As a general rule, it’s not right to take pleasure at the misfortune of others. But I think we’re allowed an exception to that Schadenfreude rule when the “others” are greedy politicians pursuing spiteful policies. We want the political elite to suffer misfortune because of our desire to promote freedom and prosperity for ordinary people. […]

Here are three common-sense principles. Higher taxes are misguided. They undermine prosperity and finance bigger government. Bailouts also are misguided. They facilitate corruption and encourage moral hazard. And international bureaucracies are misguided. They promote statism and squander money. So what’s the “perfect storm” of bad policy? How about when international bureaucracies offers a bailout in […]

The statist agenda of ever-growing government requires more money going to Washington, which is why I think that proponents of limited government should do everything they can to block tax increases. This is the “starve the beast” theory, and I’ve previously explained why I think it is a necessary part of any long-run strategy to […]

The number one goal for fiscal policy is to reduce the burden of government spending. The simple way to achieve this goal is to adhere to Mitchell’s Golden Rule and and make sure the private sector grows faster than the public sector. But when politicians fail to exercise that modest amount of fiscal restraint, bad […]

I’m not a fan of loopholes in the tax code. I’ve complained about the number of pages in the tax code, the number of provisions in the tax code, and I’ve even groused about the rising number of pages in the instruction manual for the 1040 tax form. And I’ve specifically come out against tax […]

ll statists want much bigger government, but not all of them are honest about how to finance a Greek-sized welfare state. The President, for instance, wants us to believe that the rich are some sort of fiscal pinata, capable of generating endless amounts of tax revenue. Using IRS tax data, I’ve shown that this is […]

The value-added tax is a pernicious levy. It’s basically a hidden form of national sales tax, imposed every time a transaction occurs at any stage of the production process. But what irks me about the VAT is not its design (indeed, it shares some key characteristics with the flat tax). What gets me agitated about […]

To save America from the supposedly “savage” and “draconian” budget cuts caused by sequestration, President Obama has instead asked Congress to approve an alternative fiscal package containing additional tax increases. So why is the sequester so bad? Does it slash the budget by 50 percent? Does it shut down departments, programs, and agencies? Sounds good […]

Those of you old enough to remember the Cold War may remember something called the Brezhnev Doctrine. This was the rule concocted by the Soviet tyrants that basically said a nation could never regain freedom once it fell under communist rule. In my simple way of looking at such matters, this rule translated into: “What’s […]

Daniel Hannan is a member of the European Parliament from England. He is one of the few economically sensible people in that body, as demonstrated in these short clips of him speaking about tax competition and deriding the European Commission’s corrupt racket. And as you can see from his latest article in the UK-based Telegraph, […]