I almost feel sorry for the Obama Administration’s spin doctors. Every month, they probably wait for the unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with the same level of excitement that people on death row wait for their execution date. This has been…
Daily Analysis
Rather than Helping the Poor, Higher Tax Rates Redistribute Rich People
Daniel Hannan is a member of the European Parliament from England. He is one of the few economically sensible people in that body, as demonstrated in these short clips of him speaking about tax competition and deriding the European Commission’s corrupt racket. And as…
Why GDP Data Shouldn’t Be Interpreted in Ways That Support Keynesian Spending
Fighting against statism in Washington is a lot like trying to swim upstream. It seems that everything (how to measure spending cuts, how to estimate tax revenue, etc) is rigged to make your job harder. A timely example is the way the way government puts together data…
Don’t Trust Economists, Part II
Back in 2010, I shared a remarkable graph comparing the predictions of economists to what actually happened. Not surprisingly, the two lines don’t exactly overlap, which explains the old joke that economists have correctly predicted nine of the last five recessions….
Obama’s Vision of a Nation of Takers
If you don’t want to be depressed, you should stop reading right now. You probably know that we’ve been suffering because of a rising burden of government spending. And you probably understand that much of the problem is the relentless growth of redistribution and…
Is Anybody Surprised that Krugman Was Wrong about U.K. Fiscal Policy?
Just like in the United States, politicians in the United Kingdom use the deceptive practice of “baseline budgeting” as part of fiscal policy. This means the politicians can increase spending, but simultaneously claim they are cutting spending because the budget could…
California’s One-Man Laffer Curve
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 –…
Debt Limit, Spending Bills, and Picking the Right Fight
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…
Based on a Review of Studies Looking at the Impact of Taxes on Growth, Academic Research Gives Obama a Record of 0-23-3
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…
Obama’s Dismal Record on Jobs, Captured in a Single Chart and Explained with Common Sense
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…