There’s an old joke about two guys camping in the woods, when suddenly they see a hungry bear charging over a hill in their direction. One of the guys starts lacing up his sneakers and his friend says, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear.” The other guys…
Daily Analysis
More Bad News from Government-Run Education: The Corrosive Centralization of Common Core
I’ve posted hundreds of charts over the past several years, including on favorite topics such as tax code corruption and counterproductive government spending. But arguably the most powerful and compelling chart I’ve ever shared is on the topic of education. Prepared…
Where Will the Canadians Go for Health Care Now?
While Canadians are defensive about their health care system, and often times hold it up as a superior model, tens of thousands nevertheless voted with their feet in 2013 for America’s quasi-market system. Each year the Fraser Institute surveys physicians across…
It’s Not Springtime for Hitler and Obamacare
The title of today’s column may not make much sense if you’ve never watchedThe Producers, a 1960s Mel Brooks comedy featuring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, but you’ll soon see the connection. That’s because we’re going to laugh at Obamacare, otherwise known as the gift…
New Data Shows Big Loss of Economic Freedom in the United States
My favorite Heritage Foundation publication (other than…ahem…my studies on government spending and the flat tax) is the annual Index of Economic Freedom. Like the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness…
The Lamest Possible Rationale for NSA Spying
Last June, in response to a question about indiscriminate spying by the National Security Agency, I made two simple points about the importance of judicial oversight and cost-benefit analysis. I want – at a minimum – there to be judicial oversight whenever the…
Great Moments in Wasteful Spending…or Great Moments in Bizarre Regulation?
Every so often, I share stories about the ridiculous and outrageous way in which the federal government squanders our money. So when I saw this New York Post story about the feds pissing away a six-figure sum on condom research, I figured this would be a perfect…
The Bread-ish Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism
If you ask an economist about the difference between capitalism and socialism, you’ll probably get a boring answer about the size of government, the impact on incentives, and the power of the state. Or maybe you’ll get a nit-picking answer, sort of like when I…
To Be Genuinely Compassionate, Politicians Should Focus on Job Creation, not Unemployment Benefits
Washington is in the middle of another debate about redistributing money. But that’s hardly newsworthy. Politics, after all, is basically a never-ending racket in which insiders buy votes and accumulate power with other people’s money. The current debate about…
The Worst Feature of the Income Tax Is…?
In the famous “Bridge of Death” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, some of the knights are asked to name their favorite color. One of them mistakenly says blue instead of yellow and is hurled into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. I can sympathize with the…