The politicians are urging big taxes on banks, using rhetoric designed to trick people into thinking that this is a way to make the banks pay for their own bailouts. But a general tax on all banks simply means that well-run banks subsidize the reckless banks – a problem that may get worse over time […]

I get a lot of email asking me about Greece, especially since I don’t give the issue much attention on the blog. I am paying close attention to what’s happening, especially since Greece is a canary in the coal mine. But I generally try to avoid being repetitious, and anything I say now would replicate […]

Any company that steals money from taxpayers is despicable, but General Motors is especially reprehensible for dishonesty. Taking money from the left pockets of taxpayers and putting it in our right pockets is not a repayment, as explained by Shikha Dalmia in a column for Forbes.com. Her most important observation, after churning through the numbers, […]

His article doesn’t completely slam the door on a value-added tax, but Robert Samuleson’s piece in the Washington Post does highlight some of the very serious problems with a VAT – including more government spending, burdens on families, additional complexity, and more corruption: Almost every pro-VAT argument is exaggerated, misleading, incomplete or wrong. The VAT […]

The Chicago Tribune reports that a bunch of government bureaucrats went to the capital of Illinois and protested in favor of higher taxes. But it’s not exactly news that looters want more looting. The amazing thing to note is that the Democrats have complete control of Illinois government yet they are afraid to raise tax […]

He’s only been Governor for a couple of months, and we have seen other elected officials start strong and then get captured by the special interested, but it certainly appears that Governor Christie of New Jersey genuinely intends to rescue his stated from becoming the Greece of America. Here’s an excerpt of what George Will […]

Newt Gingrich writes in the Washington Post to defend his assertion that Obama is a socialist. He cites several examples of the President’s big-government agenda, which are excerpted below. These are all examples of bad policy, to be sure, but other than the student loan takeover, these are all examples of fascism rather than socialism. […]

The government is wasting so much money in so many ways that it takes something really odd to shock me, but this story from the Federal Times certainly meets that test. The Office of Personnel Management is actually squandering money on a marketing campaign to improve the image of bureaucrats. Call me old fashioned, but […]

 I’ve read several places that Ronald Reagan instinctively understood supply-side economics because Hollywood stars sooner or later learned that making more than a couple of movies per year was pointless when marginal tax rates were 90 percent. The same thing happens in sports. I’ve already posted about soccer stars turning down contracts in places where […]