency of Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who won a first-ballot victory for the position of GOP whip. The staffer went on to portray Scalise as not a member ... -
Blame Socialism, Not Shinseki
The VA problem is not Shinseki, it’s socialism. The Veterans Affairs health-care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review editor Rich Lowry calls it “an island of socialism in American health care.” He ... -
Game-Changer Jobs Report?
Does a solid jobs report change the overall economic picture, and offer the beleaguered Democratic party a new leg up for the midterm elections? My answer is no and no. Even with all the political slicing and dicing that accompany ... -
Yellen’s Low-flation Nonsense
Will somebody please explain to me how rising inflation is somehow going to extricate us from the tepid economic recovery? I don’t get it. It used to be hypothesized that low inflation was the key to high economic growth. ... -
Thanks and Gratitude
The following is an excerpt from the final episode of The Kudlow Report, which aired last Friday. It’s a thank-you note to a great network, wonderful colleagues, and the best audience a person could ask for. I truly am ... -
Republicans Hammer Away on the Growth Theme
Sizing up last week’s unexpected congressional win by Florida Republican David Jolly, Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “The Republicans who win this fall will be those who have serious answers to the attacks leveled on them — ... -
A Three-Year Obamacare Moratorium
Slowly but surely President Obama is unwinding, rolling back, and even cancelling his very own Obamacare. A couple of years ago he told Republicans not to mess with his plan. He said he’d veto any changes. But now, in ... -
Obama’s Work Trap
So let me get this right. Team Obama taxes millionaires who create jobs, while Obamacare creates incentives not to work at those jobs. No wonder recovery is so anemic. The policy here is to create fewer jobs and induce people ... -
Business Wants Growth, Growth, Growth
Growth, growth, growth is the new mantra of the venerable Business Roundtable, whose member companies generate annual revenues of more than $7 trillion while employing 16 million workers. In past years, the BRT has put out lengthy pamphlets proposing intricate solutions for ... -
Fort Lee Mayor Says Christie’s Story Lacks Credibility
Fort Lee, N.J., mayor Mark Sokolich told me on last night’s Kudlow Report that New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s statement regarding the politically motivated closure incident at the George Washington Bridge lacks credibility. Here’s the video ... -
Bernanke Gets Taper Call Right
So Fed chairman Ben Bernanke finally pulled the taper trigger this week. And it was the right thing to do. Stocks soared. And even with some backing-and-forthing, gold, commodity indexes, and the dollar were basically stable. In other words, financial ... -
The Challenge is Growth, Not Inequality
Either President Obama needs a new speech writer, or he needs a new set of economic policies. Actually, he needs both. Can anyone think of a more boring, banal, irrelevant, or stale speech than the one he gave this Thursday ... -
An Interview with Scott Walker
Following is the video and transcript of my Tuesday night interview with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. In addition to discussing Walker’s new book, Unintimidated, and his heroic stand against the unions in Wisconsin, we talk Obamacare, Obama’s polls, ... -
The Liberal Entitlement-State Dream Is Crumbling
May I ask this question? Why is it that Americans don’t have the freedom to choose their own health insurance? I just don’t get it. Why must the liberal nanny state make decisions for us? We can make ... -
Republicans Must Get Wise to Obama’s Hard-Line Fiscal Strategy
Judging from the speech Obama gave following the deal to end the government shutdown, Republicans better get wise to the president’s next fiscal gambit when the three-month stop-gap budget and debt measures come due. As was the case with ... -
Republicans Must Get Wise to Obama’s Hard-Line Fiscal Strategy
Judging from the speech Obama gave following the deal to end the government shutdown, Republicans better get wise to the president’s next fiscal gambit when the three-month stop-gap budget and debt measures come due. As was the case with ... -
Senator McConnell: White House Meeting ‘Unproductive’
I interviewed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday night’s Kudlow Report. When I asked him about that day’s shutdown meeting at the White House, McConnell described it as “unproductive.” Here’s a report on the interview by ... -
Non-Germane President Obama
One of the biggest mistakes President Obama is making in the current debate over the threat of a government shutdown and the failure to raise the debt ceiling is his repeated and stubborn refusal to negotiate. In speech after speech, ... -
A No Vote on Syria . . .
President Obama, speaking at the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg on Friday, reminded me of an investment banker trying to sell a deal he doesn’t believe in. And the customer knows it. Halting. Hesitant. Uncertain. Uncomfortable. That’s what ... -
Obama Skips the Kennedy Tax Cuts
After delivering a number of “economic growth” speeches this summer, President Obama has failed to inspire any confidence, falling all the way back to square one in a recent Gallup poll. Actually, make that less than square one. Gallup reported ... -
A Kemp Growth Plan for Detroit
With Detroit filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, everybody knows major root-canal cutbacks are coming. Cutbacks of out-of-control government spending, pensions, and health benefits. Major cutbacks. We know that. We also know that the downfall of Detroit is again proof positive that ... -
Bernanke’s Bumpy Ride
No matter how many monetary officials try to sugarcoat it with damage control, the fact remains that the Ben Bernanke Fed wants to end its quantitative-easing bond-buying operations over the next year. That was Bernanke’s statement at his last ... -
Deflationary Rate Hike?
In the aftermath of Ben Bernanke’s announced timetable for ending Fed bond purchases, long-term interest rates have jumped up while stock prices have cratered down. As I wrote yesterday, I think the Bernanke plan is premature — especially in a 2 ... -
Bernanke Jumps the Gun
Without intending to — and perhaps without even realizing it — the normally cautious Fed head Ben Bernanke may have launched a major tightening policy during his news conference on Wednesday. The de facto policy shift immediately sparked a rout on Wall ... -
Scandals, Jobs & the Economy
When President Richard Nixon collided with the Watergate scandal he was a very unpopular man. The nation at the time was suffering one of the worst recessions in history, and one of the highest inflation rates, too. So Watergate sunk ... -
Tax Reform Is the IRS Fix
Apart from criminal prosecution, the best way to strip the power of politics and corruption from the IRS is to initiate broad-based, pro-growth tax reform and simplification. It’s the complexity of the tax code that nurtures the corruptness of ... -
No Less Than a Special Counsel
When you get right down to it, the political targeting and stalling of tax-exempt applications by the IRS was an effort to defund the Tea Party. Rick Santelli, one of the Tea Party founders and my CNBC colleague, was the ... -
Immigration Reform Is Pro-Growth
At the end of the day, the battle over immigration reform is not about dollars and cents. It’s about the soul of a nation. President Reagan reminded us that America must remain a “beacon” and a “shining city on ... -
April Jobs Aside, We’re Falling Behind
The really good news from April’s employment report is that all the pessimistic, end-of-the-world, spring-swoon forecasters were wrong. It wasn’t a fabulous report. But it handily beat Wall Street expectations. Stock markets soared on the news. The bad ...