TFTalk

TFTalk

Why Throwing Money at ‘Infrastructure’ Won’t Fix It

The Fiscal TimesFebruary 6, 2015

America’s infrastructure has a problem. That seems to be the only thing everyone can agree on anymore. But ask how to fix the problem, or pay for the fixes, and you simply open another front in the ongoing war between, well, any two groups on the American stage. 

The basic need is clear. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently introduced a bill to increase federal infrastructure spending by $1 trillion over five years. High profile columnist/economists like Paul...

Fashion and the Immigration Debate Meet in Washington

The Fiscal TimesJune 18, 2014

The ongoing immigration debate in Washington is often a stranger to both class and humor. Tuesday was the exception.

At the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, fifteen candidates for U.S. citizenship from fifteen different countries officially became citizens after taking the Oath of Allegiance, which was administered by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.

Related: Could Hillary Clinton Have...

Obama's Idea of Rescuing African Elephants Will Only Kill Them

The Fiscal TimesMarch 14, 2014

Bad news: The Obama White House has resolved to save African elephants. The administration has adopted a two-pronged approach – new, overreaching regulations that impact collectors and museums worldwide, and an aggressive program to destroy confiscated ivory stocks. Nothing good can come of this.

As I have discussed before, the U.S. government in recent years has attacked the trafficking in illegal ivory – harvested from the tusks of...

Cruz: The Tea Party Texan Who Wants to Save America from Itself

The Fiscal TimesFebruary 27, 2014

Everywhere Ted Cruz goes, people are frightened. To hear him tell it, the freshman senator from Texas can’t so much as cross the street without someone stopping him, putting a hand on his shoulder, and saying, “Ted, I’m scared. I’m scared for this country.”

In a sit-down interview with Politico’s Mike Allen on Thursday, Ted Cruz said people are worried about the country, in part, because things are “eerily similar” to the economic “malaise”...

How Many Celebrities Does It Take to Make a Super Bowl?

The Fiscal TimesFebruary 3, 2014

It was just after the top of the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLVIII when I caught a glimpse of John Stamos and some of his old “Full House” buddies in a commercial for Oikos, Dannon’s Greek yogurt.

“Hey, it’s John Stamos,” the people in my living room said as they gawked. He looked older than most in the room remembered him but it didn't matter. 

Related:  Super Bowl:  Can Celebrities Break Through the Ad Clutter?

“I’m...

Do Governors Make Better Presidents? Maybe Not After These Scandals

The Fiscal TimesJanuary 22, 2014

The conventional political wisdom has been that governors made the strongest presidential candidates. 

Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush both parlayed years in the Arkansas and Texas governor’s mansions into two-term presidencies. So did Ronald Reagan. The 2010 gubernatorial wave election that thrust Republicans Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott, John Kasich and Susana Martinez into state houses across the country seemingly produced a promising crop of future presidential candidates. And Republican Mitt Romney proved in 2012 that his...

Budget Bloodletting at DOD Has Just Begun

The Fiscal TimesJanuary 13, 2014

The Defense Department has long been warning that decreased spending due to sequestration and the drawdown were coming. For defense contractors, these warnings are quickly becoming a reality. 

In December 2012, the Pentagon spent $36.3 billion on defense contracts. A report by Bloomberg shows that amount decreased more than $10 billion last year, shrinking to $24.9 billion.

...

TARP: The Profitable Bank Bailout That Keeps on Giving

The Fiscal TimesJanuary 2, 2014

Bailouts can be good business, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which has made about $11 billion in profit on the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program and stands to gain billions more as loans are repaid and investments sold off. 

The U.S. Treasury on Monday released a year-end accounting of TARP, one of the programs initiated under George W. Bush to help blunt the effects of the financial crisis in 2008. The program poured some $421.9...