Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund, recently wrote to the Baltimore Sun to stick up for Maryland’s sin taxes.  He seems to view it as the obligation of government to reduce activities it determines to be bad: In his Commentary disparaging both Maryland’s life-saving one dollar per pack tobacco tax […]

Bill Frezza of Adams Capital Management writes at RealClearMarkets to debunk claims that the current deficit is due to a lack of tax revenue, rather than excessive spending.  Using IRS data, he shows how revenues from the rich – as well as the effective tax rate on the rich – rose during the Bush years. So […]

With the public unconvinced of the wisdom of soaking the rich, the latest hot idea floating around in statist circles is not to soak the rich, but rather the really, super-duper, ultra rich. In a class-warfare filled screed, James Surowiecki wrote in the New Yorker on the need to “Soak the Very, Very Rich.” A […]

While the public is rightly skeptical of granting our government overlords unlimited power – which they are busy gathering for themselves nonetheless – there’s one group of people who think it would be just dandy to grant limitless power to the Political Class: the Political Class. By a 54% to 43% margin, the Political Class […]

Statists view “the rich” as nothing more than ATM machines for funding big-government welfare states. They think they can take as much as they like – they’re rich, after all! – without consequences. Once they empty the machine, the bank comes out and fills it up again. But real people don’t work that way. They […]

Iain Murray writes at the Washington Examiner that advocacy groups Change.org and the Alliance for Climate Protection are arguing – in an email entitled, “Don’t Let BP Win!” – that “Stalling climate and energy legislation would be a big win for oil companies like BP, but a huge loss for the rest of us.”  Someone […]

Florida Senator Bill Nelson is seizing on the BP oil spill as an excuse to pass federal “price gouging” legislation.  It’s certainly nothing new to see anti-market politicians stirring up populist rage with these so-called “price gouging” laws.  Many states already have them on the books, and politicians are quick to warn greedy capitalists against […]

The statists in Congress are enamored with Keynesian big government policies and profligate spending as a means of “stimulus.”  But while they travel the country to tout so-called “stimulus success,” the public displays a far better understanding of the underlying economics.  Not only does a plurality find that the stimulus bill actually hurt – rather […]

I’ve heard a few economic whoppers in my time, especially from the mouths of politicians, but this statement by Speaker Pelosi has got to be one of the most foolish yet. Talking to reporters, the House speaker was defending a jobless benefits extension against those who say it gives recipients little incentive to work. By […]