First, some good news. The United States is in much better shape than most other developed nations, particularly if you look at broad measures of prosperity and living standards. And our economy is growing and the private sector is creating jobs. That’s the…
Daily Analysis
The 100th Anniversary of the Income Tax…and the Lesson We Should Learn from that Mistake
What’s the worst thing about Delaware? No, not Joe Biden. He’s just a harmless clown and the butt of some good jokes. Instead, the so-called First State is actually the Worst State because 100 years ago, on this very day, Delaware made the personal income tax possible…
In a Continuing Indictment of Obamanomics, another Bad Jobs Number Showing the “New Normal” of High Unemployment
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…
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…
The Great Hillsdale College Debate: Flat Tax or Fair Tax?
I’m at Hillsdale College in Michigan for a conference on taxation. The event is called “The Federal Income Tax: A Centenary Consideration,” though I would have called it something like “100 Years of Misery from the IRS.” I’m glad to be here, both because Hillsdale…
Thanks to the Welfare Hammock, Here’s another Horror Story about Deadbeats Sponging Off British Taxpayers
Here are some odious details from the UK-based Sun. Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat. It is all funded by the taxpayer, yet the couple say…
The Sequester May Not Be “Fair,” but It’s Real and It Would Slow the Growth of Government
Much to the horror of various interest groups, it appears that there will be a “sequester” on March 1. This means an automatic reduction in spending authority for selected programs (interest payments are exempt, as are most entitlement outlays). Just about everybody…
Which Department of the Federal Government Should Be the First to Be Abolished?
A reader sent an email to ask “Which federal department should be abolished first?” I guess this is what is meant when people talk about a target-rich environment. We have an abundance of candidates, including the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture,…
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….