Obama Administration Bribing States to Create More Food-Stamp Dependency

Only the federal government could be this stupid. We have two very big problems in our nation. o First, we have a giant, bloated federal government that is spending too much money, putting us at serious risk of a Greek-style fiscal crisis at some point in the future. o Second, the social capital of our [...]

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Debunking Elizabeth Warren’s Class Warfare

Running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, Harvard professor and former Obama appointee Elizabeth Warren got her fellow leftists excited when she said, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody” and added that “…part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay it [...]

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A Powerful Moral Argument to Get Government Out of the Housing Business

I’ve previously explained that the federal government should have no role in housing and that the Department of Housing and Urban Development should be abolished. If I haven’t convinced you, then you should watch this powerful video from the folks at Reason TV. What an outrage. Politicians create a program, claiming that they will help [...]

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Tim Geithner: The Forrest Gump of World Finance

One almost feels sorry for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He’s a punchline in his own country because he oversees the IRS even though he conveniently forgot to declare $80,000 of income (and managed to get away with punishment that wouldn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist). Now he’s becoming a a bit of [...]

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Growing Opposition to Obama’s IRS Proposal to Make Banks Put Foreign Tax Law above U.S. Tax Law

Earlier this year, President Obama’s IRS proposed a regulation that would force banks in America to report any interest they pay to accounts owned by non-resident aliens (that’s the technical term for foreigners who don’t live in the U.S.). What made this regulation so bizarre, however, is that Congress specifically has exempted these account from [...]

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A Real-Life Welfare Queen

During his 1976 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan popularized the notion of “welfare queens” who bilked redistribution programs for thousands of dollars. It has since become non-PC to use such a term, but that’s never stopped me. Here’s a report of a wretched welfare queen who is mooching off taxpayers and should [...]

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Coca-Cola CEO Says China Now More “Business Friendly” than the United States

Having grown up during the Cold War, I never though I would write a sentence like the title of this blog post, but there have been lots of firsts during the reign of Obama. When the head of a major multinational company says the American tax system is worse than the policy of a nation [...]

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The Solyndra Scandal Reeks, but the Entire Green-Energy Program Is a Scam

I’ve commented on the corruption of the Solyndra scandal, but it’s important to understand this is not just a story of sleaze. From an economic perspective, the real problem is that green-energy programs cause a misallocation of capital. Simply stated, government intervention diverts resources from more productive uses. Here are a couple of examples, explained [...]

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Explaining the Perverse Impact of Double Taxation with a Chart

Whether I’m criticizing Warren Buffett’s innumeracy or explaining how to identify illegitimate loopholes, I frequently write about the perverse impact of double taxation. By this, I mean the tendency of politicians to impose multiple layers of taxation on income that is saved and invested. Examples of this self-destructive practice include the death tax, the capital [...]

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Hell No, American Taxpayers Should Not Bail out the IMF

This is getting surreal. We now have layers of bailouts around the world. Different nations are doing their own bailouts. On top of that, the Europeans have set up something called the European Financial Stability Facility, which does bailouts across the continent. And then there’s the International Monetary Fund, doing bailouts on a global basis. [...]

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Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan Is Great in Theory, but…

I became a big admirer of Herman Cain back in the 1990s when he was a member of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform (aka, the Kemp Commission). I worked as a staffer for the Commission and was able to observe Mr. Cain in action over a period of several months. Suffice [...]

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A Picture of Tax Code Complexity and Corruption

Have you ever wondered why the tax code is a Byzantine mess that requires 72,000 pages of law and regulation? Hopefully you don’t ponder such dark and dreary thoughts, but the answer is that politicians and lobbyists have spent nearly 100 years creating all sorts of loopholes, shelters, deductions, preferences, exemptions, credits, and shelters. Beginning [...]

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More Evidence for School Choice

School choice doesn’t automatically mean every child will be an educational success, but evidence from other nations certainly suggests it means better overall performance. Sweden, Chile, and the Netherlands are just some of the countries that have seen good results after breaking up state-run education monopolies. The same is true in the United States. When [...]

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The Tea Party Goes Global: The Revolt of the Greek Tax Slaves

The fiscal turmoil in Greece is not about fiscal balance. It’s a fight between looters and moochers such as Olga Stefou, who think taxpayers should endlessly subsidize everything, and the shrinking group of productive people who are pulling the wagon and keeping Greece’s economy from total collapse. Not surprisingly, the Greek government has tried to [...]

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Measuring One Part of the Bush-Obama Regulatory Onslaught

Have you ever tried to run in waist-high water? It’s not easy, but it’s a useful exercise if you want to experience what it’s like to comply with government rules, regulation, paperwork, and red tape. Especially if you want to understand why it’s getting harder for American companies to compete against firms from other nations. [...]

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Eight Questions for Protectionists

When asked to pick my most frustrating issue, I could list things from my policy field such as class warfare or income redistribution. But based on all the speeches and media interviews I do, which  periodically venture into other areas, I suspect protectionism vs. free trade is the biggest challenge. So I want to ask [...]

