Conservative Policy Research and Analysis

ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council More than 40 years ago, a small group of state legislators and conservative policy advocates met in Chicago to implement a vision: A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty. Their vision and initiative resulted in the creation of a voluntary membership association for people who believed that government closest to the people was fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, in September 1973, state legislators, including then Illinois State Rep. Henry Hyde, conservative activist Paul Weyrich, and Lou Barnett, a veteran of then Gov.

John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes,[1] CB, FBA (/ˈkeɪnz/ KAYNZ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) was a British economist whose ideas have fundamentally affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, and informed the economic policies of governments. He built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and is widely considered to be one of the founders of modern macroeconomics and the most influential economist of the 20th century.[2][3][4][5] His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots. In 1999, Time magazine included Keynes in their list of the 100 most important and influential people of the 20th century, commenting that: "His radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved capitalism."[10] He has been described by The Economist as "Britain's most famous 20th-century economist

Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs What is RSS? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are files which can be loaded into RSS viewers, and automatically display new content from the Chatham House website. This allows you to keep up to date with news from Chatham House without having to view every section of the website. Basic Overview of Budget Deficit Debates Balanced budget debate The budget deficit is often in the media spotlight. The budget deficit is defined as the difference between what the government spends and what the government collects. Government spending takes the form of salaries, defense spending, aid programs, and other cash outflows. The Greatest Economic Myth of the Century My candidate for “greatest economic myth of the century” was popularized by British economist John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s. He thought that massive government spending would halt recessions and lead to prosperity. The myth here is that government spending, i.e. the extracting of dollars from taxpayers and then handing them out to key groups by politicians, helps the economy as a whole. Keynes worded his theory this way: “To dig holes in the ground, paid for out of savings, will increase not only employment, but the real national dividend of useful goods and services.” Keynes’s idea that government spending, even just digging holes, will lead to prosperity was discredited shortly after he announced it in 1935 during the Great Depression.

Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Burton W. Folsom, Jr. (born 1947 in Nebraska) is an American historian and author who holds the Charles F. Kline chair in history and management at Hillsdale College. Biography[edit] Folsom received his BA from Indiana University in 1970, his M.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1973, and his doctorate in history from the University of Pittsburgh in 1976. Hillsdale College Hillsdale College is a co-educational liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan, United States.National Review has described Hillsdale as a "citadel of American conservatism."[2][3] Most of the curriculum is based on and centered around the teaching of the Western heritage as a product of both the Greco-Roman culture and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hillsdale requires every student, regardless of major, to complete a core curriculum that includes courses on the Great Books and the U.S. Constitution.[4] History[edit]

'We've got to spend our way out of this recession' The U.S. government must spend its way out of the recession, the Democrats' third-ranking House leader stressed Monday. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, said that trying to find greater savings in the budget, which was released by President Barack Obama this morning, wouldn't help alleviate the recession. A Model for Repairing National Debt The more than 500 point drop in the stock market on Thursday shows that neither the public nor investors think lawmakers in Washington have developed a process or the details necessary to solve the national debt crisis. This is despite agreement to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion on Tuesday. Unless Congress, now at a record low 14% public approval rating, finds a better way to deal with partisan conflict than it has in the past year, the country risks lapsing back into the kind of recession, or worse, that we had in 2008, the last time the stock market dropped that much: 5% in the last week, 11% in two weeks.