Stimulus

It's clear that President Barack Obama's $787-billion stimulus hasn't worked as advertised, but some economists are worried it could backfire and cause something much worse. According to a new study by economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute and endorsed by Nobel laureate James Buchanan, the Keynesian tactics employed by Obama "will…

Give Sharon Silke Carty of USA Today credit for unearthing important information about the serious back-office problems with Uncle Sam's Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) program, popularly known as "Cash for Clunkers." This is the program that ABC, CBS, and NBC have all characterized as "a victim of its own success." But Carty didn't do nearly as much as she could have with the information…

What is it about consequences that the liberal media and government simply cannot grasp? CNN "Newsroom" admitted Aug. 27 that new car prices are "expected" to go up as a result of the government Cash for Clunkers giveaway. Heidi Collins told viewers, "The success of the Cash for Clunkers program may be pushing new car prices higher. Dealerships are expected to have lower inventory over the…

Try to keep a straight face when you hear this: President Barack Obama isn't getting enough media love. That's the world view of MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews - at least when it comes to the economy. According to Matthews, there has been a plethora of positive economic news - from a stock market that has shrugged off the threat of bad liberal policy, i.e. cap-and-trade or ObamaCare, to…

On CNN's American Morning today, business correspondent Christine Romans explained to anchor Kiran Chetry why there are new estimates showing the Federal deficit to be much worse than originally projected by the Obama administration:ROMANS:  Why? OK, this is really -- it's a complicated problem with a very simple analysis. It's how much money the government is taking in and how much money is…

On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Ben Tracy reported on the ending of the problem-ridden Cash for Clunkers car buying program, but spun it this way: "Thanks to Cash for Clunkers, what could have been a dismal summer for car sales now has a Hollywood ending....But now, the wildly successful program that provided up to $4500 per clunker is being scrapped."Tracy visited a Los Angeles…

Ben Bernanke's able use of monetary policy to steer the economy during the current financial crisis sometimes makes it easy to forget that Bernanke helped steer the ship into that crisis early in his term as Federal Reserve Chairman and a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. That's a point Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) founder and CEO George Friedman made when asked the likelihood of…

Only $120.4 billion, or 15 percent of the gigantic $787-billion stimulus has been spent and some on the left, including Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, are already calling for Stimulus, Part II. In an interview with CNBC Asia from the World Capital Market Symposium on the Aug. 10 broadcast of "Squawk Malaysia" Krugman said the stimulus that passed…

After touting the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program as a "runaway success" and "great for the environment," Friday’s CBS Early Show finally reported on problems with the plan as co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared: "And find out why the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program could actually end up costing you long term."While previous Early Show segments on the plan gave only passing attention to its critics,…

Economists can argue back and forth in the media about the effect of big government programs such as the stimulus package and Obamacare but few things have illustrated government waste as effectively as this disturbing YouTube video in which a well running Volvo engine was destroyed as part of the Cash for Clunkers program. This video is currently going viral on the Web and has sparked outraged…

Say what you want about the Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck and his antics, but to give credit where credit is due, he exposed some disturbing language from the Obama administration's "Cash for Clunker" program Web site Cars.gov. Beck on his July 31 program hosted a segment about the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) Web site, also known as "Cash for Clunkers" and demonstrated what a Web browser…

A year ago, when the government reported second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled from the first quarter to 1.9 percent, the CBS Evening News centered a story around what Katie Couric described as “disappointing” news while ABC and NBC didn't utter a syllable about the GDP jump. But Friday night, with a different President in office, Couric crowed a one percent decline in the 2009…

Reporting on the Obama administration’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ car buying program running out of money, CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes offered a mixed message: "‘Cash for Clunkers’ has been such a runaway success....The program is so popular...word spread it would be suspended...because of fears that sales would soon swallow up the $1 billion for rebates the government had set aside."At the top of…

Newsweek magazine had yesterday a web exclusive entitled "What Green Jobs?"  Subtitled:  "Washington is spending $60 billion to create the careers of the future, but not a single green job yet exists. Obama's 'green czar' explains."The Leftist publication deserves some plaudits for exploring this $60 billion gaping hole in the $787 billion "stimulus" package President Barack Obama signed into law…