Economy

More than a decade after publisher Steve Forbes’s flat-tax platform temporarily vaulted him to the top of the pack of GOP presidential candidates, another prospective Republican presidential candidate is making tax simplification a centerpiece of his 2008 campaign. In announcing his exploratory committee, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback argued “We need a flat tax instead of the dreadful,…

Lordy, Lordy (HT Instapundit), the economic "surprises" don't stop. The report is from AFP:Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called "soft landing" may be over and growth is accelerating.Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US job creation, the trade balance and…

(SEE Editor's Note Below)________________________________Fishing around in the now widely-known Samoan exception to the recently passed Minimum Wage bill (where tuna industry workers there are apparently being paid $3.26 an hour), Andy's Angle cast a wide net and hauled in the following:The interesting thing, however, is that the largest employer in American Samoa is Del Monte Foods' StarKist…

John Kerry's notorious "stuck in Iraq" statement, echoed by actor Matt Damon, suggesting that the United States military is a last resort for those without the education or finances to pursue other options, has been roundly refuted by Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Bill Carr. Among other areas, Carr has responsibility for recruiting and retenton. Secretary Carr appeared on yesterday's…

Associated Press reporter Martin Crutsinger reported this morning that retail sales in December came in better than expected: Retail sales rose in December at the strongest pace in five months, indicating that the all-important holiday shopping season turned out better than original reports indicated. The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales increased 0.9 percent last month, the…

It is very rare that a conservative agrees with anything published by Newsweek. Yet, Robert J. Samuelson wrote an article Wednesday that will likely shock most NewsBusters readers (emphasis mine throughout):As someone born in late 1945, I say this to the 76 million or so subsequent baby boomers and particularly to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, our generation's leading politicians: shame on us…

Chances are if you hate what you make at your job, you either ask the boss for a raise or seek a job that pays more. Chances are you don't wait 10 years for your pay to increase. But ABC's Charles Gibson apparently thinks millions of Americans are mired in a decade-long drought of minimum wage pay. "After years of waiting, millions of Americans have reason tonight to plan on a pay raise. The…

An unbylined report on unemployment claims by the Associated Press is a classic of the genre (bold is mine): The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims dropped by 26,000 to 299,000 last week on a seasonally adjusted basis. It marked the first time jobless claims have fallen below 300,000 since the week of July 22. The improvement was much better than the decline…

Hard to believe that a woman with a master's degree from the Northwestern Medill J-school would do this, but CNN correspondent Lisa Sylvester did, and where else but on "Lou Dobbs Tonight", that bulwark of "advocacy journalism."In its rush to anger viewers about private company “ownership” of public roads, the January 9 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” presented only one proponent of privatized toll roads,…