Obamacare resulted in big increases in the fiscal burden of government(ironically, it would be even worse if Obama hadn’t unilaterally suspended parts of the law). The legislation increased government spending, mostly for expanded Medicaidand big subsidies for private…
Daily Analysis
A 2016 Preview? Rand Paul vs Hillary Clinton on Taxes
I wrote a post several years ago contrasting a good initiative by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and a statist proposal by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. There was no connection between the two ideas, but I thought the comparison helped show the difference between…
Good – and Very Bad – Developments in Global Tax Policy
With occasional exceptions such as Switzerland and Estonia, there’s rarely good news from Europe. At least with regards to fiscal policy. But maybe there’s a bit of sense on the Iberian Peninsula. I reported a couple of years ago that Portugal was at least flirting…
Subsidized Statism: Americans Are Paying IMF and OECD Bureaucrats so They Can Agitate for Obama’s Agenda
If some special-interest lobbies give money so that a left-wing group can propose something like a value-added tax to finance bigger government, that’s no surprise. And if a bunch of subsidy recipients donate money to Barack Obama or some other statist politician…
Obama-Style Taxation Is Causing an Economic Train Wreck in Europe
I wrote the other day that Americans, regardless of all the bad policy we get from Washington, should be thankful we’re not stuck in a hellhole like Venezuela. But we also should be happy we’re not Europeans. This is a point I’ve made before, usually accompanied by…
More Companies Escaping America’s Masochistic Corporate Tax System
Last August, I shared a list of companies that “re-domiciled” in other nations so they could escape America’s punitive “worldwide” tax system. This past April, I augmented that list with some commentary about whether Walgreen’s might become a Swiss-based company. And…
The Corrupt, Dishonest, Venal, Despicable IRS
Some statements are so lame that they now serve only as punch lines. Nobody, after all, would ever claim to a teacher that “the dog ate my homework.” Moreover, surely few if any people ever actually assert to bill collectors that “the check is in the mail.” And I have…
More Evidence for the Laffer Curve and Lower Corporate Tax Rates
When the new Tory-led government came to power in the United Kingdom, I was rather unimpressed. David Cameron positioned himself as a British version of George W. Bush, full of “compassionate conservative” ideas to expand the burden of government. But even worse than…
Spending Restraint Is Good Short-Run Policy and Good Long-Run Policy
Regular readers know that good fiscal policy takes place when government spending grows slower than the private economy. Nations that maintain this Golden Rule for extended periods of time shrink the relative burden of government spending, thus enabling more growth by…
Corporate Tax in Japan, Benefits for American Veterans, and Overweight British Kids
The title of this post sounds like the beginning of a strange joke, but it’s actually because we’re covering three issues today. Our first topic is corporate taxation. More specifically, we’re looking at a nation that seems to be learning that it’s foolish the have a…