I asked back in September whether all the bad news about Obamacare meant it was time to feel sorry for President Obama and other statists. Some people apparently didn’t realize I was being sarcastic, so I got some negative feedback. I’ve since learned to be more…
Daily Analysis
A Primer on the Laffer Curve to Help Understand Why Obama’s Class-Warfare Tax Policy Won’t Work
My main goal for fiscal policy is shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and lowering the burden of government spending. But I’m also motivated by a desire for better tax policy, which means lower tax rates, less double taxation, and fewer corrupting…
Obamacare Liberating Americans From Productivity
It takes a special skill – or an abundance of chutzpah – to harm a person and then turn around and argue that it was all for their own good. But that’s exactly what the Obama administration, and the sycophants at the New York Times, are doing in…
Obama’s Dismal Legacy of European-Style Long-Run Unemployment
Looking at labor markets, my biggest concern is the drop in labor force participation. The data from the Labor Department on the employment-population ratio, for instance, suggest a permanent reduction in the share of the population that is working. And since economic…
Yet another Example of the Failure of Keynesian Economics
Early last year, with the sequester about to begin, President Obama stated that “these cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls.” He made this statement…
The Best State in America Is…?
What’s the best state in America? I’m not sure I can answer that broad question, but I can address the more narrow issue of which state has the most economic freedom. Last month, for instance, I shared some data from the Canada-based Fraser Institute which showed that…
The Biggest Impediment for the Poor is Government, Not Inequality
A bunch of well-connected rich people and government officials are descending upon Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. This upsets many people, and perhaps with some justification. After all, bad things often happen when big business and…
Deconstructing Obama’s Dismal Record on Jobs
According to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.7 percent. Is this good news? Well, it’s depends on your benchmark. Compared to France’s anemic economyand double-digit levels of unemployment, America is…
New Data Shows Big Loss of Economic Freedom in the United States
My favorite Heritage Foundation publication (other than…ahem…my studies on government spending and the flat tax) is the annual Index of Economic Freedom. Like the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness…
The Bread-ish Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism
If you ask an economist about the difference between capitalism and socialism, you’ll probably get a boring answer about the size of government, the impact on incentives, and the power of the state. Or maybe you’ll get a nit-picking answer, sort of like when I…