While most of my disdain is focused on the clowns in Washington, I enjoy poking fun at the policies adopted by the various nitwits and thugs that can be found in other governments. That’s why I’ve mocked the British government-run healthcare system for letting a woman…
Daily Analysis
Estonia and Austerity: Another Exploding Cigar for Paul Krugman
I have great fondness for Estonia, in part because it was the first post-communist nation to adopt the flat tax, but also because of the country’s remarkable scenery. Most recently, though, I’ve been bragging about Estonia (along with Latvia and Lithuania, the other…
House Defeats Motion Supporting Levin’s Latest Misguided Attack on Tax Havens
While the two chambers of Congress work to reconcile the differences between their respective transportation bills, CF&P continues to monitor an unrelated tax provision known as the “Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act” that was slipped into the Senate version by…
Will More Federal Debt Improve the U.S. Government’s Creditworthiness?
Writing in yesterday’s Washington Post, former Obama economist Larry Summers put forth the strange hypothesis that more red ink would improve the federal government’s long-run fiscal position. This sounds like an excuse for more Keynesian spending as part of another…
Global Taxes Threaten More Than Just the Economy
Writing in today’s Washington Times, Richard Rahn addressed the issue of global taxation. As recently described in a CF&P Libertas, the ongoing efforts of international bureaucrats to impose global taxes threatens not just economic prosperity, but also the…
The Great Tax Haven Debate, Part II
Back in April, responding to an article written by Ann Hollingshead for the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, I wrote a long post defending so-called tax havens. I went through the trouble of a point-by-point response because her article was…
Contract for Buffalo Teachers Shows the Wrong Way of Cutting Excess Bureaucratic Blubber
Government bureaucrats are significantly overpaid compared to folks in the productive sector of the economy. So you would think I’d support cuts, especially the kind that get rid of excess blubber in the government workforce. But not when it means higher costs for…
North Carolina’s Attempted Censorship Shows How State Governments also Are a Threat to Liberty
I spend much of my time focusing on the dangers of a bloated federal government. And if you’ve ever paid attention to the name of this blog, you know I have a special interest in monitoring the ill-advised actions of foreign governments. But that doesn’t mean I have a…
More Sub-Par Employment Numbers
The Labor Department just released its monthly employment report and the White House is probably not happy. There are several key bits of data in the report, such as the unemployment rate, net job creation, and employment-population ratio. At best, the results are…
The Steroid-Pumped Version of “Taxes Are for the Little People”
I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies, mostly because they always seem to promote bad policy such as higher tax rates. The International Monetary Fund is urging higher tax rates and pushing for nations to replace flat tax systems with so-called progressive…