It’s not easy being a libertarian, particularly if you follow public policy. Thomas Jefferson almost certainly was right when he wrote that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” Heck, just look at how small government used to be in the developed world compared to where it […]
read more...It’s no secret that I dislike the value-added tax. But this isn’t because of its design. The VAT, after all, would be (presumably) a single-rate, consumption-based system, just like the flat tax and national sales tax. And that’s a much less destructive way of raising revenue compared to America’s corrupt and punitive internal revenue code. […]
read more...One of my missions in life is fundamental tax reform. I would like to replace the corrupt internal revenue code with a simple and fair flat tax. Though what I really want is a tax system that minimizes the damage of extracting money from the productive sector of the economy, so I’ll take any system […]
read more...Even though I’m a big fan of tax reform, I explained back in June that I’m not very comfortable with the “blank slate” tax reform plan put forth by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). My main gripe is that they start with the assumption that there should be more double taxation of […]
read more...As a long-time advocate of tax reform, I’m not a fan of distortionary loopholes in the tax code. Ideally, we would junk the 74,000-page internal revenue code and replace it with a simple and fair flat tax – meaning one low rate, no double taxation, and no favoritism.* The right kind of tax reform would […]
read more...Did President Obama and his team of Chicago cronies deliberately target the Tea Party in hopes of thwarting free speech and political participation? Was this part of a campaign to win the 2012 election by suppressing Republican votes? Perhaps, but I’ve warned that it’s never a good idea to assume top-down conspiracies when corruption, incompetence, […]
read more...In recent months, I’ve displayed uncharacteristic levels of optimism on issues ranging from Obamacare to the Laffer Curve. But this doesn’t mean I’m now a blind Pollyanna. We almost always face an uphill battle in our efforts to restrain the power and greed of the political class. And in some areas, such as the fight […]
read more...I’m very leery of corporate tax reform, largely because I don’t think there are enough genuine loopholes on the business side of the tax code to finance a meaningful reduction in the corporate tax rate. That leads me to worry that politicians might try to “pay for” lower rates by forcing companies to overstate their […]
read more...I’ve been very critical of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most recently, I criticized the Paris-based bureaucracy for making the rather remarkable assertion that a value-added tax would boost growth and employment. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The OECD has allied itself with the nutjobs from the so-called Occupy movement […]
read more...I’m not a fan of loopholes in the tax code. I’ve complained about the number of pages in the tax code, the number of provisions in the tax code, and I’ve even groused about the rising number of pages in the instruction manual for the 1040 tax form. And I’ve specifically come out against tax […]
read more...