Maybe it’s because I have a bit of a old-fashioned moralistic streak to me, but I viscerally object to the notion that good people should pay bad people not to do bad things. That’s why, a few years ago, I didn’t react favorably when the former dictator of Libya asked…
Daily Analysis
Warning: Government-Run Healthcare Is Very Hazardous to Your Health
Back in 2010, I guest-hosted Larry Kudlow’s CNBC program for a couple of days. During one of the segments on my last show, I crossed swords with the other host, Simon Hobbs, as we argued whether patients needlessly died because of the government-run healthcare system…
Bono Defends Tax Competition
Bono recently made waves for defending capitalism and its role in alleviating poverty. Rock stars aren’t supposed to express appreciation for the same free markets that have made them wealthy. But not only has he witnessed first hand how markets work to bring…
End the Federal Subsidy for Big State Governments
The relationship between federal and state governments – the division of power between the two levels being known as federalism – is an integral part of the American constitutional system. Federalism uses separate and competing spheres of sovereignty to…
Medicare: Recipients Pay for Hamburger, They Get a Hamburger, but Taxpayers Are Being Charged for a Steak
One of the challenges of good entitlement reform (or even bad entitlement reform) is that recipients think they’ve “earned” benefits. If you tell them that programs such as Medicare are unsustainable and need to be changed, some of them suspect you’re trying to…
A Government Database about our Sex Lives: Gee, What Could Go Wrong?
I’ve shared several videos that make the case against Obamacare. Here’s one narrated by a Dutch woman warning that America shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of European government-run healthcare. Here’s one from Reason TV about how free markets produce lower healthcare…
Time to Retire the “Hypocrisy in Government” Award?
If I had to identify a “least-favorite” international bureaucracy, it almost certainly would be the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD doesn’t waste as much money as the United Nations, it might not cause as much macroeconomic…
Testifying to the Joint Economic Committee about “Debt Limit Brinksmanship”
As we get closer to the debt limit, the big spenders in Washington are becoming increasingly hysterical about the supposed possibility of default if politicians lose the ability to borrow more money. I testified yesterday to the Joint Economic Committee on “The…
A Rare Sign of Fiscal Sanity in France
We have an amazing man-bites-dog story today. Let’s begin with some background information. A member of the European Commission recently warned that: “Tax increases imposed by the Socialist-led government in France have reached a “fatal level”…[and] that a series of…
It’s Amazingly Simple to Balance the Budget
I’m testifying tomorrow to the Joint Economic Committee about “The Economic Costs of Debt-Ceiling Brinkmanship.” I won’t give away what I’m going to say (though you can probably figure out my views rather easily by reading this, this and this), but I do want to share…