With politicians like Barack Obama demanding higher taxes, this is a good moment to ask what we’re getting in exchange for the buckets of money we send to a federal overlords in Washington. The answer is disappointing, but not surprising. We get lots of waste, fraud…
Daily Analysis
Why on Earth Should We Consider Tax Increases When Politicians and Bureaucrats Allow Multi-Billion Dollar Losses of Taxpayer Money Because of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse?
Maybe I’m just old fashioned, or maybe I’m a bit stiff-necked, but I will never relent in my opposition to tax increases so long as the crowd in Washington is spending money on things that are not appropriate functions of the federal government. But that’s just one…
Block-Granting Medicaid Is a Long-Overdue Way of Restoring Federalism and Promoting Good Fiscal Policy
This new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains why Medicaid should be shifted to the states. As I note in the title of this post, it’s good federalism policy and good fiscal policy. But the video also explains that Medicaid reform is good health…
If We Want to Fix the Healthcare Mess, We Better Understand the Real Problem
This is the most depressing – but revealing – thing I have read in a long time: “the health-care sector has twice as many clerical workers as nurses and nine times as many as doctors.” That passage is from a very good column by Robert Samuelson, in which he covers a…
How Redistribution Creates a Poverty Trap
I’ve beaten up on Newt Gingrich for his views on global warming and his attack on the Ryan budget plan, but I’m completely on his side in the faux controversy about whether it is racist to call Barack Obama the “food stamp president.” This story from ABC News should…
Crikey, Australia’s a Good Role Model
The Economist magazine has a couple of good articles about Australia’s increasingly enviable economic status. Here’s a blurb from the first article, which outlines the pro-market reforms that enabled today’s prosperity. Only a dozen economies are bigger, and only six…
The Ryan and Rubio Medicare Videos: The GOP Begins to Fight Back
Republicans have finally woken up and are beginning to explain why Medicare needs to be reformed. Here’s a very good new video from Congressman Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee. He hits on key points regarding market competition versus government…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Nation Has the Most Debt of All?
Last night, I spoke at the closing dinner of the European Resource Bank. My message was simple and straightforward: Entitlement programs are killing the developed world. That’s not exactly a surprise, but what may be shocking is America’s relative position. In my…
I Don’t Care if You Wear Diapers as a 30-Year Old, but Don’t Ask Me to Subsidize Your Lifestyle
I wrote yesterday about the shocking case of a millionaire collecting food stamps. Today, I have an equally disgusting story of government waste. The Social Security program is actuarially bankrupt, with unfunded liabilities of several trillion dollars. Our topic…
Gee, I’m Glad I Pay Taxes to Give Food Stamps to a Millionaire
Not that we needed any additional evidence that the government wastes money in truly spectacular fashion, but this story from the Detroit Free Press is especially disgusting and outrageous. A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that…