In a recent column for the Wall Street Journal, I explained why Mitt Romney’s interest in a value-added tax is deeply troubling. One of my key points was that the VAT is a money machine for big government. But don’t believe me. Look at Japan, where the politicians see…
Last year, I debunked the silly claim that Obama is a conservative. I almost didn’t write that post. Some things, after all, presumably don’t require a response. Would I waste my time, for instance, responding to someone who claimed that Milton Friedman was a…
In the past 20-plus years, I’ve seen all sorts of arguments for class-warfare taxation. These include: President Obama says he wants higher tax rates for fairness, even if the government doesn’t collect any revenue. Rich leftists say they want higher taxes because…
Along with many others, I complained a couple of days ago that Mercedes-Benz was morally bankrupt for using the image of a notorious racist, communist, and murderer as part of a marketing gimmick. Well, the company has backed down. We won. It’s only symbolic, but…
After saddling the nation with trillion-dollar boondoggles like the faux stimulus and Obamacare, I’m not sure it’s possible for Obama to reinvent himself as a budget cutter before the election. But I welcome converts, even ones that are insincere, so I’m happy he’s at…
The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom has just been released. This is my favorite publication from the Heritage Foundation, and second only to the Economic Freedom of the World Index as a measure of global public policy. The news scores for 2012 are not pretty. We have…
I realize this is about as productive as talking to a brick wall, but I’m going to explain some basic economics to statist French policymakers (oops, pardon the redundancy). This heroic – albeit surely futile – impulse is triggered by a recent proposal from President…
Even vicious, reprehensible, and disgusting tyrants sometimes make wise observations. Back in 2010, for instance, Cuba’s Murderer-in-Chief confessed that communism didn’t work. More recently, the thug expressed unhappiness with the current crop of presidential…
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I write about insanely stupid government policies. But I know I get more motivated to fight big government. How can anyone want to give more money and power to politicians, for instance, after reading these comparisons of dumb…
I’m a big believer in fairness. And since I’ve written about the shortcomings of Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Mitt Romney, I need to say something about Rick Santorum. Actually, I don’t need to say anything, because other…