Very rarely does one find a politician with the moral clarity to provide the blunt and necessary truth about a controversial issue, but that has finally happened. But this is a good news/bad news situation for American taxpayers. The good news is that a politician has…
Daily Analysis
Shocking News: People Are Less Likely to Work When Government Subsidizes Joblessness.
Kudos to the Detroit News for a great story revealing that people are refusing to accept jobs because of government unemployment benefits. In a perverse way, I admire the one guy who admits that he doesn’t plan to find work until the government stops sending him…
Why Do I Hate Republicans? Let Me Count the Ways.
Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but I had to paraphrase her famous line after reading this Bill McGurn column in the Wall Street Journal about how Republican poliitcal hacks in the Illinois state legislature voted to kill a voucher bill that would have…
Great Moments in Local Government.
We should always remember that the federal government may be the biggest problem, but that does not mean that state and local governments should be exempt from scrutiny. A good (or perhaps I should say bad) example of bone-headed stupidity by bureaucrats and…
I Hate the Greeks (and the French, and the Brits, and the Americans).
Actually, that’s too broad of a brush, but I do despise people of any nationality who think that they are entitled to mooch off the labor and capital of others. I also fear for my country because of such people. Benjamin Franklin is rumored to have said that,…
Europe's Über Bailout.
I’m semi-impressed with the Europeans for choosing the hog-wild approach to bailouts. Not because it is good policy, but rather because it will be a useful demonstration of the old rule that bad policy begets more bad policy (which begets God knows what, but it…
Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, Part XXIV.
Here’s some more good polling data from the Resurgent Republic website. All demographic groups, including Democrats, agree that excessive pay for federal bureaucrats is a bad thing. Maybe, just maybe, this means the productive people in society are fed up and…
Looming Tax Hikes in the U.K. and Investors Act Accordingly.
As noted in this blog back in August, the end of Labour rule in the U.K. will not mean the end of big government in that country. The new coalition government has already proposed a large tax hike on capital gains: At present investors only pay CGT of 18pc on gains…
Senator Bennett, R.I.P.
I shed no tears that incumbent Senator Robert Bennett lost his fight to get nominated for a fourth term. His support of the bailout and other big-government policies was a sign that he had become far too comfortable representing established interests and forgot that…
Say Goodbye to England
Okay, the title of this post is an absurd exaggeration, but I am not optimistic about the future of the United Kingdom. Government spending has exploded over the last ten-plus years (the largest expansion in the burden of government spending among developed nations),…