It ranks among the biggest forecasting errors ever. Back in 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected federal budget surpluses of $5.6 trillion for 2002-2011. Instead we got $6.1 trillion of ...

Four years after the onset of the financial crisis -- in March 2008 Bear Stearns was rescued from failure -- we still lack a clear understanding of the underlying causes. Hundreds of studies and books ...

LET'S resume the debate over who should go to college. Some weeks ago, I wrote a column arguing that the "college for all" philosophy is a major blunder. ?The lowering of college entrance requirements ...

I worry about the future -- not mine, but that of my three children, all in their 20s. It is an axiom of American folklore that every generation should live better than its predecessors. But this is ...

One curiosity of the cyber age is that the American public seems relatively unconcerned by what, arguably, is the biggest threat from the internet: attacks on the nation’s “critical infrastructure” — ...

I read a Washington Post column of yours just after Christmas—the one about the fairness dilemma and how Baby Boomers need to take a hit on Social Security and Medicare. You’ve been making these ...

This is the summer of our discontent. As Americans celebrate July 4, they are mad at their leaders, mad at their government and mad at each other. A recent Pew poll finds that “public trust in ...

Just in case you hadn't noticed, no one has elected Grover Norquist to anything. Still, he looms as a major obstacle to Congress reaching a deficit-reduction agreement needed to raise the federal debt ...

1. Young people currently benefit from Social Security and Medicaid and will continue to enjoy its benefits when they get older. Samuelson mistakenly labels entitlement spending as a payout to today’s ...

The logic of the economic recovery isn't working -- or, at any rate, not well. By that logic, over-borrowed Americans would repay loans and replenish depleted savings, creating a temporary drop in ...