There’s been a bit of chatter in the blogosphere about a recent post on Ezra Klein’s blog featuring estimates from various economists about the revenue-maximizing tax rate. It won’t come as a surprise that people on the right tended to give lower estimates and folks on the left had higher guesses. Donald Luskin of National […]

After my recent post on “bashing the IRS,” I got several emails and comments asking whether a national sales tax might be a better idea than the flat tax. I’m a big fan of proposals such as the Fair Tax. I’ve debated in favor of the national sales tax, done media interviews in favor of […]

Bill Frezza of Adams Capital Management writes at RealClearMarkets to debunk claims that the current deficit is due to a lack of tax revenue, rather than excessive spending.  Using IRS data, he shows how revenues from the rich – as well as the effective tax rate on the rich – rose during the Bush years. So […]

I appeared on CNBC earlier today to explain why a stake should be driven through the heart of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. My debate opponents seems to be somewhat on the right side and admits that Fannie and Freddie are bad news, but inexplicably wants to keep them alive.

Recently, I chastised Senator Levin for his assault on so-called “tax havens,” pointing out that Levin’s agenda would fail to benefit small businesses, but instead “place U.S. corporations at a competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace.” Since then, Cayman Finance has taken issue with the Senator, reinforcing many of the points consistently made by CF&P […]

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks have a column in today’s Wall Street Journal that explains the spontaneous, grassroots phenomenon of tea parties. They have plenty of interesting political and social analysis, but the most important part of their column is when they point out that the tea party movement […]

Congress wants to reduce tax evasion, but politicians are unwilling to address the underlying problem of low tax rates, so they continuously give the IRS more power and make it more difficult for law-abiding people to engage in commerce. A good example is the FATCA legislation, which is directly harming honest expatriates and also Americans with foreign investment. I recently returned from […]

Being a lazy procrastinator, I filed an extension April 15 and then waited until this weekend to do my tax return. This experience has reinforced my hatred and disdain for our corrupt and punitive tax system. I don’t even have a remotely complicated tax return, just a Cato salary and a few payments for articles […]

It’s hard to believe that anybody would classify the Germans as a master race after reading this Spiegel article. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have a nutty (but at least non-coercive) plan for rich people to give away a big share of their fortunes. The German billionaires are rejecting this plan. But not because they […]

Using road management as an example, John Stossel explains that government does a worse job than the private sector, even at things that theoretically are a government responsibility. Part of this is because of the profit motive, to be sure, but a big reason is probably because government bureaucracies inevitably are filled with overpaid bureaucrats […]