In his Townhall column, John Stossel cites my Cato colleague Jerry Taylor as he explains that nuclear energy may not be viable without government subsidies. President Obama recently announced $8 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power plants. I smiled when I heard. Finally, even Democrats woke up to the benefits of nuclear power. But […]

The New York City NBC affiliate reported this week that twenty six professional tax preparers were wanted or arrested on tax fraud charges as the result of a recent crackdown.  Some of the preparers allegedly used the names of dead people to collect fraudulent returns.  Apparently, this scam had been going on since at least […]

Unemployment in the heartland may be high and incomes may be stagnating in most of the nation, but Washington, DC, continues to be an oasis of prosperity as more of the nation’s resources get consumed by government. The lastest evidence comes from the Washington Post, which reports on the federal government’s insatiable demand for more […]

Isn’t it nice that mere taxpayers, who overwhelmingly ride in the steerage section, are paying for bureaucrats to go on first-class and business-class junkets around the world? It’s “only” a $13-billion burden, so let’s not hear any complaints from the galley slaves! …taxpayers spent $2.8 billion in 2009 just on hotel rooms for federal employees, […]

Congressman Henry Waxman is one of the most odious statists in a town dominated by people who love big government. From his perch as Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, this career politician played a big role in concocting Obamacare – including the costly provisions that will burden the business community and undermine job […]

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is famous for showing how the revolutionary zeal of the animals begins to wane after they take over the farm and the slogan “All animals are equal” is eventually amended by adding “But some animals are more equal than others.” The same is true for the American government. Investor’s Business Daily […]

My previous post dealing with whether citizenship should be automatic for babies born to illegals generated a lot of commentary, so it is with some trepidation that I wade back into the issue. But the Wall Street Journal column excerpted below seems to strike exactly the right chord and should (at least I think!) meet […]

I shudder to think how many American politicians and bureaucrats squandered our tax dollars by attending the enivornmental boondoggle in Copenhagen last December, but the behavior of one EPA official is a perfect illustration of how the political elite have no intention of abiding by the rules they want to impose on the rest of […]

I don’t know what’s more laughable, the fact that some EU bureaucracy is creating an 80-minute poem (with dancing, no less), or that the “low-grade bank clerk” who masquerades as the European Council President is going to publish a a book of haiku poems. But only one item is objectionable, and that’s the latter since […]

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, my Cato Institute colleague Alan Reynolds offers a simple economics lesson about pitfalls of class-warfare tax policy:  …the evidence is clear that when marginal tax rates go up, the amount of reported incomes goes down. Economists call that “the elasticity of taxable income” (ETI), and measure it by examining […]