If some special-interest lobbies give money so that a left-wing group can propose something like a value-added tax to finance bigger government, that’s no surprise. And if a bunch of subsidy recipients donate money to Barack Obama or some other statist politician because they hope for new programs, that’s also standard procedure in DC. I’ll fight these […]

On many occasions, I’ve explained that economic output is a function of how much labor and capital are productively utilized. This is why I relentlessly criticize policies that undermine GDP growth by hindering the use of these “factors of production.” That’s a bit of economic jargon, but it helps to explain why we shouldn’t be discriminating against capital […]

It’s not as sophisticated as Professor Bryan Caplan’s Purity Quiz and it doesn’t have the simple elegance of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, but at least you don’t need to answer any questions to see where you stand in this Venn Diagram that my intern shared with me. We don’t know who created it, but it’s a clever […]

Sigh. Another day, another grim Obamacare update. Actually, we have two updates on the never-ending disaster of government-run healthcare. Our first story comes from the Washington Times, which reports that the company hired to fix the failed Obamacare website is way behind schedule and way over budget. Fixing the Obamacare website to get it ready to handle a second round of […]

Using a comparison of Jamaica and Singapore, I recently argued that growth should trump inequality. Simply stated, a growing economic pie is much better for poor people that incentive-sapping redistribution programs that trap people in dependency. In other words, nations with smaller government and less intervention produce better results than nations with bloated governments and lots of meddling. You see […]

Greetings from Obamaland! Actually, that’s wrong in two respects. First, I’m actually in France. And even though I’ve joked that Obama wants to make America like France, technical accuracy requires me to admit that my real location is Paris, where I participated earlier today in the latest stop on the Free Market Road Show. Second, I used the “Obamaland” joke when […]

As much as I condemn American politicians for bad policy, things could be worse. We could be Greek citizens, which would be very depressing. Indeed, you’ll understand why I put Obamaland in the title after you read today’s column. Simply stated, Greece is a cesspool of statism. The people seem to be wonderful (at least outside […]

Senator Rand Paul is being criticized and condemned by the Washington establishment. That’s almost certainly a sign that he’s doing the right thing. And given the recent events in Russia and Ukraine, we should say he’s doing a great thing. This is because Senator Paul is waging a lonely battle to stop the unthinking and […]

Two years ago, I shared a video about the Environmental Protection Agency’s brutal and thuggish tactics against an Idaho family. That story had a very happy ending because the Supreme Court struck a blow for property rights and unanimously ruled against the EPA (too bad that similarly sound analysis was absent when the Justices decided the Kelo case). […]

The political left obviously hopes that it can score political points by pitching some Americans against others with a campaign based on income inequality and class warfare taxation. Is there any merit to this approach? Are the less fortunate suffering because some are succeeding? And would more government alleviate this problem, to the extent it actually […]