Compared to ideal policy, the deal announced last night between congressional Republicans and President Obama is terrible. Compared to what I expected to happen, the deal announced last night is pretty good. In other words, grading this package depends on your benchmark. This is why reaction has been all over the map, featuring dour assessments […]

Much to my surprise, Senate Republicans held firm earlier today and blocked President Obama’s soak-the-rich proposal to raise tax rates next year on investors, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. I fully expected that GOPers would fold on this issue several months ago because Democrats were using the class-warfare argument that Republicans were holding the middle class […]

The Chairmen of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission have a new draft proposal that is filled, according to Reuters, with “sharp spending and benefit cuts.”

That’s music to my ears, so I quickly flipped to the back of the report in hopes of finding hard numbers showing that the federal government will be smaller in future years.

Much to my chagrin, it turns out that the federal government will increase by about $1.5 trillion between 2010 and 2020 according to the Commission’s numbers.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Switzerland. The nation’s decentralized structure shows the value of federalism, both as a means of limiting the size of government and as a way of promoting tranquility in a nation with several languages, religions, and ethnic groups. I also admire Switzerland’s valiant attempt to preserve financial privacy in […]

At least, that’s what a left-wing blogger thinks. So what did I do to earn this honor? I had the gall to say that tax loopholes should be removed, but that all the revenues should be used to finance lower tax rates. Call me crazy, but I don’t think either our economy or our fiscal […]

There’s been a lot of heated discussion about various preferences, deductions, credits, shelters, and other loopholes in the tax code. Some of this debate has revolved around whether it is legitimate to refer to these provisions as “tax expenditures” or “subsidies.”

A “bipartisan” task force recently unveiled a budget plan that includes lots of tax increases, but also has a one-year payroll tax holiday supposedly designed to boost the economy. In a debate with a former Bush Administration appointee on CNBC, I explain why this is a dumb way to try to boost growth. My Lima-beans-in-a-steakhouse […]

I get nauseated and disgusted when guilt-ridden wealthy people try to come across as friends of the common man by endorsing soak-the rich taxes. I’ve even debated a couple of self-loathing trust fund babies (see here and here) about class-warfare policy. If neurotic rich people believe that the government should have more money, there’s nothing […]

Every since the current government won a landslide election, there’s been a widespread assumption that Hungary would be the next nation in Europe to hop on the flat tax bandwagon. Well, the assumption has become reality. Here’s a report from Tax-news.com.

Ireland is in deep fiscal trouble and the Germans and the French apparently want the politicians in Dublin to increase the nation’s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate as the price for being bailed out. This is almost certainly the cause of considerable smugness and joy in Europe’s high-tax nations, many of which have been very resentful of Ireland for enjoying so much prosperity in recent decades in part because of a low corporate tax burden.

But is there any reason to think Ireland’s competitive corporate tax regime is responsible for the nation’s economic crisis? The answer, not surprisingly, is no.