Commentary By Stephen Moore

February 25, 2020

Natural Gas Is Crushing Wind and Solar Power By Stephen Moore

The U.S. Energy Information Administration just announced some spectacular news that should be banner headlines across the country: The price of natural gas has fallen to its lowest February level in 20 years. The data shows that natural gas prices fell to $1.77 per million British thermal units. In inflation-adjusted terms, the price of gas has plunged by some 80% since its high of $13.60 12 years ago. The price is down 90% since 2005, when prices hit nearly $20. (Quick: Can you think of anything else that now costs one-tenth of what it did 15 years ago?)

February 18, 2020

Trump's Critics on the Economy: So Wrong, So Often By Stephen Moore

There's an old saying about baseball and life that no one ever had a 1.000 batting average. It turns out that's not exactly true. At least when it comes to the Trump economy, anti-Trumpers defied the near-impossible statistical odds and somehow have batted 1.000 on their predictions. They managed to get it wrong every time.

February 11, 2020

Defusing the Debt Bomb By Stephen Moore

President Donald Trump's new budget confirms that without corrective action, trillion-dollar deficits will be with us for years and perhaps decades to come. Trump's budget plan has many smart and urgent spending reforms. But will Congress ignore them once again?

February 4, 2020

Don't Regulate the Rail Industry By Stephen Moore

President Donald Trump rightly touts the economy-wide savings from his deregulation initiatives. But one federal agency didn't get the memo. Some members of the Surface Transportation Board, which has oversight over the nation's network of freight railroads, wants to resurrect price controls on the industry.

January 28, 2020

The Economy's Unsung Hero Is Low Interest Rates By Stephen Moore

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, President Donald Trump again talked positively about negative interest rates. That's not a very good idea considering negative interest rates are a warning signal of deflation, which can be as bad for an economy as runaway inflation.

January 21, 2020

Working Hard Versus Hardly Working By Stephen Moore

Almost all of us know (because President Trump boasts of it in nearly every speech) that our 3.5% unemployment rate has reached a 50-year low. But this official decline in joblessness doesn't tell the entire story of the improvement in the job market in the United States. And it doesn't fully capture the change in direction between what happened under President Barack Obama and Trump.

January 14, 2020

Why Does Washington Demonize Drug Companies? By Stephen Moore

Over the holidays, I read Elton John's biography, "Me." He writes about his friendship with Freddie Mercury, the ultratalented lead singer of the rock group Queen. Mercury tragically died of AIDS at the age of 45 in 1991. Mercury was one of the last people to die of the disease in Britain during the epidemic years. John writes sadly and almost offhandedly that if Mercury had lived one year longer, he probably would have survived because of the AIDS medication that eventually saved millions of lives.

January 7, 2020

Will the Economy in 2020 Roar or Whimper? By Stephen Moore

Let's face it: 2019 is going to be a hard year to beat -- stocks and 401(k) plans up more than 25% on average, wage gains of 3% to 5%, 7 million surplus jobs and the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in nearly 50 years. That's a lot to celebrate.

December 31, 2019

Democrats Peddle Doom, but the Middle Class Never Had It So Good By Stephen Moore

These days, when you listen to the gloom of the media and many of the presidential candidates, you have to wonder what country these Debbie Downers are talking about.

December 24, 2019

The Fed Monopoly Shouldn't Compete With Private Banks By Stephen Moore

If there is any lesson we have learned about the Federal Reserve system in the last few years, it is that the supposed oracles who run our central bank are anything but infallible.

December 17, 2019

A Cheer for the Trump Uranium Plan By Stephen Moore

Our sources are telling us that President Trump is nearing a decision on how to revive the all-but-dormant American uranium industry. This proposed plan would create a reserve of domestically mined uranium stored in a "Federal Uranium Security Stockpile." One option on the table is for the Department of Defense to purchase uranium through the 1950 Defense Production Act.

December 10, 2019

Congress Must Stop Subsidizing Wealthy Car Buyers By Stephen Moore

Why are Democrats Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi teaming together to lobby for a tax bill that would provide about 80% of the benefits to Americans who make more than $100,000 a year?

December 3, 2019

Congress Bans Short-Term Lending; the Poor Pay a High Price By Stephen Moore

Washington do-goodism almost always fails to help the people it is supposed to because politicians ignore the Law of Unintended Consequences. Nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to a congressional plan to put payday lenders and other short-term lending institutions, such as the burgeoning online lenders, out of business.

November 26, 2019

How America Can Still Win the Race to 5G Wireless Technology By Stephen Moore

The Federal Communications Commission has thrown a curveball into the global race for deployment of 5G -- the much-anticipated fifth generation of cellular and wireless technology. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has announced his support for a government-run auction of an underutilized 500-megahertz space on the electronic spectrum that cellphone carriers like AT&T and Verizon need to deliver 5G wireless services.

November 19, 2019

Trump Needs Tax Cut 2.0 By Stephen Moore

Every single plausible Democratic candidate for president has endorsed tax increases as a centerpiece of their economic agenda. Think about what we are hearing from Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and the rest of the "Punch and Judy" show: new wealth taxes, carbon taxes, energy taxes, higher death and income taxes with rates up to 70%. Payroll taxes would rise to pay for Social Security benefit expansions and Medicare for All.

November 12, 2019

The Post and Liberal Media Again Get It Wrong About Trump Economy By Stephen Moore

First, a full admission about this article: I originally sent a version of it to The Washington Post for publication, but for reasons that will become obvious as you read on, they rejected it.

November 5, 2019

Nancy Pelosi's Stall Tactics Hurt America's Economy By Stephen Moore

Wouldn't it be wonderful if for one brief shining moment in Washington, Congress put good policy over politics -- and passed a bill that would benefit American workers, investors and businesses?

October 29, 2019

Trump Economy Surges, Biden and Obama Hog the Credit By Stephen Moore

Joe Biden is at it again -- living in his own parallel universe. The same former vice president who says that his son Hunter was hired by a Ukrainian oil and gas company because of his expertise in energy policy is now claiming that President Donald Trump has "squandered" the strong Obama economy he inherited.

October 22, 2019

Washington Subsidies Not Helping the Wind Industry By Stephen Moore

Last week, the lobbying arm of the wind energy industry made an unsurprising, though somewhat embarrassing, announcement. It wants a longer lifeline with federal subsidies. So much for wind being the low-cost energy source of the future.

October 15, 2019

It's a Middle-Class Boom By Stephen Moore

How much of the monetary gains from the Trump economic speedup have gone to the middle class? If you ask Democratic senators and presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, the answer to that question is ... almost none.

If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

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