Stephen Moore

Blaming Donald Trump for deficits misses their ‘inventor,’ Barack Obama

There is an old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and we've learned that again with the Congressional Budget Office and its latest highly misleading fiscal forecast. Published April 15, 2018

The art of the Trump trade deal

Is it possible that Donald Trump is winning on trade? Published April 2, 2018

Why mergers make sense

Donald Trump is producing the kind of shoot-the-moon economic recovery that we last saw under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He's copied a lot of the Reagan playbook: Deregulate, cut taxes, promote American energy. He should also think about adopting another Reaganite initiative: Let American companies, grow, merge, restructure and become more profitable so they can compete on the global stage. Published March 19, 2018

Donald Trump and trade

Last week President Trump dialed back his earlier call for a punitive and blanket tariff on imported steel and aluminum. Published March 11, 2018

America benefits from a steady flow of immigrants, under the right circumstances

There's a lot right in Donald Trump's immigration vision and a few things that are misguided. It's worth reviewing which is which. Published March 4, 2018

How environmentalists keep home heating bills high

This has been a colder than usual winter in the Midwest and Northeast, so many Americans are facing high home heating and electric bills. In some areas, these bills can reach $1,000 a month. Published February 25, 2018

Barack Obama’s real debt and deficit legacy

Congressional Republicans have been raked over the coals in the last two weeks for slamming through budget caps and inflating government spending and debt by another $300 billion. The criticisms are well deserved. Published February 18, 2018

Making America a strategic mineral superpower

Why is the United States reliant on China and Russia for strategic minerals when we arguably have more of these valuable resources than both these nations combined? This has nothing to do with geological impediments. It is all politics. Published February 11, 2018

American companies bring jobs back to the U.S., and Democrats smirk

The unseemly sight of nearly the entire Democratic congressional delegation sitting on their hands and clinging to their chairs throughout President Trump's State of the Union speech makes one wonder whether they want America to succeed on Mr. Trump's watch. Published February 4, 2018

Why Republicans must seize the moment to ensure that no portion of the Trump tax cuts expire

Just one month into the new tax bill, only those wearing left-wing ideological blinders — which unfortunately is still millions of anti-Trumpers — can deny that the Trump tax cuts are helping just about everyone. Published January 28, 2018

Get ready for a congressional budget blow-out

With all the talk about a possible government shutdown due to an impasse on immigration reform, no one seems to be paying attention to a story of even bigger long-term consequence. Congress is preparing a two-year budget that blows past bipartisan spending caps to the tune of $216 billion through 2019. These are the latest stunning tallies from an analysis by Congressional Quarterly. (See chart). Published January 21, 2018

Many workers have already benefited from Trump’s tax bill

One premise of modern-day "progressives," is that taxes don't have much influence on how much and when people invest, how much they work and save, or where they live. Just Google "Taxes don't matter" and you will find scores of academic studies and news stories assuring us that taxes have little or no effect on behavior. Published January 14, 2018

Trash talking about Donald Trump

I will never forget my senior year in high school. We were playing our bitter and highly-rated rival in football and in the week before the game, the other team was trash talking us nonstop. They said we were too fat and too slow and too small to even keep the game close. "You suck, we're great, that's why we are going downstate," was their abusive chant. Then we went out and beat them something like 24-0. It was sweet and it sure shut them up. Published January 7, 2018

Tax bill is a Christmas gift from economist Arthur Laffer

The unsung hero of the Republican Christmas gift of a tax cut is Arthur Laffer — the Reagan economist who helped devise the Gipper's tax reductions. Those tax cuts rebuilt the U.S. economy in the 1980s and pulled us out of the mini-depression of high inflation and unemployment in the late 1970s. Published December 24, 2017

What John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump have in common

Last week during an address at the White House President Trump likened his tax plan to "the tax cut that John F. Kennedy proposed 55 years ago." This elicited some howls of protest from Mr. Trump's liberal critics who say it's historically inaccurate to compare the Trump plan to JFK's. Published December 17, 2017

Small tweaks to GOP tax bill would make huge difference

The Senate-passed tax bill is a policy triumph that will provide a shot of performance enhancing drugs into the veins of the economy. It's not perfect, but the combined effect of cutting business tax rates, eliminating the state and local tax deduction, and repealing the ObamaCare individual mandate tax, means we are at the precipice of the biggest conservative policy victory since the Reagan years. Published December 10, 2017

Tax plan is a cut for everyone

Whenever I'm asked whether the Trump tax cut is for the rich, I say yes. It is a tax cut for the rich. It is a tax cut for the middle class. It is a tax cut for small businesses. It is a tax cut for the Fortune 100. If you pay federal income taxes, you will in almost all cases, be getting more take-home pay come January 1. Published December 3, 2017

How the Republican tax plan can help small businesses

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has caused a bit of a hullabaloo by complaining that small businesses don't get the benefits that corporations do in the Republican tax plan. Mr. Johnson has credibility here because he is one of those rare breeds in Congress who actually knows something about running a business — having done so for 30 years. Published November 26, 2017

Republicans showing backbone on tax reform

Republicans have long been known as "the stupid party." They do stupid things, like waiting until mid-November to pass a must-pass tax cut that should have been done by April. Published November 19, 2017

Trump economic revival mysterious to the left

Time Magazine's cover this week is a classic. It blares: "The Wrecking Crew: How Trump's Cabinet Is Dismantling Government." Also last week The New York Times ran a lead editorial complaining that team Trump is shrinking at an "unprecedented" pace the regulatory state that was erected to new heights under President Obama. These and other media reports have had all the subtlety of a primal scream. Published November 5, 2017