Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane…no it’s Super Bureaucrat! Actually, look to New Jersey, because you’re going to see a taxpayer ripoff that will get your blood boiling. Depending on your perspective, this may be worse than the toll collector on the New…
Daily Analysis
Instead of a Government-Guaranteed Income, How About a Practical Plan to End the Washington Welfare State?
The welfare state is a nightmare. Programs such as Medicaid are fiscal catastrophes. The food stamp program is riddled with waste. The EITC is easily defrauded, even sending checks to prisoners. And housing subsidies are a recipe for the worst forms of social…
President Obama’s Most Amazing Accomplishment
After nearly five years in office, what’s President Obama’s most significant accomplishment? This is a serious question, so no jokes about the Nobel Prize he received for not being Bush. And no partisan GOP answers about the 2010 election, either. Put yourself in the…
Are Americans Getting Tired of Big Government?
A new Reason-Rupe poll finds Americans increasingly tired of government banning everything they like. The federal government recently proposed rules that would effectively ban trans fats, but 71 percent of Americans say they should be allowed to buy foods with trans…
To Deal with the Problem of Incompetent Government, David Brooks Wants to…Make the Executive Branch More Powerful?!?
I sometimes get irked when I read columns by David Brooks. He’s sort of the token Republican at the New York Times, so he has a very important perch that could be used to educate an important audience about the harmful impact of excessive government. And Brooks often…
Block Granting and Decentralization: The Sensible Way of Reducing Rampant Medicaid Fraud
When you work in Washington (and assuming you haven’t been corrupted), you run the risk of being endlessly outraged about all the waste. But not all waste is created equal. Some examples are so absurd that they deserve special attention. Forcing taxpayers to pay…
The Most Pro-Capitalism Place to Live in North America Is…
Back in February, I said Australia probably was the country most likely to survive and prosper as much of the world suffered fiscal collapse and social chaos. In hindsight, I probably should have mentioned Canada as an option, in part because of pro-growth reforms in…
Ryan-Murray Budget Deal Replaces Real Spending Restraint of Sequester with Budget Gimmicks and Back-Door Tax Hikes
How Disappointing, but how predictable. Politicians approved legislation in 2011 that was supposed to impose a modest bit of spending restraint over the next 10 years. It wasn’t much. The enforcement mechanism, known as sequestration, merely was supposed to guarantee…
The “Stupid Party” Strikes Again: Congressional Republicans Poised to Give Up Sequester Victory
There’s a saying in the sports world about how last-minute comebacks are examples of “snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.” I don’t like that phrase because it reminds me of the painful way my beloved Georgia Bulldogs were defeated a couple of weeks ago by…
Another Misguided Plan to Burden America with a Value-Added Tax
It’s no secret that I dislike the value-added tax. But this isn’t because of its design. The VAT, after all, would be (presumably) a single-rate, consumption-based system, just like the flat tax and national sales tax. And that’s a much less destructive way of raising…