Obamacare was put together by people who don’t understand economics. This is probably the understatement of the year since I could be referring to many features of the bad law. The higher tax burden on saving and investment, making an anti-growth tax system even worse. The exacerbation of the third-party payer problem, which is the […]
read more...If there was a special award for chutzpah, the easy winner would be the bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund. These pampered bureaucrats get lavishly compensated and don’t have to pay tax on their bloated salaries. You would think this would make them a bit sensitive to the notion that it’s hugely hypocritical of them […]
read more...My goal in life is very simple. I want to promote freedom and prosperity by limiting the size and scope of government. That seems like a foolish and impossible mission, perhaps best suited for Don Quixote. After all, what hope is there of overcoming the politicians, interest groups, bureaucrats, and lobbyists who benefit from bigger […]
read more...It appears that the government shutdown, which technically is a battle over annual appropriations legislation for so-called discretionary spending, is going to drag on for a while. The Obama Administration has shown zero willingness to negotiate, even though Republicans have made a series of offers to resolve the conflict. And the longer this fight lasts, […]
read more...I’m testifying tomorrow to the Joint Economic Committee about “The Economic Costs of Debt-Ceiling Brinkmanship.” I won’t give away what I’m going to say (though you can probably figure out my views rather easily by reading this, this and this), but I do want to share a chart from my testimony. It shows that it […]
read more...Based on the dismal data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve (as well as our own experiences), we know Obamanomics doesn’t work in the United States. But we also know bigger government doesn’t work in France. And we know it doesn’t work in Japan. We know it doesn’t work in Spain. We know it doesn’t work […]
read more...Most Western nations have huge long-run fiscal problems because of unfavorable demographics and misguided entitlement programs. That’s the bad news. The good news is that dozens of nations have fully or partially shifted to mandatory private savings as a pro-growth way of modernizing bankrupt tax-and-transfer Social Security systems. But good news in the short run […]
read more...I’m very worried about America’s fiscal future. Simply stated, data from several sources (BIS, OECD, and IMF) indicates that we face a future Greek-style fiscal crisis unless policy makers implement genuine entitlement reform. Unfortunately, politicians have little incentive to control spending and reform programs if they think that higher taxes are an option. So how […]
read more...I recently speculated whether Detroit’s fiscal problems should be a warning sign for the crowd in Washington. The answer, of course, is yes, though it’s not a perfect analogy. The federal government is in deep trouble because of unsustainable entitlement programs while Detroit got in trouble because of a combination of too much compensation for […]
read more...I’m a big fan of that form of satire. And if I’m looking at cartoons specifically about statist economic policy, my favorites include Chuck Asay’s dead pig cartoon, as well as his cartoon about the big bad wolf. And this Michael Ramirez headwinds cartoon is one of the most-viewed posts in the history of my […]
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