A bad plan for those who prefer smaller government, less dependency, and less centralization.

Even though I’m not a Romney fan, I sometimes feel compelled to defend him against leftist demagoguery. But instead of writing about tax havens, as I’ve done in the past, today we’re going to look at incremental tax reform. The left has been loudly asserting that the middle class would lose under Mitt Romney’s plan […]

Never let it be said I back down from a fight, even when it’s the other team’s game, played by the other team’s rules, and for the benefit of the wrong person. And that definitely went through my mind when U.S. News & World Report asked me to contribute to their “Debate Club” on the […]

Exactly 10 days ago, I predicted that the press would attack Mitt Romney for using tax havens. In that post, I wrote that, “…based on the questions, it appears that the establishment media wants to hit Romney for utilizing tax havens… As far as I can tell, none of these reporters have come out with […]

I’m not a big fan of Mitt Romney. I hammered him the day before Christmas for being open to a value-added tax, and criticized him in previous posts for his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed budget savings, and his reprehensible support for ethanol subsidies. But I also believe […]

My Iowa caucus predictions from yesterday were hopelessly wrong, probably because I was picking with my heart rather than my head. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Mitt Romney’s openness to a value-added tax makes him a dangerously flawed candidate, and I hoped Iowa voters shared my concern. In a column for today’s […]

There’s been a lot of discussion about Mitt Romney’s appeal – or lack thereof – among supporters of limited government. To put it mildly, many libertarians and conservatives are underwhelmed by his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed budget savings, and his reprehensible support for ethanol […]

Governor Rick Perry of Texas is being attacked by two rivals in the GOP presidential race. His sin, if you can believe it, is that he told the truth (as acknowledged by everyone from Paul Krugman to Milton Friedman) about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme. Here’s an excerpt from Philip Klein’s column in the […]

The Beacon Hill Institute in Massachusetts has just released a very good – but very depressing study. The research finds that costs have jumped under Romneycare, but that’s not surprising. After all, politicians always underestimate the cost of new entitlements. The important revelation in this new research is the degree to which the system has […]

I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m nonetheless still nauseated to read that Mitt Romney has decided to endorse ethanol subsidies. Here’s a blurb from Fox in DC. “I support the subsidy of ethanol,” Romney told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” …Romney’s renewed […]