Many of us know that Obamacare will be very expensive and that supporters, aided and abetted by the Congressional Budget Office, deliberately low-balled the cost estimates. I’ve also cited my Cato colleague Chris Edwards, who has made a more comprehensive (and well-documented) claim that government officials systematically lie about the cost of new projects. Now […]

Every time some class-warfare Democrat or Charlie Brown Republican says we need higher taxes, I think of all the ways the government wastes money and I get angry because the political elite is ripping off the American people. Should we send more money to Washington when the federal government is: Forcing taxpayers to pay millions […]

Spain’s received a bailout, Greece is having another election tomorrow, and the European political elite is pushing for more centralization. In other words, business as usual in the continent where voters think you can get nothing for nothing (this satirical cartoon is now European reality) and politicians think every problem can be solved by more […]

It seems that any argument about the economy eventually boils down to the core issue of whether government spending acts as a stimulus or whether it is – in the words of Thomas Sowell – a sedative that undermines prosperity. So when Robert Reich and I went on Erin Burnett’s CNN show to discuss Obama’s […]

A couple of weeks ago, I debunked the myth that Obama is a fiscal conservative by showing how TARP masks his real record. I then followed up that post by showing that Obama is a traditional leftist who spends on social welfare programs, but also did a final post showing that Bush was similarly profligate. Now we […]

I have great fondness for Estonia, in part because it was the first post-communist nation to adopt the flat tax, but also because of the country’s remarkable scenery. Most recently, though, I’ve been bragging about Estonia (along with Latvia and Lithuania, the other two Baltic nations) for implementing genuine spending cuts. I’ve argued that Estonia […]

I’m not quite ready to trade places with Canada, but it may just be a matter of time. Like Germany and Sweden, they seem to be slowly but surely trying to move in the right direction. I’ve already commented on good Canadian fiscal policy (including a much-needed lesson for Paul Krugman), and I’ve also praised […]

The fiscal nightmare in Europe should be all the proof that’s needed about the dangers of wasteful spending and punitive tax rates. Unfortunately, if his proposals for bigger government and class-warfare tax policy are any indication, President Obama still seems to think those policies would be good for America. American states also are a laboratory, […]

“A pox on both your houses.”

Guido Westerwelle is supposed to be the German version of a libertarian. Currently serving as Foreign Minister, he was the chairman of the supposedly pro-market Free Democratic Party for 10 years and Wikipedia says he was known as a “proponent of an unlimited free market economy.” Sounds like a good guy, right? Just the type […]