How Many Social Programs Show Gold-Standard Evidence of Success? Almost None

By David B. Muhlhausen December 4, 2014

In a recent blog post, Brookings scholar Ron Haskins identifies five social programs as being highly effective and highlights the Obama administration’s “evidence based” policy efforts to fund effective federal social ...

Bureaucratic Checklists Are No Silver Bullet for Reforming Job-Training Programs

By David B. Muhlhausen July 23, 2014

Before President Obama signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) into law yesterday, he announced: So the bill I’m about to sign will give communities more certainty to invest in ...

New Brookings Report on Government Failures Ignores Failed Social Programs

By David B. Muhlhausen July 16, 2014

A new Brookings Institution report, “A Cascade of Failures,” by Paul C. Light concludes that the failures of the federal government are accelerating. As the executive, legislative, and judicial branches ...

Wasteful Spending Continues Despite an ‘Evidence-based’ Policy Agenda

By David B. Muhlhausen April 16, 2014

In a New York Times Economix blog post, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a former White House adviser to President Clinton, and Jonathan Greenblatt,  a current adviser to President Obama, assert that ...

Head Start Scaremongering

By David B. Muhlhausen April 4, 2012

Yesterday, President Obama criticized Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan as making “draconian cuts” to federal spending programs. In particular, the president said, “If this budget becomes law and the cuts ...

Another Point on Biden’s Crime Comments

By David B. Muhlhausen October 20, 2011

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Vice President Biden supports another bout of “stimulus” spending on local police officer salaries, and responded to critics by saying: Well, let me tell you, ...

Re: Biden: ‘All Crime Will Continue to Rise’ If Republicans Don’t Pass WH Jobs Bill

By David B. Muhlhausen October 20, 2011

Vice President Joe Biden has claimed that crime will increase if Congress rejects President Obama’s plan to spend an additional $5 billion on federal subsidies for the salaries of local ...

RE: A Friendly Nudge for Hill Conservatives

By David B. Muhlhausen January 7, 2009

NRO’s stimulus editorial today is dead-on. While Congress is developing legislation intended to stimulate the economy, interest groups, including governors, big-city mayors, and other local officials, are lining up for ...

Politics & Policy

False Alarm

By David B. Muhlhausen & Patrick Tyrrell October 17, 2008

Some people just refuse to accept good news. Take voter registrations at state welfare offices. They’ve plummeted since 1997. No surprise there: The decline has occurred as the number of people ...