I believe in free markets and small government, and I’m also against Washington corruption. Which is why I want to abolish the Department of Agriculture. And I suspect all sensible people will agree after reading excerpts from these three articles. We’ll start with Damon Cline, who produced a searing indictment of farm welfare for the Augusta Chronicle. Alexis de Tocqueville posited […]
read more...Keynesian economics is a failure. It didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1990s. And it didn’t work for Bush or Obama in recent years. No matter where’s it’s been tried, it’s been a flop. So why, whenever there’s a downturn, do politicians resuscitate the idea that bigger government will “stimulate” the economy? I’ve tried […]
read more...here aren’t any nations with pure libertarian economic policy, but there are a handful of jurisdictions that deserve praise, either because they have comparatively low levels of statism or because they have made big strides in the right direction. Hong Kong and Singapore are examples of the former, and Switzerland deserves honorable mention. And if we look at […]
read more...Back in 2011, I shared a video making the moral argument that adults should be allowed to buy and sell kidneys. After all, if one person is made better off by selling a kidney and another person is made better off by buying a kidney, why should the rest of us be allowed to ban that voluntary […]
read more...In hopes of warning people about the dangers of Obamacare, I’ve shared horror stories from the United Kingdom about patients languishing on waiting lists and being left to die. Now, thanks to whistleblowers, we have horror stories from America. The government-run system operated by the Veterans Administration has maintained secret waiting lists that have led to lots of delayed care […]
read more...Former CBO Director and now American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a solid economist and champion of pro-growth tax policy. But no one is perfect, as illustrated in this case by his misguided defense of the Export-Import bank. Though acknowledging reforms are needed, he makes two arguments in defense of Ex-Im that I find […]
read more...While I mostly focus on bad government policy in the United States, I also think we can learn lessons from what’s happening in other nations. In some cases, I share positive stories, such as the success of privatized Social Security in Australia, nationwide school choice in Sweden, and genuine spending cuts in the Baltic nations. In most cases, though, I’m pointing […]
read more...Regular readers know that I like to mock big government and the hacks who are drawn to politics. This explains why I’ve always enjoyed cartoons that portray the state as a blundering, often-malicious, overweight nitwit. You can see some of my favorite examples here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. So in that tradition, let’s set aside serious issues today and enjoy […]
read more...I’m beginning to think that people from some nations are smarter and more rational than others. That may explain, for instance, why voters in Estonia support fiscal restraintwhile voters in France foolishly think the gravy train can continue forever. But I’m not making an argument about genetic ability. Instead, what I’m actually starting to wonder is whether […]
read more...What’s the worst economic development during Obama’s reign? Some would say it’s the higher tax burden. Some would say it’s the wasteful faux stimulus. Others would say it’s the fiscal nightmare of Obamacare. And others would say it’s the loss of millions of workers from the labor force. I suppose there’s no objective way to pick the most ill-conceived policy, […]
read more...