In the private sector, no business owner would be dumb enough to assume that higher prices automatically translate into proportionately higher revenues. If McDonald’s boosted hamburger prices by 30 percent, for instance, the experts at the company would fully expect…
Daily Analysis
Higher Tax Rates on the Rich Will Backfire
I know I’ve beaten this drum several times before, but the Wall Street Journal today has a very good explanation of why class-warfare tax policy will backfire. The Journal’s editorial focuses on what happened after the 2003 tax rate reductions. And below the excerpt,…
A Strange Debate on CNBC
I think I did okay in this debate, but my opponent wanted me to defend Bush and didn’t seem to get my point that I don’t like big-spending interventionists, regardless of whether they have a D or R after their names.
I Support the Democratic President’s Tax Policy
Unfortunately, I’m not talking about President Obama, though the current occupant of the White House could learn a lot from a previous Democratic President.
New York Times Seeks Higher Taxes on the “Rich” as Prelude to Higher Taxes on the Middle Class
In a very predictable editorial this morning, the New York Times pontificated in favor of higher taxes. Compared to Paul Krugman’s rant earlier in the week, which featured the laughable assertion that letting people keep more of the money they earn is akin to sending…
America’s Greediest State and Local Governments
I ran across two interesting lists showing how politicians at the state and local level are often just as bad as the ones in Washington, DC. First, Forbes has an article identifying the 10 states with the highest income tax rates. The top rate is a big deterrent to…
It’s Not a Smart Move to Link Obama Tax Hikes to Nazi Invasion
A reader has asked me to weigh in on the mini-controversy that was triggered when a Wall Street financier said fighting Obama’s tax hikes was like a war and that the battle was “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” While it seems clear that Stephen Schwarzman was…
Risk and Sin Taxes
Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund, recently wrote to the Baltimore Sun to stick up for Maryland’s sin taxes. He seems to view it as the obligation of government to reduce activities it determines to be…
What’s the Ideal Point on the Laffer Curve?
There’s been a bit of chatter in the blogosphere about a recent post on Ezra Klein’s blog featuring estimates from various economists about the revenue-maximizing tax rate. It won’t come as a surprise that people on the right tended to give lower estimates and folks…
Choosing the Flat Tax over the Fair Tax
After my recent post on “bashing the IRS,” I got several emails and comments asking whether a national sales tax might be a better idea than the flat tax. I’m a big fan of proposals such as the Fair Tax. I’ve debated in favor of the national sales tax, done media…