In the real world, rational people know that companies will stop selling products if they are forced to lose money. In the political world, though, common sense doesn’t matter. Or at least it ranks far below other considerations, such as power, polling, fundraising, and spite. If you think I’m being too harsh, just look at what’s […]

Our tax system in America is an absurd nightmare, but at least we have some ability to monitor what is happening. We can’t get too aggressive (nobody wants the ogres at the IRS breathing down their necks), but at least we can adjust our withholding levels and control what gets put on our annual tax returns. […]

It seems that reports of Castro’s conversion were premature.  While American politicians are learning from Castro how to tank an economy with reckless government intervention (not that there’s any other kind), Castro has apparently learned from our pols how to walk back an accidental utterance of the truth, otherwise known in political circles as a […]

Here’s a story for the better-late-than-never file. Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro confessed that communism doesn’t work and that his nation’s economic system should not be emulated. Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba’s communist economic model doesn’t work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear […]

I sometimes joke that the French are the world’s most statist people. I have no idea if that is actually true, but the latest protests in France certainly are a good piece of evidence. French workers (especially government bureaucrats) are protesting a plan to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62. They apparently think […]

Hugo Chavez is a palpably evil thug, and he confirms this status with a new proposal to issue cards that almost certainly will be used to ration food. Left-wing despots claim that their policies put “people above profits,” but they never can explain why people (especially the masses) have much higher living standards in countries […]

One of the big problems with statists is that they define compassion incorrectly. They think they are being compassionate when they take other people’s money and give it to somebody that they define as being less fortunate. But genuine compassion occurs when you spend your own money. Another problem is that they define compassion by […]

In a very predictable editorial this morning, the New York Times pontificated in favor of higher taxes. Compared to Paul Krugman’s rant earlier in the week, which featured the laughable assertion that letting people keep more of the money they earn is akin to sending them a check from the government, the piece seemed rational. But […]

Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund, recently wrote to the Baltimore Sun to stick up for Maryland’s sin taxes.  He seems to view it as the obligation of government to reduce activities it determines to be bad: In his Commentary disparaging both Maryland’s life-saving one dollar per pack tobacco tax […]

Walter Williams looks at the terrible job Republicans did when they last held power and asks whether they deserve to win the House and/or Senate this November. Or perhaps the real question is whether it would make a difference for Republicans to regain control? The real test, Walter explains, is whether they would use their […]