Kevin Williamson of National Review is always worth reading, whether he’s kicking Paul Krugman’s behind in a discussion about the Texas economy, explaining supply-side economics, or even when he’s writing misguided things about taxation. But I’m tempted to say that anything he’s written to date pales into insignificance compared to his analysis of the corrupt […]
read more...Mark Twain famously observed that, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” That’s a generalization, of course, but one that makes a lot of sense. Especially since I’ve written about the sleazy practice of swapping earmarks for campaign cash and also about […]
read more...I’ve written before about how some leftists have a masochistic desire to pay higher taxes. I’ve also exposed Warren Buffett’s dishonest math, which is part of his campaign for bigger government. And I’ve even debated rich statists on TV, telling them not to make the rest of us victims of their neurotic guilt feelings. So […]
read more...There’s been a lot of discussion about Mitt Romney’s appeal – or lack thereof – among supporters of limited government. To put it mildly, many libertarians and conservatives are underwhelmed by his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed budget savings, and his reprehensible support for ethanol […]
read more...I’m not a big fan of the European bureaucracy. Indeed, I was semi-serious when I stated that Brussels was the “most statist place on the planet.” Which is why I greatly enjoyed this speech by the head of Ryan Air, who ripped the bureaucrats a new you-know-what while speaking at an event sponsored by the […]
read more...I’ve commented many times about wasteful government spending, including Social Security bureaucrats spending $700 thousand to party at a luxury resort, HUD bureaucrats giving huge subsidies for welfare recipients to live in upscale neighborhoods, rampant fraud in the unemployment insurance program, and tax dollars being used to subsidize a grown man wearing diapers and living […]
read more...I have many frustrations in my life, and near the top of the list is the conservative fixation about balancing the budget. This view is very misguided. Red ink isn’t good, but the fiscal problem in America (as well as Europe, Japan, etc) is that the public sector is too big. Milton Friedman was right […]
read more...Every so often (about 362 days per year), I come to the conclusion that government is a racket for the benefit of special interests. Greece would be an example. And if we limit ourselves to the United States, California is probably the poster child for a kleptocracy masquerading as a government. Here are some absurd […]
read more...It’s obviously quite disappointing that Congressman Paul Ryan has teamed up with Senator Ron Wyden, a Democratic from Oregon, to put forth a significantly watered down version of his Medicare reform plan. Ben Domenech of the Heartland Institute and Peter Suderman of Reason have good summaries of why the new plan is a less-than-exciting development. […]
read more...Earlier this year, I wrote about how the person Obama put in charge of Medicare made some very interesting observations about prices, competition, and markets, but then drew exactly the wrong conclusion about what was needed to solve the third-party payer problem in health care. We now have another example of someone producing very good […]
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