It’s time to extinguish any lingering Christmas cheer. Today’s topic is over-bearing and tyrannical tax administration. To be more specific, we’re going to look at the extent to which taxpayers are mistreated during the process of collecting revenue. Yes, the amount that governments steal from you also is important, but that’s a topic we’ve already […]
read more...Jay Leno had the all-time best Christmas joke and the school bureaucrats in Haymarket, VA, win the prize for the all-time worst example of anti-Christmas lunacy. But I must win the prize for being the biggest Christmas policy dork. I make this confession freely because there’s no other explanation for being very happy about this […]
read more...Normal people aren’t thinking about public policy at this time of year, but I’m a libertarian who has decided to fight against big government in Washington, so I’m definitely not normal and I could be a masochist. And since you’re reading this instead of daydreaming about Santa, you’re also not part of the herd. Which […]
read more...Last year, while writing about the sleazy and self-serving behavior at the IRS, I came up with a Theorem that explains day-to-day behavior in Washington. It might not be as pithy as Mitchell’s Law, and it doesn’t contain an important policy prescription like Mitchell’s Golden Rule, but it could be the motto of the federal […]
read more...It’s not easy being a libertarian, particularly if you follow public policy. Thomas Jefferson almost certainly was right when he wrote that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” Heck, just look at how small government used to be in the developed world compared to where it […]
read more...Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane…no it’s Super Bureaucrat! Actually, look to New Jersey, because you’re going to see a taxpayer ripoff that will get your blood boiling. Depending on your perspective, this may be worse than the toll collector on the New Jersey Turnpike who pocketed more than $300,000 […]
read more...The welfare state is a nightmare. Programs such as Medicaid are fiscal catastrophes. The food stamp program is riddled with waste. The EITC is easily defrauded, even sending checks to prisoners. And housing subsidies are a recipe for the worst forms of social engineering. The entire system should be tossed in the trash. But what’s […]
read more...After nearly five years in office, what’s President Obama’s most significant accomplishment? This is a serious question, so no jokes about the Nobel Prize he received for not being Bush. And no partisan GOP answers about the 2010 election, either. Put yourself in the position of a future historian and think about what you would […]
read more...Writing for Hong Kong’s Harbour Times, CF&P President Andrew Quinlan and I recently coauthored a piece explaining why appeasing the radical demands of the OECD is a losing strategy. Simply put, the global tax collectors will not be satisfied with anything less than the end of all tax competition: Like the OECD’s prior standards, demands […]
read more...Like all advocates of freedom, I normally despair about the future. Whether we’re measuring the ever-growing burden of government or the erosion of key forms of social capital such as self-reliance and the work ethic, it seems that the world is heading in the wrong direction. But, at least for today, I want to be […]
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