In the future, all dictionary publishers should get rid of their existing definitions for “hypocrisy” and replace them with a photo of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. He’s just been caught committing the horrible sin of saving his family more than $500,000 by domiciling his new yacht in Rhode Island (which is a tax haven for […]

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, maybe that will be the name of a future book I’ll write about the anti-competitive impact of high tax rates. And one of my chapters will be about what we can learn from the states. Richard Rahn’s column in the Washington Times reviews some of the key evidence on this […]

Redistributionists hate the flat tax, and this sentiment is widely shared by other statists. These proponents of big government want the tax system to to punish success and generate loot that can be used to buy votes (though they don’t seem to understand that if they punish success too much, they won’t actually get any additional money […]

Supporters of the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially the owner of the team, are upset that basketball superstar LeBron James has decided to sign with the Miami Heat. The anger is especially intense because the Cavaliers offered $4 million more over the next five years. But their anger is misplaced, because more money in Cleveland, Ohio, actually […]

The Wall Street Journal opines about the latest bone-headed move by New York politicians to drive away productive activity. Connecticut is not exactly a low-tax jurisdiction, but sometimes being less worse is all that’s necessary to win a tax competition battle. Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, a Republican who usually doesn’t mind higher taxes…has nonetheless declared […]

One of the good features of the Internet is that it gives people more options. But this is bad news for politicians, who like to control – and tax – what people are doing. But it’s not easy for politicians at the state level to impose high sales taxes on consumers when people have the […]

Chris Christie of New Jersey has done a remarkable job so far, but his biggest battles are still ahead of him. A key fight is whether the state will impose a cap on property taxes. As the Wall Street Journal opines, this reform has worked very well in Massachusetts and is critical to curtailiing the […]

Many people assume that Europe is the land of high-tax welfare states and America is an outpost of laissez-faire capitalism. We should be so lucky. The burden of government in America is still lower than it is in the average European nation, but the United States is a lot closer to France than it is to […]

It’s been amusing, in an I-told-you-so fashion, to follow the fiscal crises in Greece, Spain, and other European welfare states. And I feel like a voyeuristic ghoul as I observe the incredibly misguided bailout policies being adopted by the political elites (who are trying to bailout the business elites who made silly loans to corrupt nations […]

The former communists running Russia apparently understand tax policy better than the buffoons in charge of U.S. tax policy. Not only does Russia have a 13 percent flat tax, but the government has just announced it will eliminate the capital gains tax (which shouldn’t exist in a pure flat tax anyhow). Here’s a passage from […]