I have a serious question for readers. What’s worse, bailouts for government or bailouts for the private sector? Yes, both are bad, but is it worse to bail out a bankrupt entitlement program, such as Social Security, or it is worse to bail out an industry, such as the financial sector? To bail out the […]

In large part because of an excessive burden of government, the American economy is suffering European-style stagnation, with even the Washington Post now confessing that growth far below the long-run trend. This helps explain why job creation has been so dismal in recent years, with more than twenty million Americans out of work, underemployed, or […]

Even though I knew some people would call me Scrooge, I wrote a few days ago about why we should get rid of the tax deduction for charitable contributions in exchange for lower tax rates. Simply stated, I’m a big advocate of fundamental tax reform, and I would like to scrap the corrupt internal revenue […]

Since I want to shut down the Department of Agriculture, that obviously means getting rid of the various subsidy programs that line the pockets of politically connected agri-businesses. To get an idea of how these corrupt programs operate, I strongly encourage you to read Paul Moreno’s column in National Review. Here’s a sampling of his expose on […]

Notwithstanding the title of this post, perhaps nobody deserves blame. Sometimes, a good or service rises in price solely as a result of changes in supply and demand. And if the price of something climbs because of market forces, then it’s merely a reflection of unfettered exchanges between buyers and sellers. But politicians and bureaucrats […]

I’ve been very critical of Obama’s class-warfare ideology because it leads to bad fiscal policy. But perhaps it is time to give some attention to other arguments against high tax rates. Robert Samuelson, a columnist for the Washington Post, has a very important insight about tax rates and sleaze in Washington. His column is mostly […]

I’ve been arguing against higher taxes because of my concerns that more revenue will simply lead to a bigger burden of government spending. Yes, I realize it is theoretically possible that a tax hike could be part of a political deal that produces a good outcome, such as entitlement reform. But that doesn’t seem to […]

Price controls are a spectacularly foolish idea, and that’s true whether they’re imposed by thugs such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s why one of the 20th Century’s economic heroes is Ludwig Erhard, who unleashed the post-war German miracle by abolishing the price controls imposed […]

People in the political world say that President Obama threw Secretary of State Clinton under the bus in an attempt to protect himself from political fallout from Libya. I don’t follow those issues, so I can’t comment about the veracity of that charge, but I find it very interesting that some conservatives are urging Mitt […]

I’ve explained on many occasions that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was bad news for the economy. And the same can be said of Herbert Hoover’s policies, since he also expanded the burden of federal spending, raised tax rates, and increased government intervention. So when I was specifically asked to take part in a symposium on […]