Texas has a small state government and no state income tax. California has a bloated state government and a punitive state income tax. Here’s a simple quiz: Which state is doing better? The answer is obvious, as Michael Barone explains:  Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that […]

The geniuses in Washington have come up with a great idea to attract more tourists to the United States. Yes, you guessed correctly. The politicians are going to impose a tax! Normal readers are probably scratching their heads about the logic of attracting visitors by making them pay more, but it all makes sense when […]

In addition to being in favor of more spending, increased regulation, bailouts, and protectionism, President Bush also saddled the economy with a big minimum wage increase. A new study shows that this pernicious policy has destroyed more than 500,000 part-time jobs. One of the most interesting insights in the report is that the economy (prior […]

A former reporter for the New York Times, Fox Butterfield, became a bit of a laughingstock in the 1990s for publishing a series of articles addressing the supposed quandary of how crime rates could be falling during periods when prison populations were expanding. A number of critics sarcastically explained that crimes rates were falling because […]

While admitting that spending restraint is the ideal approach, Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution asks whether a value-added tax (VAT) might be the most desirable of all realistic options for dealing with an unsustainable budget situation. Read his post for yourself, but I think a fair summary is that he is basically saying that a) there […]

Mark Steyn has a typically witty column that covers everything from the infamous Audi Superbowl commercial to the kid who was stopped by TSA for having Arabic-language flash cards. But he closes his piece with this powerful statement: …the difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to […]

The internal revenue code is a monstrous nightmare of special-interest loopholes and class-warfare penalties, but at least is generates some interesting stories. Here’s a report from Bloomgberg about a court deciding that the costs of switching from a man to a woman are tax deductible. Since I’m not a leftist, I’m not going to make the […]

No left-winger to debate in this appearance.

This may not be as dumbfounding as being told not to advertise for reliable people in England, but I certainly was shocked to see that nearly one-in-five federal bureaucrats is paid more than $100,000 – and that doesn’t even include overtime and bonuses! Or how about the fact that number of bureaucrats making more than […]

This Bloomberg article reinforces the theme that bureaucrats have plush sinecures while workers in the productive sector of the economy are facing difficult times. But the most shocking number is that state and local governments have underfunded pensions for bureaucrats by $1 trillion, not to mention $500 billion of unfunded health care promises. Needless to […]