Responding to widespread criticism of his AWOL status on the budget fight, President Obama today unveiled a fiscal plan. It already is being criticized for its class warfare approach to tax policy, but the most disturbing feature may be a provision that punishes the American people with higher taxes if politicians overspend. Called a “debt […]

If you are an average American, today is a great day. According to the Tax Foundation, you have finally worked long enough and earned enough money to satisfy the annual tax demands of federal, state, and local governments. This means you now get to keep any additional income you earn. That’s the good news. The […]

I’m not a big fan of the IRS, but usually I blame politicians for America’s corrupt, unfair, and punitive tax system. Sometimes, though, the tax bureaucrats run amok and earn their reputation as America’s most despised bureaucracy. Here’s an example. Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service proposed a regulation that would force American banks […]

This Thursday, April 7, Senator Corker of Tennessee will be the opening speaker at the Cato Institute’s conference on “The Economic Impact of Government Spending” (an event that is free and open to the public, so register here if you want to attend). The Senator will be discussing his proposal to cap and then gradually […]

A new study from the Adam Smith Institute in the United Kingdom provides overwhelming evidence that class-warfare tax policy is grossly misguided and self-destructive. The authors examine the likely impact of the 10-percentage point increase in the top income tax rate, which was imposed as an election-year stunt by former  Gordon Brown and then kept […]

I commented yesterday about the silly idea, being promoted by a few politicians, to impose a tax on toilet paper. That post mostly was an opportunity to have some fun mocking greedy government because even a dour pessimist like me doesn’t expect that idea to get very far. But there’s a new tax idea that […]

The greed of the political class is boundless. They have figured out how to tax just about everything, including a tax on tanning salons to finance Obamacare. But for sheer ingenuity (in the philosophically perverted sense), I must tip my proverbial hat to the politicians who want to tax toilet paper. Here’s a blurb from […]

Regular readers know that I’m a big fan of tax competition because politicians are less likely to misbehave if the potential victims of plunder have the ability to escape across borders. Here is an excerpt from a superb article by Allister Heath, one of the U.K.’s best writers on economic and business issues. In a […]

I posted yesterday about the horrible unfairness of life (i.e., I’m not rich). Interestingly, there are a number of rich left-wingers that feel guilty about having a lot of money. In a burst of genius, I came up with an idea that will kill two birds with one stone. They should give their money to […]

There’s a significant debate now taking place in Washington – largely behind closed doors, but sometimes covered by the media – on whether fiscal conservatives should maintain a rigid no-tax-increase position. One side of the debate features Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, which is the organization that maintains the no-tax increase pledge. The […]