I have a new article for National Review about the fallout from the Supercommittee. Among the points I make are: o We were lucky to dodge a tax hike. o There’s still a threat of a tax hike if big-government Republicans side with the so-called rational left in favor of…
Daily Analysis
What’s the Solution to Europe’s Fiscal Crisis: Spending Cuts, or Bailouts and Easy Money?
In hopes of stopping investor panic about Europe’s fiscal crisis, the world’s major central banks just announced that they will do whatever is needed to ensure financial markets don’t freeze up. This could be an appropriate and relatively benign use of the…
Bureaucrats Gone Wild
This narrator probably won’t get rich, like the guy who did the “Girls Gone Wild” videos, but this is the second-best video I’ve ever seen on the bloated and overpaid government workforce. I especially like how he understands that the problem is the size of…
Everything You Need to Know about Entitlement Reform
Most people have a vague understanding that America has a huge long-run fiscal problem. They’re right, though they probably don’t realize the seriousness of that looming crisis. Here’s what you need to know: America’s fiscal crisis is actually a spending crisis, and…
European Economic Crisis Highlights an Increasingly Important Reason to Oppose Gun Control
bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though…
Despicable and Corrupt Republicans Vote for More Housing Subsidies
Remember my post from a week ago when I said I was not a Republican even though Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge are two of my heroes? Well, now I have another reason to despise the GOP. Those reprehensible statists just voted to expand federal housing subsidies….
Europe’s Dismal Outlook
The economic and fiscal crisis in Europe looks worse every day as a growing number of international investors decide that nations such as Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Spain can’t be trusted. As a result, interest rates on government debt are hitting record levels. Not…
Australia’s Shameful Stifling of Free Speech and Political Dissent
I haven’t written much on the global-warming debate, other than to warn about how agenda-driven government funding is corrupting scientific inquiry and to mock nutjob extremists who assert climate change will cause catastrophes ranging from genocide to AIDS. But I…
Sequestration Does Not Endanger America’s National Security
The left wanted to get one thing from the Supercommittee, and that was to seduce gullible Republicans into a 1990-style tax increase deal in order to enable bigger government. But I was pleasantly surprised when GOPers failed to surrender, which means that taxpayers…
The Federal Budget Process and Bureaucratic Incentives, Nicely Captured by a Cartoon
I’ve done a video on excessive compensation for bureaucrats and I’ve written many times about wasteful spending, but here’s a cartoon that manages to effectively combine both concepts. If your eyes are getting old like mine, you may need to click on the image to read…