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America Needs a Ludwig Erhard

I’m still at the Liberty Camp in Slovenia, doing my best to teach young Europeans about the importance of individual liberty, free markets, and small government. (also doing a bit of sightseeing, as you can see from the pictures below) This morning, one of the other presenters showed a short video taken from the first-rate [...]

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The Federal Reserve, the “Twist,” Inflation, QE3, and Pushing on a String

Welcome Instapundit readers: If you want a longer-term perspective on the Fed’s misdeeds, this George Selgin analysis is highly recommended. ===================================================== In a move that some are calling QE3, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will engage in a policy called “the twist” – selling short-term bonds and buying long-term bonds in hopes of [...]

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Home-Town Columnist Eviscerates Obama for Chicago-Style Corruption in Solyndra Scandal

I haven’t paid too much attention to the Solyndra scandal, except to note that waste, corruption and job losses are the inevitable consequences of big government and crony capitalism. But if you want a withering indictment of the sleaziness of the whole enterprise, a trip to Chicago is very illuminating. Here’s some of what John [...]

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Political Humor from Slovenia

I don’t mean jokes about the Slovenian political system, though I’m sure it would be a target-rich environment since politicians all over the world are easy to mock. Instead, I happen to be in Slovenia and it’s time to share the best political jokes from America’s late-night talk shows (something I do periodically, as you [...]

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How Elected Officials Screw Taxpayers, the Italian Porn-Star Version

Since this story is about an Italian porn star who because a politician, the title of this post could have more than one meaning, but we’re going to limit our conversation to whether it’s appropriate for politicians to receive extravagant pensions And this is not just an Italian issue. Disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner is eligible [...]

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New Rankings from Economic Freedom of the World Reveal Dismal Impact of Bush-Obama Statism

The 2011 edition of Economic Freedom of the World, published by Canada’s Fraser Institute (with help from groups like Cato), has been released. Covering data through 2009, the new report provides damning evidence of the negative impact of the Bush-Obama policies of bigger government and more intervention. Here’s a relevant passage from the Executive Summary. [...]

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One Simple Reason (and Two Easy Steps) to Show Why Obama’s Soak-the-Rich Tax Hikes Won’t Work

It’s hard to keep track of all the tax hikes that President Obama is proposing, but it’s very simple to recognize his main target – the evil, nasty, awful people known as the rich. Or, as Obama identifies them, the “millionaires and billionaires” who happen to have yearly incomes of more than $200,000. Whether the [...]

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CPAs Celebrate as Obama Proposes to Create a Turbo-Charged Alternative Minimum Tax

Wow, this is remarkable. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is one of the most-hated features of the tax code. It is such a nightmare of complexity that even Democrats routinely have supported “patches” and “band-aids” to protect millions of additional households from getting trapped in this surreal parallel tax universe – one that requires taxpayers [...]

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IRS Humor (though We Shouldn’t Give the Bureaucrats any Ideas)

I’ve shared many examples of IRS humor over the years, including a new Obama 1040 form, a list of tax day tips from David Letterman, a cartoon of how GPS would work if operated by the IRS, an IRS-designed pencil sharpener, two Obamacare/IRS cartoons (here and here), a sale on 1040-form toilet paper (a real [...]

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Europeans Mock Treasury Secretary Geithner, Showing Spend-aholics Shouldn’t Give Advice to Spend-aholics

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may be most famous in the United States for cheating on his taxes (you can even buy a t-shirt to acknowledge his tax dodging), but he’s becoming a punch line in the rest of the world for different reasons. I wrote two years ago about Chinese students erupting in laughter after [...]

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Thomas Sowell Exposes the Historical and Economic Illiteracy of the Political Class

Thomas Sowell just completed a three-part “Back to the Future” series, looking at a couple of fiscal policy issues. His unifying theme is how the political class fails (perhaps deliberately) to learn from mistakes. In Part I, he decimates President Obama’s new stimulus scheme. Once we get past the glowing rhetoric, what is the president [...]

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Washington’s Revolving Door of Legal Corruption

If you want to know why Washington is a cesspool of corruption and graft, you should read this story from the Washington Post about how Capitol Hill staffers use their positions as stepping stones to jobs in the lobbying community. Nearly 5,400 former congressional staffers have left Capitol Hill to become federal lobbyists in the [...]

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Obama and Geithner Advising the Europeans on Fiscal Crisis?!? This Is a Case of the Blind Leading the Blind…on Steroids

This is either frightening or hilarious. The people in Washington who are trying to make America more like Europe are advising the Europeans to double-down on the awful policies that have pushed the continent’s welfare states to insolvency. Here are some of the surreal details from a CNBC report. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will take [...]

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Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall, Which State Has the Biggest Welfare Benefits of All?

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities is a left-wing group in Washington that advocates for bigger government and higher taxes. In an effort to promote more redistribution, they recently put together a map showing how welfare benefits varied by state. We’re supposed to look at the map and conclude that welfare benefits are too [...]

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