I’m sure I will surrender to temptation and do a couple of posts with Weinergate jokes, but I want to begin on a higher note and make a serious point about Washington’s latest scandal. Big government means that politicians have a lot of power over the lives of ordinary people. This is bad for all […]

Here’s a stomach-turning story from the Chicago Sun Times about how the political class uses special insider deals to get rich (or richer). What’s remarkable is that there may be nothing technically illegal in this story of crony capitalism and government contracts. But does anyone doubt that being the Mayor’s son was not a relevant […]

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 […]

I sometimes assert that the greatest enemies of freedom in Washington are mortgage payments and tuition bills. When people give me a blank stare, I say that I’m joking, but I use the opportunity to explain that the desire for easy wealth (and the lifestyle it enables) lures many Republicans to become lobbyists and to […]

The internal revenue code is nightmarishly complex, as illustrated by this video. Americans spend more than 7 billion hours each year in a hopeless effort to figure out how to deal with more than 7 million words of tax law and regulation. Why does this mess exist? The simple answer is that politicians benefit from […]

I’ve always rejected coercive redistribution, particularly when imposed by the federal government. But some types of redistribution are worse than others, and when big business and big government get in bed together, ordinary people are the ones who get screwed. This is why Obama’s supposed “move to the center” is a bunch of nonsense. Tim […]

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner has a great piece looking at the utterly indefensible panoply of ethanol subsidies and handouts that screw consumers and taxpayers in order to line the pockets of the politically powerful. Unfortunately, several senior GOP lawmakers have unseemly ties to the lobbyists for the industry. So this is a test, […]

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner is an expert on corruption and sleaze inside the beltway, and his column this morning is a perfect example. He shows how corrupt insiders in Alaska use something known as the “Rent-an-Eskimo” scam to pull in hundreds of millions of tax dollars from no-bid federal contracts. These insiders, meanwhile, […]