Robert Barro discussed his recent research pertaining to the enactment of the first stimulus package.

At a time when many NATO countries, including the United States, are drawing down their forces, Georgia has just added another infantry battalion. This brings the total number of Georgians deployed to Afghanistan to nearly 1,700. Georgia has now surpassed Australia as the largest non-NATO contributor of troops to the coalition’s campaign.

Although the Schumer-Lee plan deserves credit for seeking to promote international capital flows and labor mobility, it would neither make a measurable dent in the housing sector's backlog nor fix a broken immigration system that hampers our economy's long-run prospects.

The Administration’s growing gap between the newest defense strategy and budget makes more sense when viewed in the context of the administration’s domestic priorities. Just as President Obama wants to raise taxes on some Americans in order to pay for others, the administration is weakening America’s military strength in order to pay for expansive domestic federal programs.

Reform focused on sustainable lending would have FHA target a projected average claim rate of 5 per 100 insured loans under normal circumstances and 10 per 100 insured loans under stress circumstances.  This rate is about five times the normal default level for prime loans and about half the FHA's traditional default level under normal circumstances.

Serious questions remain about the national security implications of the proposed deal to raise the federal debt ceiling. With Members of Congress essentially being asked to vote immediately to avoid defaulting on the national debt, they are also entitled to immediate and compelling answers to the defense-related questions.

So the stimulus--the so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or ARRA--is starting to wind down. What are the results?

The reality is that we simply do not know how efficacious most  drugs really are.