It’s time to extinguish any lingering Christmas cheer. Today’s topic is over-bearing and tyrannical tax administration. To be more specific, we’re going to look at the extent to which taxpayers are mistreated during the process of collecting revenue. Yes, the amount that governments steal from you also is important, but that’s a topic we’ve already […]

Texas is in much better shape than California. Taxes are lower, in part because Texas has no state income tax. No wonder the Lone Star State is growing faster and creating more jobs. And the gap will soon get even wider since California voters recently decided to drive away more productive people by raising top […]

Like most people, I’m a sucker for a heartwarming story around the holidays. Sometimes, you get that nice feeling when good things happen to good people, like you find at the end of a classic movie like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But since I’m a bit of a curmudgeon, I also feel all warm and […]

Hopefully we’re all disgusted when insiders rig the system to rip off taxpayers. And I suspect you’re not surprised to know that the worst examples come from California, which is in a race with Illinois to see which state can become the Greece of America. Well, the Golden State has a new über-bureaucrat. Here are […]

I periodically mock the crazy statists of California. The state is almost surely doomed to suffer a Greek-style fiscal chaos. The only unknown is whether Illinois will beat the Golden State into default. The politicians in Sacramento impose very high taxes to fund a bloated bureaucracy that oversees a bunch of politically correct nonsense. But […]

I’ve almost exhausted my interest in California’s suicidal fiscal policy. How many times, after all, can you write about politicians over-taxing and over-spending to the point of economic ruin? But everyone has a cross to bear in life, and (if you allow me to mix my metaphors) griping about bloated government is my Sisyphean task. […]