This year has seen numerous scandals followed by public concern over the extent to which government agencies are violating their privacy rights. Much of the focus has been on the NSA and national security, but the bigger threat to domestic rights may ultimately come from the IRS. A few years ago, Congress passed the Foreign […]

Keynesian economics is the perpetual motion machine of the left. You build a model that assumes government spending is good for the economy and you assume that there are zero costs when the government diverts money from the private sector. With that type of model, you then automatically generate predictions that bigger government will “stimulate’ […]

The Washington metropolitan area has become America’s wealthiest region because trillions of dollars are taken every year from the productive sector of the economy and then divvied up by the politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and interest groups that benefit from federal largess. But there’s always an appetite in Washington for even more money.  Former Senator Kent […]

We have another candidate for our “Republican Hall of Shame.” The governor of Ohio, John Kasich, is embracing Obamacare. Moreover, not only does he want bad healthcare policy, but he’s using third-world tactics and making morally reprehensible arguments. The Wall Street Journal savages Kasich in a stinging editorial. Here’s a key excerpt that explains the […]

You would think the bureaucrats who run government schools would want to focus on the basics, such as teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. After all, no nation spends more per pupil on education than the United States. And based on some Cato Institute research, I suspect the OECD estimate of about $15,000 per student is […]

I posted a video back in 2010 that used biting humor to complain about overpaid firefighters. That video stirred a hornet’s nest, generating some spirited debate in the comments section. But there was no resolution, in part because you can’t make sweeping judgements when firefighter pay is determined locally. Some firefighters may be underpaid and […]

Okay, I’ll admit the title of this post is an exaggeration. How to fix the mess at the IRS is a fiscal policy question, and that requires tax reform rather than spending restraint. But allow me a bit of literary license. We just had a big debt limit battle in Washington and, after a lot […]

One of my missions in life is fundamental tax reform. I would like to replace the corrupt internal revenue code with a simple and fair flat tax. Though what I really want is a tax system that minimizes the damage of extracting money from the productive sector of the economy, so I’ll take any system […]

I recently gave five reasons why the shutdown fight was worthwhile and my number one reason was that it’s better to be on offense than defense. It seems I’m not the only one to reach this sensible conclusion. Here’s some of what Fred Barnes wrote today for the Wall Street Journal. In the deal that […]