The greed of the political class is boundless. They have figured out how to tax just about everything, including a tax on tanning salons to finance Obamacare. But for sheer ingenuity (in the philosophically perverted sense), I must tip my proverbial hat to the…
Daily Analysis
Walter Williams, Freedom Fighter
I’ve been fortunate to know Walter Williams ever since I began my Ph.D. studies at George Mason University in the mid-1980s. He is a very good economist, but his real value is as a public intellectual. He also has a remarkable personal story, which he tells in his new…
Are Republicans Winning the Budget Battle but Losing the Budget War?
Among advocates of limited government, there is growing unease about the fiscal fight in Washington. This is not because anything bad has happened. Indeed, Democrats thus far have been acquiescing – at least on a temporary basis – to conservative demands for $61…
End the Fed: More than Just a Bumper Sticker Slogan?
To put it mildly, the Federal Reserve has a dismal track record. It bears significant responsibility for almost every major economic upheaval of the past 100 years, including the Great Depression, the 1970s stagflation, and the recent financial crisis. Perhaps the…
British Business Writer Explains: Thanks to Tax Competition and Tax Havens, the Greed of the Political Class Is Being Constrained
Regular readers know that I’m a big fan of tax competition because politicians are less likely to misbehave if the potential victims of plunder have the ability to escape across borders. Here is an excerpt from a superb article by Allister Heath, one of the U.K.’s…
Since When Does the United Nations Rather than Congress Get to Declare War for the United States?
I’m not a foreign policy expert, so perhaps I’m missing something, but a quick glance at the Constitution reveals that Congress has the power to declare war, as specified in Article I, Section VIII. Nobody else has that power, not even the President. Notwithstanding…
The “McDonald’s Test” for Budget Cutting
I thought my post about budget cuts earlier today, mocking the biased language of the Washington Post, was clever. But I’m definitely an amateur blogger. Check out these posts, at Powerline Blog and Arizona Economics. These guys put me to shame with very clever…
Bush Was Not a Conservative
There’s an interesting debate in the blogosphere about whether President George W. Bush was a conservative (here’s a good summary of the discussion, along with lots of links, though I especially like this analysis since it cites my work.). I’ve already explained that…
Does the Washington Post Really Think “Slash” Is the Best Way to Describe a Plan to Trim $6 Billion out of $3.8 Trillion?
Washington is Fantasy Land. Only in this corrupt city can you turn increases into cuts merely by increasing spending by less than previously planned. And almost every politician magically knows how to transform “spending” into “investment.” So I’m used to Orwellian…
How Government Condemned Us to Dirty Clothes by Mandating Sub-Standard Washing Machines
Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a withering critique of dumb government policies that have taken away our freedom to buy low-cost and effective washing machines and instead forced us to buy expensive machines that don’t do a good job of cleaning…