The most recent jobs report from the Labor Department contains both good news and the bad news. If you’re a glass-half-full person, you’ll want to focus on some positive trends. The joblessness rate fell to 7.5 percent, the lowest level since Obama became President….
Daily Analysis
MarketPlace Fairness Act Thwarts Tax Competition
The Marketplace Fairness Act, a misguided attempt to allow expanded sales tax collection online, passed the Senate on Monday, though its fate in the House is less clear. Also less clear is whether the law passes constitutional muster. At the very least it severely…
Why the So-Called Marketplace Fairness Act Is a Misguided Expansion of Power for State Governments
I’m either a total optimist or a glutton for punishment. I recently explained the benefits of “tax havens” for the unfriendly readers of the New York Times. Now I’m defending a different form of tax competition for CNN, another news outlet that leans left. In this…
If the Government Doesn’t Double Tax Your Retirement Savings, Are You Benefitting from an Entitlement?
I’ve cited some remarkable examples of Orwellian language abuse. The World Bank published a study of national tax systems and countries with higher tax burdens were rewarded with a grade of “high effort.” A German bureaucrat accused a Czech politician of “obstructing…
Huge Value-Added Tax Increases in Europe Show Why Washington Politicians Should Never Be Given a New Source of Tax Revenue
The most important, powerful, and relevant argument against the value-added tax in the short run is that we can balance the budget in just five years by capping spending so it grows at the rate of inflation, a very modest level of fiscal restraint. The most important,…
An Amazing Story of Economic Success
I’ve written before about the remarkable vitality of Hong Kong and Singapore, two jurisdictions that deserve praise for small government and free markets. I have also praised Switzerland because of policies such as genuine federalism and financial privacy, and it goes…
How Bureaucrats and Politicians Conspire to Rip Off Taxpayers
I can say with great confidence that government bureaucrats are overpaid compared to people in the productive sector of the economy. Why am I sure that this is true, particularly when the so-called Federal Salary Council claims bureaucrats are underpaid? For the…
Where Are the European Spending Cuts?
Paul Krugman recently tried to declare victory for Keynesian economics over so-called austerity, but all he really accomplished was to show that tax-financed government spending is bad for prosperity. More specifically, he presented a decent case against the…
New European Data: When Tax Competition Is Weakened, Politicians Respond by Increasing Tax Rates
I often argue that we need to preserve tax competition and tax havens in order to limit the greed of the political class. Without some sort of external constraint, they will over-tax and over-spend, creating the kind of downward economic spiral already happening in…
Raise Your Glass and Give a Toast to Celebrate the Real-World Benefits of Lower Taxes and Economic Freedom
I share a lot of economic theory and empirical evidence in favor of lower tax rates. And I’m constantly extolling the virtues of overall economic freedom. But sometimes it helps to have a real-world example of how a specific industry responds when it is freed from…