More than three years ago, I wrote that the Department of Transportation should be dismantled for the simple reason that we’ll get better roads at lower cost with the federalist approach of returning responsibility to state and local governments. I echoed those sentiments in this CNBC interview. Since there’s only an opportunity to exchange soundbites in these interviews, let […]
read more...The Census Bureau just released a report on America’s aging population. The big takeaway is that our population will be getting much older between now and 2050. And since I’m a baby boomer, I very much like the fact that we’re expected to live longer. But as a public finance economist, I’m not nearly as happy. As […]
read more...Allister Heath, the superb economic writer from London, recently warned that governments are undermining incentives to save. And not just because of high tax rates and double taxation of savings. Allister says people are worried about outright confiscation resulting from possible wealth taxation. It is clear that individuals, when at all possible, need to accumulate more financial assets. …Tragically, it won’t […]
read more...Perhaps there is an occasional exception, but when someone in a public policy debate mentions a “race to the bottom,” they always seem to favor bigger government and punitive taxation. Here are a few examples: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a bureaucracy based in Paris, wants to rewrite international tax norms for business income because […]
read more...Which nation is richer, Belarus or Luxembourg? If you look at total economic output, you might be tempted to say Belarus. The GDP of Belarus, after all, is almost $72 billion while Luxembourg’s GDP is less than $60 billion. But that would be a preposterous answer since there are about 9.5 million people in Belarus compared […]
read more...If you’re a regular reader, you already know I’m a big supporter of tax competition and tax havens. Here’s the premise: Politicians almost always are focused on their next election and this encourages them to pursue policies that are designed to maximize votes and power within that short time horizon. Unfortunately, this often results in very short-sighted […]
read more...What happens when you mix something good with something bad? To be more specific, what happens when you have a big success story, like the spending cap in Switzerland that has dramatically slowed the growth of government, and then expect intelligent and coherent coverage by a government-run media outfit that presumably wants a bigger public sector? Well, the answer […]
read more...I’m ecumenical on tax reform. I’ll support any plan that rips up the internal revenue code and instead lowers tax rates, reduces double taxation, and cuts out distorting loopholes. And as I explain in this interview, both the flat tax and national sales tax have a low tax rate. They also get rid of double taxation and they […]
read more...In the pre-World War I era, the fiscal burden of government was very modest in North America and Western Europe. Total government spending consumed only about 10 percent of economic output, most nations were free from theplague of the income tax, and the value-added tax hadn’t even been invented. Today, by contrast, every major nation has an onerous income […]
read more...My tireless (and probably annoying) campaign to promote my Golden Rule of spending restraint is bearing fruit. The good folks at the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal allowed me to explain the fiscal and economic benefits that accrue when nations limit the growth of government. Here are some excerpts from my column, starting with a proper definition of the problem. […]
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