ArcaMax

President Donald Trump's 2026 "skinny budget" is out, and at first glance it gives small-government advocates reason to cheer. It proposes deep cuts to domestic agencies, calls for eliminating redundant programs and gestures toward reviving federalism by shifting power and responsibility back to the states. It promises to slash overreaching "...Read more

When Donald Trump reentered office in 2025, he inherited a strong economy partly fueled by the possibility of lower taxes on capital, fewer overbearing regulations, energy abundance and the rise of AI. Instead of stewarding that prosperity and optimism, Trump quickly upended it through a reckless love affair with tariffs and a flair for ...Read more

History may not perfectly repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Two protectionist episodes -- the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and the Trump-era tariffs of today -- offer a striking example. Both emerged from economic nostalgia and fear of change. Both were politically attractive. And both were costly, backward-looking mistakes that ...Read more

The federal budget remains a disaster, and for all the splashy talk of cost-cutting and tariff-driven revenue, Americans know it. Especially galling is that the latest fiscal wreckage is being overseen by an administration that promised business acumen and conservative restraint. Republicans are delivering the opposite: a self-inflicted ...Read more

Republicans claim they are slashing government, but they're about to explode the budget deficit to extend President Donald Trump's tax cuts -- which would balloon interest payments on the national debt, already one of the largest expenses in the federal budget. That's no way to slash the size of government.

They could offset the lost revenue ...Read more

At this writing, President Donald Trump plans to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports from around the world. We're told that "Liberation Day" tariffs will raise $6 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade, plus another trillion from automobile tariffs. But the only true "liberation" will be us Americans -- consumers and taxpayers -- ...Read more

If you believe the political rhetoric, you probably think America's industrial base has been hollowed out, gutted or "shipped overseas." Across the ideological spectrum, people say U.S. manufacturing is in decline. They argue mostly about who's to blame and how many tariffs we need to fix the problem.

This widely told tale is wrong.

For one ...Read more

If an investment yields stagnant or negative returns despite increased funding, the rational thing to do is back off. This logic rarely applies in government, but we're in a unique moment. The U.S. Department of Education -- which has long exemplified the sunk-cost fallacy with past investments motivating continued spending -- may face a ...Read more

Since the 1950s, every effort to reduce the size and scope of government has been bulldozed by a political establishment more concerned with furthering its own interests than those of the American people. Between sacred cows and special interest groups, we're always told why nothing can get cut.

With the exception of Social Security, there is...Read more

The Department of Government Efficiency draws two extreme reactions from budget-focused observers.

On one side, you have cynics rolling their eyes and arguing that the truly consequential problem is not overpriced government boondoggles but rather entitlements like Medicare and Social Security and interest on the national debt.

On the other,...Read more

If President Donald Trump was elected with a specific mandate, it was to lower prices. Poll after poll reveals that inflation is a top worry for Americans. So the administration should be worried that it's ticking back up. Further, the president -- who seems to think he can solve all problems unilaterally with executive branch orders -- will ...Read more

Serious problems should be met with serious solutions. We have serious problems, namely a fast-growing debt and a need to extend some tax cuts in an unforgiving environment where interest rates are high and inflation is rising again. Unfortunately, despite a new mandate, House Republicans have yet to rise to the occasion. Their latest budget ...Read more

America's debt crisis is no longer a distant concern; it's an immediate threat with immediate consequences. Some politicians -- perhaps realizing that it's become more difficult to ignore the problem and avoid repercussions -- are turning to executive action. This includes the Trump administration's embrace of Elon Musk's increasingly active ...Read more