It boggles the mind to think that the United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. But it’s even more amazing that America arguably has the most punitive corporate tax rate in the entire world. Here’s some of what I wrote on the topic for today’s U.K.-based Telegraph. …the United States has the highest corporate tax rate […]
read more...What do cigarettes and capital gains have in common? Well, they both start with the same letter, so maybe the Cookie Monster could incorporate them into his favorite song, but I’m thinking about something else. Specifically, both cigarettes and capital gains tell us something important about tax policy, the Laffer Curve, and the limits of political bullying. […]
read more...When the new Tory-led government came to power in the United Kingdom, I was rather unimpressed. David Cameron positioned himself as a British version of George W. Bush, full of “compassionate conservative” ideas to expand the burden of government. But even worse than Bush, because Cameron also jacked up taxes when he first took office, including big […]
read more...There’s an old saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That may be true if you’re in Hollywood and visibility is a key to long-run earnings. But in the world of public policy, you don’t want to be a punching bag. And that describes my role in a book excerpt just published by Salon. Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematics professor […]
read more...The title of this post sounds like the beginning of a strange joke, but it’s actually because we’re covering three issues today. Our first topic is corporate taxation. More specifically, we’re looking at a nation that seems to be learning that it’s foolish the have a punitive corporate tax system. By way of background, the […]
read more...If you appreciate the common-sense notion of the Laffer Curve, you’re in for a treat. Today’s column will discuss the revelation that Francois Hollande’s class-warfare tax hikes have not raised nearly as much money as predicted. And after the recent evidence about the failure of tax hikes in Hungary, Ireland,Detroit, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this news from the BBC probably should be […]
read more...My main goal for fiscal policy is shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and lowering the burden of government spending. But I’m also motivated by a desire for better tax policy, which means lower tax rates, less double taxation, and fewer corrupting loopholes and other distortions. One of the big obstacles to good tax policy is that many statists […]
read more...Why do statists support higher tax rates? The most obvious answer is greed. In other words, leftists want more tax money since they personally benefit when there’s a larger burden of government spending. And the greed can take many forms. They may want bigger government because they’re welfare recipients getting handouts. They may want bigger government because […]
read more...The business pages are reporting that Chrysler will be fully owned by Fiat after that Italian company buys up remaining shares. I don’t know what this means about the long-term viability of Chrysler, but we can say with great confidence that the company will be better off now that the parent company is headquartered outside the United […]
read more...The title of this piece has an asterisk because, unfortunately, we’re not talking about progress on the Laffer Curve in the United States. Even Keynes himself accepted this. Like many other economists throughout the ages, he understood and agreed with the principles that underpinned what eventually came to be known as the Laffer curve: that […]
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