Category Archives: Uncategorized

WSJ-Biden’s IRS Chases Chump Change

The amount of improper pandemic payments dwarfs what its new agents stand to recoup for taxpayers. By Phil Gramm and Jodey Arrington Aug. 10, 2023 5:37 pm ET Criminals stole at least $1 trillion from taxpayers during the pandemic. To date the Biden administration has offered only lip service and modest...
Read more

WSJ-How Congress Can Stop Biden’s Regulatory Onslaught

If they stay united, House Republicans can use the power of the purse to restrain unilateral executive action. By Phil Gramm and Mike Solon July 13, 2023 5:38 pm ET Before the rise of the regulatory state, America’s economic exceptionalism flowed from clear constitutional boundaries between the spheres of individual freedom and government...
Read more

WSJ-The Real Stakes of the Debt-Ceiling Fight

Unrestrained spending would crowd out private economic activity and risk triggering a recession. By Phil Gramm and Mike Solon May 21, 2023 5:04 pm ET House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last month mustered the votes for a bill to raise the debt ceiling, thanks in no part to his Democratic colleagues. His victory shifted the topography...
Read more

WSJ-The ‘Gilded Age’ Myth, Then and Now

‘Robber barons’ of the 19th and 21st centuries enrich, not exploit, the poor and middle class. By Phil Gramm and Amity Shlaes May 7, 2023 4:29 pm ET Everything old is new again, and blaming the rich for America’s woes is no exception. The rise of progressivism before the turn of the 20th...
Read more

WSJ-Biden Is Transformational, and Not in a Good Way

His regulatory barrage and failed Progressive-era policies imperil economic exceptionalism in the U.S. By Phil Gramm and Pat Toomey April 24, 2023 1:14 pm ET From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, from the Permian Basin to the Chicago Loop, an iron net of regulation has descended across the American economy. Churchill’s metaphor conveys...
Read more

WSJ-The Global Minimum Tax Shakedown

Biden is holding Congress hostage: Impose the levy, or see foreign nations seize American profit anyway. By Phil Gramm and Mike Solon April 6, 2023 6:34 pm ET The Biden administration wants to make the world safer for tax increases. That’s the message the White House has sent by enjoining the Organization for...
Read more

WSJ-In Today’s Banking Crisis, Echoes of the ’80s

Losses at SVB, Signature and other banks reflect the risk from borrowing short and lending long. By Charles W. Calomiris and Phil Gramm March 28, 2023 3:30 pm ET It’s natural to look to the 2008 subprime crisis for insights about why our banking system is at risk. But that crisis was a...
Read more

WSJ-The Reagan Revolution Was Built on Compromise

Some GOP lawmakers have forgotten that politics is about what’s possible, not what’s perfect. By Phil Gramm Feb. 22, 2023 4:54 pm ET Nowhere have Republicans done themselves more harm than in debasing the GOP’s brand as the party of fiscal responsibility, less government and more freedom. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s effort...
Read more

WSJ-The SEC Seeks to Supplant the Market

Its mandate doesn’t include telling CEOs how to run their companies and investors how to invest. By Phil Gramm and Hester Peirce Jan. 19, 2023 3:16 pm ET When the financial crisis ended in the summer of 2009, economic prognosticators were virtually unanimous in predicting a strong, sustained recovery. But Obama-era regulatory policy...
Read more