We have an amazing man-bites-dog story today. Let’s begin with some background information. A member of the European Commission recently warned that: “Tax increases imposed by the Socialist-led government in France have reached a “fatal level”…[and] that a series of tax hikes since the Socialists took power 14 months ago – including €33bn in new […]
read more...I recently speculated whether Detroit’s fiscal problems should be a warning sign for the crowd in Washington. The answer, of course, is yes, though it’s not a perfect analogy. The federal government is in deep trouble because of unsustainable entitlement programs while Detroit got in trouble because of a combination of too much compensation for […]
read more...I’m not a big fan of the European Commission. For those not familiar with this entity, it’s sort of the European version of the executive-branch bureaucracy we have in Washington. And like their counterparts in Washington, the Brussels-based bureaucracy enjoys a very lavish lifestyle while pushing for more government and engaging in bizarre forms of […]
read more...As regular readers know, one of my great challenges in life is trying to educate policy makers about the Laffer Curve, which is simply a way of illustrating that government won’t collect any revenue if tax rates are zero, but also won’t collect much revenue if tax rates are 100 percent. After all, very few […]
read more...It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the United States has the world’s worst corporate tax system. We definitely have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and we may have the highest corporate tax rate in the entire world depending on how one chooses to classify the tax regime in an […]
read more...The budget deficit this year is projected to be significantly smaller than it has been in recent years and some of our statist friends claim that this shows the desirability and effectiveness of higher taxes. I’m not persuaded, mostly because our big long-run fiscal challenge is a rising burden of government spending. And the fact […]
read more...I’m thinking of inventing a game, sort of a fiscal version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Only the way it will work is that there will be a map of the world and the winner will be the blindfolded person who puts their pin closest to a nation such as Australia or Switzerland […]
read more...In a recent interview with the BBC, I basically accused UK Prime Minister David Cameron of being a feckless and clueless demagogue who is engaged in a desperate effort to resuscitate his political future. I shouldn’t have been so kind. Cameron manages to combine bad policy and bad morality in a way that is embarrassing […]
read more...Two of my favorite things in life are the Laffer Curve and the Georgia Bulldogs. So you know I’m going to approve when an economics professor from the University of Georgia writes a column about the power of the Laffer Curve. And since I’m a libertarian and the specific issue is about curtailing the foolish […]
read more...Last month, Amity Shlaes came to Cato to discuss her superb new book about Calvin Coolidge. I heard her discuss the book back in January while participating in Hillsdale College’s conference on the 100th anniversary of the income tax, but the book is so rich with information that I was glad for the opportunity to […]
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