Even though I favor radical reductions in the burden of government, I’ve made the point that good fiscal policy merely requires that government spending grow slower than the private sector – what I call Mitchell’s Golden Rule. And if lawmakers simply cap the growth of spending, so that it grows by about 2 percent annually, […]
read more...With the exception of a few top-notch thinkers such as Pierre Bessard and Allister Heath, there are very few people in Europe who can intelligently analyze public policy, particularly with regard to fiscal issues. I don’t know if Fredrik Erixon of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy is even close to being in […]
read more...The pro-statism crowd routinely argues that we need more government. Every so often, though, one of them inadvertently stumbles on the truth. But they then refuse to draw the logical conclusion. For instance. One of President Obama’s health appointees noted that quality increases and prices fall when markets are allowed to operate – yet he […]
read more...I’ve complained many times about the pointless nature of anti-money laundering laws. They impose very high costs and force banks to spy on their customers, but they are utterly ineffective as a weapon against criminal activity. Yet politicians and bureaucrats keep making a bad system worse, and the latest development is a silly scheme to […]
read more...A problem in Washington is that people who specialize in particular fields are tempted to exaggerate the importance of their issues. To cite a couple of examples: People who work on monetary policy think their issue is most important, and you can understand why after watching this George Selgin video. People who work on regulatory […]
read more...One of my first posts on this blog featured this video showing how big government breeds corruption. I’ve periodically provided examples of how this process works, citing Alaska, Chicago, Wall Street, and Washington. Here’s another example, explicitly showing how big business and big government get in bed together to rape and pillage taxpayers. The sleazy […]
read more...Many people think that my opposition to tax increases is ideological, but they’re wrong. If someone told me that I magically had the power to flick a switch and give the country a flat tax, but that simple and fair tax system would only be possible if the rate was set high enough to give […]
read more...I’ve reported some horror stories about bureaucrats ripping off taxpayers with lavish compensation packages, including: The chief bureaucrat of a low-income California city getting almost $800,000 per year. Cops in Oakland getting average compensation of $188,000. A Philadelphia bureaucrat, after working only 2-1/2 years, nailing down a guaranteed pension of $50,000 per year. A New […]
read more...Like its evil twin of Nazism, communism is an utterly despicable ideology that explicitly elevates the state over the individual. That’s actually the nicest thing that can be said about this barbaric system. If you want to begin to understand the human cost of communism, watch this short Reason TV video featuring Lee Edwards. Sometimes, […]
read more...Actually, Bill Clinton must be something even worse than a social Darwinist. That’s because the title of this post is wrong. Obama said that Paul Ryan’s plan (which allows spending to grow by an average of 3.1 percent per year over the next decade) is a form of “social Darwinism.” But the proposal from the […]
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