Obama has staked out a very dogmatic and inflexible position on class-warfare tax hikes and he obviously wants all of us to think only the “rich” will be impacted. I think it’s foolish to penalize investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners and other upper-income…
Daily Analysis
The Joint Committee on Taxation’s Head-in-the-Sand Approach to the Laffer Curve
I’m a big believer in the Laffer Curve, which is the common-sense proposition that changes in tax rates don’t automatically mean proportional changes in tax revenue. This is because you also have to think about what happens to taxable income, which can move up or down…
The “Essential” Role of Tax Havens
Since one of my main priorities is to defend tax competition and tax havens, I’m always delighted to see others jump in the fight to defend fiscal sovereignty. Especially when those people clearly understand that so-called tax havens are necessary to restrain the…
How Do You Turn a Leftist into a Warmonger?
More than four years ago, as part of my efforts to promote and protect tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, I narrated this video explaining the economic benefits of so-called tax havens. Pay close attention at the 1:07 mark. Yes, you heard…
If Obama Beat Hoover, So What?
You know your record as President is abysmal when supporters are reduced to touting how much better you’ve done than Herbert Hoover. But that’s where Obama is at, apparently, as historian Robert McElvaine took to the New York Times a few days ago to make…
Price Controls Are Exacerbating the Damage of Hurricane Sandy
Price controls are a spectacularly foolish idea, and that’s true whether they’re imposed by thugs such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s why one of the 20th Century’s economic heroes is Ludwig Erhard, who…
A Four-Picture Indictment: Final Pre-Election Jobs Report Is Not Good News for Obama
In some sense, the President is fortunate. I predicted a long time ago that he would win re-election if the unemployment rate was under 8 percent. Well, the new numbers just came out and the joblessness rate is 7.9 percent. So even though his stimulus failed, and even…
New International Monetary Fund Study Inadvertently Provides Very Strong Evidence against the Value-Added Tax
I’m not a big fan of the International Monetary Fund, largely because the folks in charge oftentimes advocate toxic policies such as bailouts, higher taxes, and currency devaluation. But there are some top-rate economists working at the IMF, and the bureaucracy has…
No Matter How Hard He Tries, Obama Will Never Be as Bad as FDR
I’ve explained on many occasions that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was bad news for the economy. And the same can be said of Herbert Hoover’s policies, since he also expanded the burden of federal spending, raised tax rates, and increased government intervention. So…
Debunking Obama’s Flawed Assertions on Tax Deductions and Corporate Welfare
In a violation of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, my brutal overseers at the Cato Institute required me to watch Wednesday’s debate (you can see what Cato scholars said by clicking here). But I will admit that it was good to…