Daily Analysis

Measuring One Part of the Bush-Obama Regulatory Onslaught

Have you ever tried to run in waist-high water? It’s not easy, but it’s a useful exercise if you want to experience what it’s like to comply with government rules, regulation, paperwork, and red tape. Especially if you want to understand why it’s getting harder for…

Great Moments in Government Stupidity

Do you want drunk truck drivers barreling down the highway? Probably not, but the government does. That’s a bit of hyperbole, but it’s not an unreasonable interpretation of a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC is upset that a…

Crazy California Politicians Want to Regulate Babysitting

I’ve had several reasons to mock California in the past couple of years (see here, here, here, and here). But I never thought state politicians would be crazy enough to impose harsh regulations on babysitting. Filling out a time card for your babysitter sounds absurd,…

The Futile Stupidity of Laws Against “Short Selling”

The governments of Spain, Italy, Belgium and (of course) France recently imposed 15-day bans on “short selling,” which means they are prohibiting people from making investments that would be profitable if certain stocks fall in value. According to the politicians, the…

Senator Rubio vs. Rogue IRS Bureaucrats

Senator Rubio continues to impress with his Reagan-like efforts to restrain government and promote growth. His latest initiative is legislation to curtail rogue IRS bureaucrats who are seeking to use regulatory edicts to overturn 90 years of law. Here are excerpts…

A Message from Soros: Regulation for Thee, but Not for Me

I think it may be time to update the dictionary definition of irony. George Soros, the billionaire who finances statist organizations and causes in order to promote more government, has decided that he doesn’t want to deal with some of the new regulatory burdens…

Taking on FATCA and Proposed Section 911 Elimination

Sound tax policy is hard to find these days. As CF&P has extensively covered, Congress included the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act as part of the HIRE Act, passed in March 2010. FATCA takes a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to tax policy. Rather than…