I’ve already condemned the foolish people of California for approving a referendum to raise the state’s top tax rate to 13.3 percent. This impulsive and misguided exercise in class warfare surely will backfire as more and more productive people flee to other states –…
In an ideal world, Congress would not raise the debt limit. This would force – automatically and immediately – a balanced budget. More important, it would produce a meaningful reduction in the burden of government spending. And contrary to hyperbole from defenders of…
How do you define a terrible team? No, this isn’t going to be a joke about Notre Dame foolishly thinking it could match up against a team from the Southeastern Conference in college football’s national title game (though the Irish win the contest for prettiest…
Economists may not agree on much, but we all agree that economic output is a function of capital and labor. Ask a Keynesian, a Marxist, an Austrian, a monetarist, or any economist, and they’ll all agree that living standards are determined by the quality and quantity…
Good fiscal policy doesn’t require heavy lifting. Governments simply need to limit the burden of government spending. The key variable is making sure spending doesn’t consume ever-larger shares of economic output. In other words, follow Mitchell’s Golden Rule. It’s…
Obama imposed a big tax hike last year. But I’m not talking about the fiscal cliff and the President’s class-warfare trophy of higher tax rates on those evil rich people. That happened this year. Instead, I’m referring to the increase in the regulatory burden. Here…
I’ve frequently commented on Europe’s fiscal mess and argued that excessive government spending is responsible for both the sovereign debt crisis and the economic stagnation that plagues the continent. But it does seem that things have calmed down, so the readers who…
Because of Obama’s class-warfare tax hike and additional tax increases by kleptocrats at the state level, many successful taxpayers will now lose more than 50 percent of any additional income they generate for the American economy. I discuss the implications of this…
I’ve always been a big fan of Economic Freedom of the World because it provides a balanced and neutral measure of which nations do best in providing free markets and small government. And I like it even when it gives me bad news. It’s somewhat depressing, after all,…
There’s a debate among policy wonks about whether a no-tax-hike policy is an effective way of restraining the burden of government spending. At the risk of over-simplifying, the folks who support the “starve the beast” theory argue that there are political and/or…