Category Archives: Uncategorized

The first Treasury secretary backed tariffs mostly to raise revenue and promote free trade. By Phil Gramm And Donald J. Boudreaux July 8, 2026 12:23 pm ET Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have invoked the policies of the first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, as precedents for President Trump’s trade agenda. Hamilton,...

It widened the deficit—not by cutting the top rate, but purely by relieving families from automatic increases through bracket creep. By Phil Gramm and Michael Solon June 19, 2026 2:11 pm ET No major economic policy in modern American history is as misunderstood or inaccurately portrayed as President Reagan’s 1981 tax...

By Michael Solon Michael Solon is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. The backlash against artificial intelligence is not the first time Americans have tried to strangle their own prosperity. Since the fall of the Roman Empire mankind had known only stagnation – living no better than his ancestors. With...

The burden of new tariffs more than offsets the benefit of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. By Phil Gramm and Michael Solon April 28, 2026 1:07 pm ET Republicans are counting on voters being pleasantly surprised by larger-than-expected tax refunds this spring thanks to new tax cuts from the...

Trump’s tariffs didn’t spur economic growth but did encourage trade between spurned U.S. partners. By Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux April 1, 2026 4:24 pm ET A year ago Thursday, President Trump raised the average effective tariff rate to 22.5%, and proclaimed April 2 “Liberation Day,” which would “forever be...

Trump and the SEC affirm fiduciary duty, benefiting even shareholders with nonfinancial objectives. By Phil Gramm and Jeb Hensarling March 16, 2026 5:26 pm ET President Trump recently signed an executive order that aims to end a 20-year experiment in backdoor socialism usurping private wealth to serve special interests. It affirms...

Without tariffs, the first year of the president’s first term saw a healthier economy than 2025. February 9, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. EST By Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux Phil Gramm, a former U.S. Senator from Texas and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a nonresident senior fellow at the...

By Phil Gramm and Michael Solon Feb. 5, 2026 1:07 pm ET A consensus has formed that while artificial intelligence may create new and better jobs, its threat to current job holders requires massive new government training programs, unemployment assistance, income supplement programs and even a guaranteed minimum income. Missing from...

A bipartisan proposal to write checks the government can’t cash. By Jeb Hensarling and Michael Solon Jan. 7, 2026 6:12 pm ET Government insurance programs are often tied to budget-busting bailouts and economic crises. But political pressures are again driving their expansion—and when these programs fail, taxpayers are left with the...

The government gives tens of thousands of dollars in benefits to the poor, which it doesn’t count as income. By Phil Gramm and John Early Dec. 17, 2025 3:37 pm ET Something is profoundly wrong with the U.S. welfare system—a problem that runs far deeper and is more dangerous than the...