Just like in the United States, politicians in the United Kingdom use the deceptive practice of “baseline budgeting” as part of fiscal policy. This means the politicians can increase spending, but simultaneously claim they are cutting spending because the budget could have expanded at an even faster pace. Sort of like saying your diet is […]

I’ve already condemned the foolish people of California for approving a referendum to raise the state’s top tax rate to 13.3 percent. This impulsive and misguided exercise in class warfare surely will backfire as more and more productive people flee to other states – particularly those that don’t impose any state income tax. We know […]

In an ideal world, Congress would not raise the debt limit. This would force – automatically and immediately – a balanced budget. More important, it would produce a meaningful reduction in the burden of government spending. And contrary to hyperbole from defenders of the status quo, it doesn’t mean default since the federal government collects […]

How do you define a terrible team? No, this isn’t going to be a joke about Notre Dame foolishly thinking it could match up against a team from the Southeastern Conference in college football’s national title game (though the Irish win the contest for prettiest make-believe girlfriends). I’m asking the question because a winless record […]

Economists may not agree on much, but we all agree that economic output is a function of capital and labor. Ask a Keynesian, a Marxist, an Austrian, a monetarist, or any economist, and they’ll all agree that living standards are determined by the quality and quantity of these two factors of production. So it should […]

Obama imposed a big tax hike last year. But I’m not talking about the fiscal cliff and the President’s class-warfare trophy of higher tax rates on those evil rich people. That happened this year. Instead, I’m referring to the increase in the regulatory burden. Here are some excerpts from a report in The Hill. The […]

I’ve frequently commented on Europe’s fiscal mess and argued that excessive government spending is responsible for both the sovereign debt crisis and the economic stagnation that plagues the continent. But it does seem that things have calmed down, so the readers who have submitted questions about whether the fiscal crisis has ended obviously are paying […]

Because of Obama’s class-warfare tax hike and additional tax increases by kleptocrats at the state level, many successful taxpayers will now lose more than 50 percent of any additional income they generate for the American economy. I discuss the implications of this punitive tax policy in this CNBC interview. Normally, this is the section where […]

I’ve always been a big fan of Economic Freedom of the World because it provides a balanced and neutral measure of which nations do best in providing free markets and small government. And I like it even when it gives me bad news. It’s somewhat depressing, after all, to read that the United States has […]

There’s a debate among policy wonks about whether a no-tax-hike policy is an effective way of restraining the burden of government spending. At the risk of over-simplifying, the folks who support the “starve the beast” theory argue that there are political and/or economic limits to government borrowing, so if you don’t let politicians tax more, […]