Why is President Obama so fixated on a class-warfare agenda of higher taxes on the rich and government dependency for the poor? Is it because a tax-the-rich agenda is good politics, as determined by clever pollsters who have tapped into the collective mind of American…
Daily Analysis
The Dependency Ratio and South Africa’s Grim Economic Future
When asked about the most worrisome statistic for a nation, I don’t say it’s the top marginal tax rate, even though I think class-warfare taxation is very poisonous for long-run economic performance. Nor do I say it’s the burden of government spending relative to…
Can Greece Be Rescued?
I’m a pessimist about public policy for two simple reasons: 1) Seeking power and votes, elected officials generally can’t resist making short-sighted and politically motivated choices that expand the burden of government. 2) Voters are susceptible to bribery,…
America’s Ever-Expanding Regulatory Swamp
Maybe I’m biased because I mostly work on fiscal policy, but it certainly seems feasible to come up with rough estimates for the damage caused by onerous taxes and excessive spending. On a personal level, for instance, we have a decent idea of how much the government…
Financed by American Tax Dollars, the OECD Endorses Obama’s Statist Agenda for the U.S. Economy
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is once again pushing for bigger and more intrusive in the United States. The international bureaucracy’s “Economic Survey” of the United States reads like it…
The Punitive Economic Cost of Class-Warfare Taxation
I’ve already shared a bunch of data and evidence on the importance of low tax rates. A review of the academic evidence by the Tax Foundation found overwhelming support for the notion that lower tax rates are good for growth. An economist from Cornell found lower tax…
A Lower Corporate Rate Is a Practical And Good Response to Inversions
It boggles the mind to think that the United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. But it’s even more amazing that America arguably has the most punitive corporate tax rate in the entire world. Here’s some of what I wrote on the…
Lower Tax Rates vs. Targeted Tax Credits, Part II
I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal last week about the policy debate over whether it’s better to lower tax rates or to provide targeted tax cuts for parents. Since this meant I was wading into a fight between so-called reform conservatives (or “reformicons”)…
Lower Tax Rates > Targeted Tax Credits
Some folks on the right in Washington, generally known as reformicons (short for reform conservatives), want the Republican Party to de-emphasize marginal tax rate reductions and instead focus on providing tax relief to parents. There are many leaders in this movement…
Another Victory for the Laffer Curve, this Time over the Lifestyle Puritans
What do cigarettes and capital gains have in common? Well, they both start with the same letter, so maybe the Cookie Monster could incorporate them into his favorite song, but I’m thinking about something else. Specifically, both cigarettes and capital gains tell us…