I took part today in a nine-person debate on the fiscal cliff for U.S. News & World Report. We were all asked, “Is Going Over the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Necessarily the Worst Outcome?” I said “no” because there are worse options, and I specifically explained that Obama’s class warfare agenda is even more destructive. Readers are […]

Obama has staked out a very dogmatic and inflexible position on class-warfare tax hikes and he obviously wants all of us to think only the “rich” will be impacted. I think it’s foolish to penalize investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners and other upper-income taxpayers. What nation, after all, has ever prospered by placing obstacles in […]

I’m a big believer in the Laffer Curve, which is the common-sense proposition that changes in tax rates don’t automatically mean proportional changes in tax revenue. This is because you also have to think about what happens to taxable income, which can move up or down in response to changes in tax policy. The key […]

Regular readers know I’m not a fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Heck, just take a look at some of the examples in this post and you’ll understand why. Well, the Secretary-General of the Paris-based bureaucracy just pontificated about the value-added tax. Let’s see whether my knee-jerk hostility is warranted. Here is […]

Since one of my main priorities is to defend tax competition and tax havens, I’m always delighted to see others jump in the fight to defend fiscal sovereignty. Especially when those people clearly understand that so-called tax havens are necessary to restrain the compulsive tendency of “onshore” politicians to over-tax and over-spend. Pierre Bessard of […]

I’m in Jersey, where I gave a speech last night. But not New Jersey, the state where you shouldn’t die. That’s the state that many people have been fleeing because they don’t like paying confiscatory taxes to finance bureaucrats who make as much as $320,000 per year. Instead, I’m in the Bailiwick of Jersey, which […]

More than four years ago, as part of my efforts to promote and protect tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, I narrated this video explaining the economic benefits of so-called tax havens. Pay close attention at the 1:07 mark. Yes, you heard right. A former bureaucrat from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development […]

I’m not a big fan of the International Monetary Fund, largely because the folks in charge oftentimes advocate toxic policies such as bailouts, higher taxes, and currency devaluation. But there are some top-rate economists working at the IMF, and the bureaucracy has published some good studies about the economic benefits of reducing government spending and […]

Even though he promised to bring Americans together, President Obama has used class-warfare tax policy to persecute and demonize successful entrepreneurs and investors. This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains why the tax code shouldn’t be used for anything other than fairly and neutrally collecting a minimum amount of revenue to fund the legitimate functions of the federal government.

The half-joking response to the question in the title of this post is that policymakers should look at what’s happening in poorly run jurisdictions such as California, France, Illinois, and Greece – and then do just the opposite. In other words, steer clear of punitive class-warfare tax rates and make sure to control the burden […]