I have three girls and three boys. Some of them have recently gotten into Monopoly, the classic board game. READ MORE...

History has an important lesson for autoworkers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the United Auto Workers union plans to  hold a vote soon to unionize workers. READ MORE...

In bright red, all capital letters, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu slapped a big “VETO” on the Democrat-controlled Legislature’s bill to implement a tax on workers to pay for a government-administered paid family leave program. READ MORE...

Workers and retirees have long been warned that Social Security’s trust fund will run out of funds sometime in the future, and that the program has many trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations. READ MORE...

This year, “Tax Freedom Day”—the day after which Americans have worked enough days of the year to pay their taxes—occurs just one day after “Tax Day,” April 15, the deadline for filing federal tax returns. READ MORE...

Many federal lawmakers have been looking for ways to help more workers gain access to paid family leave, but the problem with most proposals—from Democrats and Republicans alike—is that they rely on the federal government to manage new paid family leave programs. READ MORE...

READ MORE...

Freshman Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., don’t think so, and they’ve introduced the End Pensions in Congress Act, legislation to phase out congressional pensions.

On average, former members of Congress receive about $41,000 per year in pension benefits after having served about 16 years. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who has been in Congress 32 years, will receive a six-figure pension.

Under Braun’s proposal, federal lawmakers would stop receiving pension accruals.

Just months after announcing it would locate one of its headquarters in New York City, Amazon has announced that it’s pulling the plug on the Big Apple.

Based on Amazon’s public statement, it seems the company couldn’t rely on the deals it had cut or the political support it had received to last beyond the next election. And businesses can’t base long-term decisions like this on shifting political sand.

That’s part of the problem with crony capitalism. It may procure short-term wins for a select few politicians and for businesses that can afford to pay to play, but it’s not a strategy for long-term success.

Absent any congressional action, between 1 million and 10 million workers and retirees will lose most of their promised pension benefits over the coming decades.

It would be unfair to stave off those losses with taxpayer bailouts, and doing so would establish the precedent that the federal government will stand behind pension promises that it didn’t even make. But it would also be irresponsible and destructive to do nothing.

Congress’ Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pensions faces a Nov. 30 deadline to issue a report, including legislative recommendations that address both the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s multiemployer program deficit and multiemployer pension plans’ in unfunded pension promises.

Believe it or not, the Department of Veterans Affairs has 430 medical professionals who, instead of performing their duties as nurses or doctors, spend some or all of their time working for their federal employees unions.

All of that happens on the taxpayers’ dime.

Not anymore, according to the VA’s recent announcement.

As of Nov. 15, the VA will repudiate part of its master collective-bargaining agreement. In particular, it will eliminate all forms of taxpayer-funded “official time” for its roughly 104,000 Title 38 medical profession employees.

According to the , official time is that in which “an employee’s activities are not directed by the agency, but for which an employee is nevertheless entitled to compensation from the agency.”

The economy is thriving under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Wages are up, are being created, and small businesses are than ever about the future.

Making those tax cuts and passing additional would help sustain higher economic growth, creating long-term benefits for all Americans.

Even so, those benefits would be limited if policymakers fail to address the unsustainable mountain of debt we have already taken on. This part is critical because left unaddressed, the debt will inevitably lead to either an economic crash or decades of economic malaise.

The root problem is not low taxes. After all, the IRS collected record revenue in fiscal year 2018.

Social Security takes a whopping 12.4 percent of American workers’ paychecks, but a new backgrounder by The Heritage Foundation shows that workers are getting a bad deal from the program.

Despite its popularity, Social Security typically provides very low—and in many cases, negative—rates of return.

Although the program provided high returns and windfall benefits to its earliest recipients, Social Security is no longer a good deal for workers.

The Heritage Foundation analysis shows that younger workers—even low-wage ones—would receive at least three times greater rates of return from private savings than Social Security will provide.

To assess Social Security’s so-called “rate of return,” Heritage’s analysis compares what workers would receive if their payroll taxes were invested in personal accounts compared with what Social Security will provide under two scenarios: 1) current law, with roughly 20 percent benefit cuts beginning around 2034; and 2) a scenario whereby payroll taxes rise immediately to a level necessary to pay the program’s prescribed benefits.

Social Security is on track to run out of money by 2034, at which point the program will be able to pay only about 79 percent of its scheduled benefits.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation—a government entity that insures private pension plans—will run out of funds almost a decade earlier, , and will be able to pay only about 10 percent of its scheduled benefits.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation pays benefits if private pensions go belly up, but it is not a taxpayer-financed entity. So when it runs out of assets, it will be able to pay only as much in benefits as it takes in through premium revenues—likely 10 percent or less of insured benefits.

This year marks the first time in more than a quarter-century that Social Security has had to dip into its trust fund balance.

Since its theoretical trust fund is really just a bunch of IOUs, that means the government will have to issue $85 billion in publicly held debt this year—and $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years—in order to maintain scheduled benefits.

As such, now is not the time to add a new entitlement to Social Security, adding to short-term deficits and expanding benefit payments.

Yet that’s what a new proposal for paid family leave would do—increase Social Security’s scope and raise its costs.