While there is always a tendency in Washington to over-analyze the meaning of elections, I think that we can draw the following conclusions from Scott Brown’s victory: 1. Obamacare is an albatross for the Democrats. The White House wants to blame Coakley for…
Dan Mitchell
Daniel J. Mitchell is the President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation. Dr. Mitchell advocates limited government and fundamental tax reform, and is the nation’s leading opponent of tax harmonization schemes developed by the Brussels-based European Union, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations.
In addition to fiscal policy, Dr. Mitchell is a trenchant observer of economic developments and an expert on Social Security reform – particularly the fiscal policy impact of reform and what the US can learn from other nations that have created personal retirement accounts.
The First Shot of the Second American Revolution.
I must confess that I didn’t think Scott Brown was going to win the election in Massachusetts, even though I predicted a 50-48 GOP victory. This is a monumental development. It doesn’t necessarily mean Obamacare can be stopped. And it may be that Brown…
IRS Commissioner Uses Professional Tax Preparer.
The internal revenue codes is so mind-numbingly complex that even the head of the IRS uses a professional tax preparer. But that’s hardly a surprise. What is a bit shocking, though, is that Commissioner Shulman has the gall to claim that he favors tax code…
Does TSA Stand for Three Stooges Association.
The government is so incompetent that it never put the Christmas-day underwear-bomber on the no-fly list – even though the nutjob’s father reported his son’s radical views to American authorities. But the TSA for several years has targeted Mikey…
Tom Sowell vs. Empty Pseudo-Intellectualism.
Do stores in low-income neighborhoods charge higher prices because of racism, or greed? That’s what some academics argue, but Tom Sowell points out that there are real economic factors that drive pricing decisions. The example below is about stores, but his IBD…
The English Have Gone Bonkers.
This blog periodically makes fun of England (even though it is one of my favorite nations) for big government and political correctness, but these two stories caused my jaw to drop. First, the Daily Mail reports that a man was jailed for several hours because he was…
Clueless English Government Raises Tax Rates, then Wonders Why Compliance Is a Problem.
Academic research is fairly unanimous that high tax rates cause tax avoidance and tax evasion. Not many people, after all, are going to take big risks or engage in inefficient tax planning to escape Hong Kong’s low-rate flat tax. But people begin to figure out…
Big Government Means Big Corruption.
The Washington Times has an article exposing how a law firm is simultaneously doing legal work on a program for the government while also lobbying for more handouts from that program. Here’s an excerpt from the expose: One of the law firms hired to provide legal…
Outside the Beltway, Some Democrats Protect Taxpayers.
The Wall Street Journal opines about the good work of Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana. As the excerpt below notes, Schweitzer has vetoed wasteful spending and balanced the state budget without adding to the tax burden. Too bad there aren’t…
H&R Block and the IRS: An Unholy Alliance to Ransack Taxpayers.
The late George Stigler, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, is famous in part because of his work on “regulatory capture,” which occurs when interest groups use the coercive power of government to thwart competition and undeservedly line their own…