Fewer people working means permanently lower tax revenues.

Making labor less expensive helps firms hire people.

What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it.

Honest talk about the deficit is risky. Voters are more enthusiastic about the abstract notion of deficit reduction than about the painful details of accomplishing it.

Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.

AS an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history.

A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here's where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.