This is the type of story that makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve already commented on how I don’t like redistribution from rich to poor, but I really, really hate redistribution from poor to rich. And that’s exactly what happens when taxpayers subsidize the…
Daily Analysis
The 1993 Clinton Tax Increase Did Not Lead to the Budget Surpluses of the Late 1990s
Proponents of higher taxes are fond of claiming that Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase was a big success because of budget surpluses that began in 1998. That’s certainly a plausible hypothesis, and I’m already on record arguing that Clinton’s economic record was much…
Requiring a Permit to Be a Bum?!? Great Moments in Government Stupidity
Since I’ve spent the past 25 years analyzing government, I’m used to spectacular levels of waste and incompetence. Examples of pork such as “$27 light bulbs” and the “turtle tunnel” barely cause me to raise an eyebrow. It takes something really amazing to grab my…
Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government
A new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives four reasons why big government is bad fiscal policy. I particularly like the explanation of how government spending undermines growth by diverting labor and capital from the productive sector of the…
Happy 100th Birthday to Ronald Reagan
On the 30th anniversary of his inauguration, I posted a bunch of videos that captured Ronald Reagan’s greatness, but I think we need only one for the 100th anniversary of his birth. This video illustrates Reagan’s superior understanding of fiscal policy. He points out…
The Federal Bureaucracy: Even More Bloated When You Count the “Shadow” Workforce
Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a very depressing column for National Review. To put it bluntly, he exposes the true size of the federal workforce, which has 5.5 hidden employees for every official bureaucrat. Officially, as of…
Two Recent TSA Decisions Will Make Flying a More Miserable Experience in the Future
I’m sick of the TSA and haven’t written about that incompetent bureaucracy since posting a mock press release early last month. But after enduring the slowest-moving line in recorded history at the Miami Airport yesterday, motivation is no longer a problem. So it was…
Great Moments in Government: The Fight against…umm…errr…Breaking Wind
I’m not really sure what to say about the politicians in Malawi. Is this really a serious problem in the country? Will there be a new government agency to enforce the rule? How do they identify perpetrators if there is…um…no accompanying sound? On the other hand, this…
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Government-Subsidized Happiness in Brazil
One of the many great things about America’s Founding Fathers is that the Declaration of Independence refers to “unalienable rights” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But there’s not even a suggestion that it is the job of government to provide…
Comparing Reaganomics and Obamanomics with Minneapolis Fed Data
Ronald Reagan would have been 100 years old on February 6, so let’s celebrate his life by comparing the success of his pro-market policies with the failure of Barack Obama’s policies (which are basically a continuation of George W. Bush’s policies, so this is not a…