Weekend edition: Reynolds, Ferrara and Jenkins on the President's budget and tax proposal; Bell on social issues; Weber on the GOP's message.

Editor's note: Spotty coverage last week and this due to personal travel. Will be back on track later this week.
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From Creators syndicate, Alan Reynolds critiques the President’s budget proposal.

At Forbes, Peter Ferrara suggests the President’s budget will damage the economy.

In The WSJ, Holman Jenkins advises Mitt Romney to take up the President’s challenge on the taxes paid by the wealthy.

The WSJ profiles Jeff Bell who argues social issues are vital to the conservative coalition.

On The Kudlow Report, former US Rep. Vin Weber (MN) discusses the GOP’s messaging problem:



On NRO, Larry Kudlow notes Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp’s going after Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner on tax policy.

In Reason, Tim Cavanaugh counters Geithner’s tax increase advocacy.

At The American, Aparna Mathur notes the effect of higher taxes on capital flows.

From American Thinker, Ralph Benko advocates a gold commission.

In Forbes, Bill Bonner critiques The NYT’s coverage of a possible return to gold-linked money.

At Monetary Choice, Dave Doctor rebuts Keynesian Dean Baker’s defense of the Federal Reserve.

The NY Sun suggests Sarah Palin would be a better World Bank president than Hillary Clinton.

From Bloomberg, Gregory DL Morris recounts the history of the Federal Reserve’s founding.

From last month’s Texas Public Policy Foundation conclave, Art Laffer debates Keynesian Jared Bernstein:




At The American, James Pethokoukis outlines arguments for the President’s opponents even if the economy is recovering.

In The WSJ, Michael Boskin suggests government is a poor investor.

USA Today links the recession to slow population growth from births and immigration.

Weekend edition: Lehrman calls for GOP unity on gold; The Wash Post reports Newt's link to supply-siders; The NY Sun notes Romney's resistance to gold.

From The NY Sun, Lewis Lehrman encourages Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum to join the sound dollar alliance.

The Washington Post reports the role of leading supply-siders in the Gingrich campaign.

The NY Sun notes Mitt Romney’s resistance to gold in monetary policy.

In Forbes, Ken Repoza quotes Paul Hoffmeister on Ron Paul and monetary policy.

On The Kudlow Report, Stephen Moore discusses rising government benefits:



In The Washington Times, James Bacon analyzes Fed policy and finds himself in agreement with Ron Paul.

From The Cayman Financial Review, former El Salvadoran Minister of Finance Manuel Hinds argues for a return to gold.

On TGSN, Ralph Benko reports the FDR cabinet debate over devaluing the dollar.

At Asia Times, David Goldman notes Egypt is down to $10 billion in reserves.

From TGSN, Benko counters The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein on gold-linked money.

On Kudlow, James Pethokoukis discusses the economy’s weak recovery:



On International Liberty, Dan Mitchell responds to the State of the Union’s tax analysis.

In National Journal, Grover Norquist predicts a crisis if President Obama is re-elected and doesn’t extend the Bush tax cuts.

MarketWatch notes weak dollar advocate C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics will step down as director at year’s end.

At The American, James Pethokoukis explains that US economic growth is way off.

On CNBC, Bruce Bartlett advocates revenue-neutral tax reform with a focus on corporate tax reform:



At The WSJ, Niall Ferguson argues the euro has been flawed since its inception.

The WSJ notes the Fed’s recommitment to loose money.

From First Trust, Brian Wesbury suggests monetary policy remains too loose.

In The WSJ, George Melloan analyzes the recent Japanese trade deficit.

At Business Insider, Dean Baker argues supply-side economics doesn’t work.

From Op-ed News, journalist Robert Parry critiques supply-side economics.

Tuesday summary.

At TSGN, Kelly Hanlon quotes Lew Lehrman making a crucial point:

Jacques Rueff spoke of American “deficits without tears,” because the American budget deficit and balance-of-payments deficits were -- they still are -- almost automatically financed by the Federal Reserve and the reserve-currency system -- through the voluntary (or coerced) buildup of dollar balances in the official reserves of foreign governments. These official dollar reserves were, and still are, immediately invested by foreign authorities, directly or indirectly, in the dollar market for United States securities, thus giving back to the United States, at subsidized rates, the dollars previously sent abroad as a result of the persistent United States balance-of-payments deficit and budget deficits. To describe this awesome absurdity, Jacques Rueff invoked the metaphor of an overworked tailor to the King, yoked permanently to fictitious credit payments by His Majesty’s unrequited promissory notes.

The WSJ reports Fed Chairman Bernanke is concerned about the oil price but not enough to change his policy direction.

On The Kudlow Report, Steve Forbes discusses the falling dollar:



On Forbes, Charles Kadlec argues that enterprise – not greed – is good.

From Asia Times, David Goldman reiterates that currency-related food price spikes are behind the Middle East revolts.

Also on Kudlow, John Tamny suggests legalization of insider trading:



At The Washington Times, Richard Rahn examines the non-monetary ways in which the Obama Administration is raising energy prices.

Cato’s Dan Mitchell promotes a new video on tax competition.

From the archives, John D. Mueller recounts the achievements of supply-side economics founder Robert Mundell.

It isn't possible to appreciate Mundell's work without knowing that he began as a junior member in a colloquy that had been going on for decades when he arrived; but he soon established himself as an equal, or more. Mundell recognized in the early 1960s that the Keynesian revolution in economics, dominant among American and British economists after the Second World War, contained some serious shortcomings. 'The Keynesian model is a short run model of a closed economy, dominated by pessimistic expectations and rigid wages. This model is not relevant to modern economies," he wrote in Monetary Theory (1971).

In seeking an alternative to Keynesian theory, Mundell had to return to much older sources, such as the eighteenth-century ideas of David Hume and the 19th-century general-equilibrium theory of Leon Walras. 'The object," Mundell explained, "is to combine the essential features of the specific models of Hume, [Irving] Fisher and Keynes in a more general theory of interest, inflation, and growth of the world economy. I do not claim to have resolved all the problems associated with a new approach, but only to have helped build, with able predecessors and contemporaries, a better foundation for monetary theory."

In doing so, Mundell could draw on a Continental European tradition including economists like Robert Triffin and Jacques Rueff, which had always maintained the classical teachings; but many of their writings were (and remain) unfamiliar to English-speaking economists, and were not expressed in the mathematical form that became standard at about the same time as Keynesian macroeconomic theory. (It's interesting that the return of American and British economists to the fold of classical economics was mediated largely by Canadian-born economists like Mundell and Harry Johnson.) As Mundell noted at a 1967 international monetary conference, "I do not know why it has taken so long for Anglo-Saxon economists to admit the truth of the elementary proposition [Rueff] is making: that there is an adjustment mechanism that is automatically operative under fixed exchange rates if it is allowed to operate." It's fitting that in 1983 Mundell was awarded the Jacques Rueff Prize in Paris by the Jacques Rueff Foundation and the Lehrman Institute.

From Reason, Shikha Dalmia suggests Americans have nothing to fear from India and China’s growth.

At The Financial Times, conservative Keynesian Peter Peterson – funder of the Institute for International Economics – advocates a fiscal rebalancing through deep spending cuts and tax increases.

From NPR, liberal economist Dean Baker argues for growth (through spending) and against balanced budget obsession.