Those spoilsports at the Show-Me Institute are throwing cold water on Missouri politicians’ dream of building a high-speed rail line. They’ve published a new study by Randal O’Toole that says a Kansas City-St. Louis linewould cost $875 million to build, post…

Tim Fischesser, executive director of the St. Louis County Municipal League, belatedly wants to take issue with the assertion that St. Louis is getting its fair share of stimulus dollars. In a July 9 post, I cited an IHS Global…

It’s too early to talk about the need for additional fiscal stimulus, University of Illinois economist J. Fred Giertz says. He believes the recession will end this year, and notes that most of this year’s $787 billion stimulus package hasn’t…

As the New York Times reported Thursday morning, many of the nation’s biggest cities are not getting their fair share of highway spending from the federal stimulus bill. Overall, according to a study that IHS Global Insight did for the U.S.…

If it’s April, it must be time for the battle of the tax-policy wonks. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation issued a report yesterday declaring that Tax Freedom Day falls on April 13 this year, and the more liberal Center on Budget and…

We’re getting $288 billion of tax relief as part of this year’s economic stimulus package. So, will it really stimulate the economy?

Maybe a third of it will, if consumers follow the pattern they did last year.  In case you’ve forgotten, back…

In the debate over the economic-stimulus bill, much attention was paid to the money that would go into energy-saving projects, bridges and tax breaks for ordinary Americans. Now, it turns out that a big chunk of the money may find its…

You’ve read repeatedly that the fiscal stimulus law contains about $500 billion of federal spending and a little less than $300 billion of tax cuts. Howard Gleckman at the Tax Policy Center figures, though, that the tax cuts may end up…

Even as an $819 billion economic stimulus bill moves forward in Congress, about 200 economists have signed an advertisement saying that it won’t work. The ad, funded by the Cato Institute, starts out with a quote from Barack Obama saying that “there is…

Arthur Laffer, the economist best known for the Laffer curve, has never been a fan of big government. A severe recession hasn’t changed that view, he made clear in a speech Friday to the Association for Corporate Growth in St.…