Being an American citizen is an honor in many ways, but it is a huge millstone around the neck for highly successful investors and entrepreneurs because of an oppressive and complex tax system. This is particularly true for those based in and/or competing in global…
Daily Analysis
Helping New York…In Spite of the State's Awful Politicians.
I have a column in the New York Post explaining that big government is a losing deal for taxpayers in the Empire State. I’m tempted to say they deserve to be over-taxed and over-regulated because they keep electing collectivists like Chuck Schumer, but I grew…
America's Fiscal Problem Is Spending, not Deficits.
Steve Forbes is 100 percent correct, as was Milton Friedman. Bloated and wasteful government spending is the problem, not inadequate revenue. Deficits are merely the symptom of excessive spending: The late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once famously…
Vast Majority of the Senate Appears to be Against a VAT.
Last Thursday, the Senate took a vote on a non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution concerning a Value Added Tax. The result was an 85-13 victory for the anti-VAT side. The roll call can be found here. The statement of purpose read as follows: Expressing the…
Another Dishonest Deficit Hypocrite
The serial mendacity that characterizes Washington is on full display in David Border’s column entitled “Without higher taxes, the national debt will be crushing.” Yes, this is the same David Broder who did not write columns about the threat of…
Bush Was a Statist, not a Conservative
A former White House speechwriter, Mark Thiessen, has jumped to the defense of his former boss, writing for the Washington Post that George W. Bush “established a conservative record without parallel.” Even by the loose standards of Washington, that is a…
Great Moments in Foreign Government
I saw this odd story about wasteful government spending in James Taranto’s Best of the Web email. The bureaucrats at Britain’s National Health Service are sqandering thousands of dollars to create a giant “Burger Boy” as part of a government…
The New Deal Hurt the Economy
A great column in the Wall Street Journal explains how FDR’s policies hurt the economy. That is true, but the really interesting part of the column for me is that it explains how Roosevelt (and then Truman) were convinced the economy would return to depression…
A VAT Means Tax Day Is Every Day
Caroline Baum of Bloomberg has a good column against the value-added tax, in part because she quotes me, but more so because she effectively explains that a national sales tax like the VAT would be an add-on tax that would finance much bigger government: As Americans…
Debating the Flat Tax for U.S. News & World Report
Clemson University was a big rival when I was at the University of Georgia, so it seems natural that I am locking horns with someone from that school as we debate whether we should have a flat tax or the current system. You can see both arguments at this link, and…