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Over at The Hill, my Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy explains why that great geyser of cronyism, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, should be abolished. [4] Here’s Vero’s marvelous opening paragraph:
Politicians are hoarders. Instead of filling up their homes with junk and refusing to throw any of it away, they surround themselves with bloated government programs and come up with excuses to not get rid of any of them. Proposing “reform” is one of their favorite tactics to save rotting government programs that should be set out by the curb.
That immigrants authored a massive surge of economic growth beginning in 1880 is exciting on its face, but it’s also very telling about the nature of poverty in the U.S. That 37 million immigrants reached these shores from 1880-1930 is a certain market signal that permanent poverty hasn’t been a problem in the United States since at least the late 19th century. Were the latter not true, as in if poverty had been insurmountable, then it would have also been true that the U.S. would not have been the lucky recipient of so many determined new arrivals.