Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama proposed several tax increases. Some of those tax hikes, such as the proposed higher income tax rates on investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers, have received a lot of public attention. But it’s also important to guard against stealth tax hikes, and Obama’s proposal to […]

I’ve already written about the terrible work of the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO did an awful job on the stimulus, for instance, repeatedly asserting that diverting money from the private sector to government somehow would create jobs. CBO also was a disaster on Obamacare, claiming that a giant new entitlement program would reduce budget […]

The White House recently released a video, narrated by Austan Goolsbee of the Council of Economic Advisers, asserting that higher tax rates on the so-called rich would be a good idea. Since Goolsbee’s video made so many unsubstantiated assertions and was guilty of so many sins of omission, here’s a rebuttal video, narrated by yours truly. […]

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation mini-documentary debunks White House pro-tax propaganda with a point-by-point rebuttal of a video narrated by Austan Goolsbee of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The old saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right” is especially true in the field of public policy. A good example is the crazy new proposal from the United Nations to collect billions of dollars by imposing global taxes on financial transactions and energy. That’s bad enough, but the international bureaucracy wants to impose […]

We’ve been spending too much time on elections, so let’s get back to pointing out inane, foolish, and destructive government policies. Our latest example comes from the United Kingdom, where politicians are pushing airline ticket taxes to punitive levels and harming the tourism industry. But the real lesson from this story is that it is […]

The death tax is a punitive levy that discourages saving and investment and causes substantial economic inefficiency. But it’s also an immoral tax that seizes assets from grieving families solely because someone dies. The good news is that this odious tax no longer exists. It disappeared on January 1, 2010, thanks to the 2001 tax cut legislation. […]

I’m not serious , of course, but it is rather ironic that Raul Castro is cutting the tax burden on small business at the same time that Obama is pushing for higher tax rates on small business. Reuters reports on the latest in supply-side communism. Cuba unveiled on Friday a new tax code it said […]

I recently posted data showing how companies are sitting on lots of cash, presumably in part because the business climate is not conducive to investment and job creation. I also showed a cartoon that makes the same point in an amusing – yet insightful – manner. Now let’s look at data from the Federal Reserve, […]

There certainly are logical reasons to think that Obama’s policies are dampening economic growth. Investors and entrepreneurs have little reason to produce and take risks, after all, when they know the burden of government is going to climb. Especially when you add uncertainty to the mix. Here’s a chart showing Federal Reserve data on the […]