For more than three decades, the Federal Reserve has steadily expanded its role in the American economy. From a relatively narrow mandate as a lender of last resort to commercial banks, to inflation and employment targeting, it now operates as a systemic backstop for entire financial markets, allocating credit, supporting asset prices, and shaping macroeconomic policy in ways few Americans fully understand. While defenders of the Fed frame these developments as pragmatic responses to crises, a broader historical lens, especially Robert Higgs’s “Ratchet Effect” theory, suggests a more...

As the U.S. Congress continues to ignore the need for real fiscal discipline, kicking the can down the road again with yet another continuing resolution (CR), it is worth revisiting what two of the greats of the Austrian School had to say regarding the question of the national debt. Drawing on the writings of both Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, one finds the case against the national debt rests on economic, moral, and political arguments. Mises and Rothbard emphasize that government borrowing is a form of intervention that distorts the natural allocation of capital. In Human Action,...