As the U.S. Congress continues to ignore the need for real fiscal discipline, kicking the can down the road again with yet another continuing resolution (CR), it is worth revisiting what two of the greats of the Austrian School had to say regarding the question of the national debt. Drawing on the writings of both Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, one finds the case against the national debt rests on economic, moral, and political arguments. Mises and Rothbard emphasize that government borrowing is a form of intervention that distorts the natural allocation of capital. In Human Action,...

On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump stood in the White House Rose Garden to declare “Liberation Day”—a sweeping new tariff initiative aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit and revitalizing domestic manufacturing. The policy introduces a 10% blanket tariff on all imports starting April 5, followed by a second wave of “reciprocal tariffs” targeting sixty countries as of April 9. These include China (34%), the European Union (20%), Taiwan (32%), and South Korea (25%). Canada and Mexico are exempt from the second wave, but existing tariffs on autos and steel remain in place. The White...

In a recent conversation with the Libertarian Institute’s Keith Knight, we broke down a 2012 article by everyone’s least favorite economist, the former New York Times pundit Paul Krugman. In it, Krugman makes all the familiar and mistaken arguments about why we needn’t worry about high levels of government borrowing. From “the government doesn’t need to actually pay it back” to “we owe it to ourselves,” Krugman couldn’t be more confident in his wrong-headedness. Krugman’s arguments are fundamentally flawed because they mischaracterize the nature of government debt, ignore the distortive...

When President Donald Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the initiative was met with both enthusiasm and skepticism. The prospect of cutting $1-2 trillion from the federal budget by 2026 was an ambitious goal, and one that resonated with fiscal conservatives seeking to rein in government spending. However, early results indicate that despite bold promises, the entrenched realities of government spending are proving to be formidable obstacles. In the months following the November election, Musk and...

Just as today, in the years following World War II the United States faced a national debt exceeding 100% of GDP. Yet, by the early 1970s, that figure had fallen to around 30%. Many policymakers and commentators today point back at this period as proof that economic growth and sound fiscal policies can solve America’s current debt crisis. But can we really "grow our way out" of today’s $36.4 trillion national debt the way we did after the war? The numbers suggest otherwise. The drop in debt-to-GDP following World War II was driven by several key factors: Rapid economic growth: The post-war...