I’m currently in the Faroe Islands, a relatively unknown and semi-autonomous part of Denmark located in the North Atlantic. Sort of like Greenland, but too small to appear on most maps. I’m in this chilly archipelago for a speech to the annual meeting of the Faroese…
Daily Analysis
Ohio’s Cheerleader for Big Government, John “Barack” Kasich
We have another candidate for our “Republican Hall of Shame.” The governor of Ohio, John Kasich, is embracing Obamacare. Moreover, not only does he want bad healthcare policy, but he’s using third-world tactics and making morally reprehensible arguments. The Wall…
The Perverse Economics of Obamacare: Earn Less, Get More
Obamacare was put together by people who don’t understand economics. This is probably the understatement of the year since I could be referring to many features of the bad law. The higher tax burden on saving and investment, making an anti-growth tax system even…
Medicare: Recipients Pay for Hamburger, They Get a Hamburger, but Taxpayers Are Being Charged for a Steak
One of the challenges of good entitlement reform (or even bad entitlement reform) is that recipients think they’ve “earned” benefits. If you tell them that programs such as Medicare are unsustainable and need to be changed, some of them suspect you’re trying to…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which States Provide the Most Handouts of All?
About two years ago, I shared a map put together by a pro-statism organization that supposedly showed that welfare benefits were very miserly and not sufficiently generous to lift people out of poverty. My gut instinct was to reject the findings. As I wrote at the…
Left-Wing Nursery Rhymes
I’ve already shared the statist version of the fairy tale about The Little Red Hen. And I’ve also shared the Obama version of the fable about The Ant and the Grasshopper. So how about the left-wing version of The Little Engine that Could. Or, in this case, couldn’t. I…
Which State Has the Most Self-Reliant People?
Back in 2010, I put together a “Moocher Index” as a rough measure of which states had the highest levels of welfare dependency after adjusting for poverty rates. My goal was to answer this question. Is there a greater willingness to sign up for income redistribution…
Thomas Sowell Explains How the Welfare State Hurts the Poor
Political cartoonists like Michael Ramirez and Chuck Asay are effective because they convey so much with images. But we need more than clever cartoons if we’re going to educate the general population about how government harms the economy and undermines freedom. And…
I Made a $16 Trillion Mistake, but Still Had a Stronger Position in this Debate
I’ve done a handful of TV debates on Social Security, including the time I said that I wished Republicans had a secret plan for personal retirement accounts. So I thought I was well prepared for this duel with a defender of the status quo on Fox Business Network. I…
UFOs, Faked Moon Landings, and Fiscal Policy
I was very pleased to report the other day that the people of France overwhelmingly favor spending cuts, even when they were asked a biased question that presupposed that Keynesian-style spending increases would “stimulate” the economy. Now I have some polling data…



