I’m not a big fan of Obamanomics. I don’t like the President’s class-warfare mentality on taxes. I don’t like his support for Keynesian spending policy. And I don’t like his costly expansions of government such as Obamacare. Indeed, I even like mocking his reflexive statism. That being said, I fully agree (albeit with some important caveats) with his observation that the United States […]
read more...You’re probably surprised by the title of this post. You may even be wondering if President Obama had an epiphany on the road to Greece? I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but the leader we’re talking about isn’t the President of the United States. Instead, we’re talking about the Prime Minister of Finland and he deserves […]
read more...My colleagues Chris Edwards and Nicole Kaeding have just released the biannual Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors from the Cato Institute. The Report Card is on the Cato Institute’s most impressive publications sincedevelopments on the state level help illustrate the relationship between good fiscal policy and economic performance. The top scores were earned by Pat McCrory […]
read more...What’s the relationship between the Rahn Curve and the Laffer Curve? For the uninitiated, the Rahn Curve is the common-sense notion that some government is helpful for prosperous markets but too much government is harmful to economic performance. Even libertarians, for instance, will acknowledge that spending on core “public goods” such as police protection and courts (assuming, of […]
read more...Much of my writing is focused on the real-world impact of government policy, and this is why I repeatedly look at the relative economic performance of big government jurisdictions and small government jurisdictions. But I don’t just highlight differences between nations. Yes, it’s educational to look at North Korea vs. South Korea or Chile vs. Venezuela vs. Argentina, […]
read more...I’m a huge fan of Switzerland, largely because its voters approved a spending cap that should be a role model for other nations. It’s called the “debt brake” and it has helped reduce the burden of government spending in Switzerland at a time when most nations in Europe have been moving in the wrong direction. But that’s not […]
read more...Most of us will never be directly impacted by the international provisions of the internal revenue code. That’s bad news because it presumably means we don’t have a lot of money, but it’s good news because IRS policies regarding “foreign-source income” are a poisonous combination of complexity, harshness, and bullying (which is why only taxpayers with lots of […]
read more...I’m a big believer that real-world examples can teach us about the benefits of good fiscal policy (think Hong Kong, Estonia, Canada, and the U.S. under Reagan and Clinton) and the costs of bad fiscal policy (France, Cyprus, Greece, and the U.S. under Bush and Obama). Today, let’s look at another example of bad fiscal policy. And we’re going to pick on […]
read more...I believe that protecting the environment is both a good thing and a legitimate function of government. But I’m rational. So while I want limits on pollution, such policies should be determined by cost-benefit analysis. Banning automobiles doubtlessly would reduce pollution, for instance, but the economic cost would be catastrophic. On the other hand, it’s good to […]
read more...I’ve shared some interested rankings on tax policy, including a map from the Tax Foundation showing which states have the earliest and latest Tax Freedom Days. There’s also a depressing table showing that the United States “earns” a lowly 94th place in a ranking of business-friendly tax system. Heck, there’s even a map showing the states with the highest wine taxes, […]
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