The Wrong Kind of Entitlement Reform Could Be Worse than No Entitlement Reform

I have a new article for National Review about the fallout from the Supercommittee. Among the points I make are: o We were lucky to dodge a tax hike. o There’s still a threat of a tax hike if big-government Republicans side with the so-called rational left in favor of a tax-increase proposal, such as [...]

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What’s the Solution to Europe’s Fiscal Crisis: Spending Cuts, or Bailouts and Easy Money?

In hopes of stopping investor panic about Europe’s fiscal crisis, the world’s major central banks just announced that they will do whatever is needed to ensure financial markets don’t freeze up. This could be an appropriate and relatively benign use of the lender-of-last-resort powers, or it could signal another round of reckless easy money and [...]

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The Less-than-Thrilled Case for Extending the Payroll Tax Holiday

When I think about taxes, my first instinct is to rip up the corrupt internal revenue code and implement a simple and fair flat tax. When I think about Social Security, my first instinct is to copy dozens of other nations and implement personal retirement accounts. Unfortunately, the political system rarely generates opportunities to enact [...]

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Bureaucrats Gone Wild

This narrator probably won’t get rich, like the guy who did the “Girls Gone Wild” videos, but this is the second-best video I’ve ever seen on the bloated and overpaid government workforce. I especially like how he understands that the problem is the size of government, and I also admire his recognition that Republicans often [...]

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Notwithstanding Media Coverage of Black Friday, Consumer Spending Does Not Drive Economy

By fighting for freedom in Washington, I’ve condemned myself to a life of frustration and aggravation. One of my many pet peeves is that so many people in DC believe that economic growth depends on consumer spending. Back in the early days of this blog, I wrote the following. Many people assume that consumer spending [...]

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Everything You Need to Know about Entitlement Reform

Most people have a vague understanding that America has a huge long-run fiscal problem. They’re right, though they probably don’t realize the seriousness of that looming crisis. Here’s what you need to know: America’s fiscal crisis is actually a spending crisis, and that spending crisis is driven by entitlements. More specifically, the vast majority of [...]

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European Economic Crisis Highlights an Increasingly Important Reason to Oppose Gun Control

About a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part [...]

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The Late-Night Comics Abuse the Political Class

I’ve been getting some emails complaining that it’s been a while since I posted the funniest politcal one-liners from the late-night comics. Well, I’m susceptible to peer pressure, so your wish is my command. Here are some from Jay Leno: A 6th-grade student from Springfield, New Jersey, who asked Gov. Chris Christie for campaign advice, [...]

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Despicable and Corrupt Republicans Vote for More Housing Subsidies

Remember my post from a week ago when I said I was not a Republican even though Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge are two of my heroes? Well, now I have another reason to despise the GOP. Those reprehensible statists just voted to expand federal housing subsidies. Here are some excerpts from an excellent National Review column by Andrew [...]

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Walter Williams vs. Barack Obama on Class Warfare

It isn’t fair to compare and contrast the views of a distinguished economist with the envious ramblings of a career politician/community activist. But it’s also not right for the government to use coercion to impose bad policy, so I don’t feel guilty about sharing this excerpt from a recent Walter Williams column. President Barack Obama, [...]

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Europe’s Dismal Outlook

The economic and fiscal crisis in Europe looks worse every day as a growing number of international investors decide that nations such as Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Spain can’t be trusted. As a result, interest rates on government debt are hitting record levels. Not surprisingly, Europe’s craven political class is refusing to reduce the burden [...]

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Australia’s Shameful Stifling of Free Speech and Political Dissent

I haven’t written much on the global-warming debate, other than to warn about how agenda-driven government funding is corrupting scientific inquiry and to mock nutjob extremists who assert climate change will cause catastrophes ranging from genocide to AIDS. But I feel compelled to address the issue today because of a despicable move by the Australian [...]

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A Cartoon about Congress and Thanksgiving

In past years, I’ve shared posts about taxes and Thanksgiving, political correctness and Thanksgiving, a serious look at how shifting from communism to private property led to Thanksgiving for the Plymouth Colony, and a humorous look at what Thanksgiving might be like if Mayor Bloomberg of New York City ever becomes President. In the spirit [...]

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I’m Thankful…that I’m Not an Idiot Education Bureaucrat from Florida

I’m thankful for the usual things, such as my kids and being an American. But I’m also thankful I’m not a blithering idiot like the bureaucrats at a Florida school. Here are a few details of this astounding example of utter stupidity. A sheriff’s deputy was dispatched last week to a Florida elementary school after [...]

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Sequestration Does Not Endanger America’s National Security

The left wanted to get one thing from the Supercommittee, and that was to seduce gullible Republicans into a 1990-style tax increase deal in order to enable bigger government. But I was pleasantly surprised when GOPers failed to surrender, which means that taxpayers didn’t get raped and pillaged. But winning a battle is not the [...]

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Should People Be Allowed to Sell their Kidneys?

I’ve written before on the topic of allowing organ sales, including a post on some polling data showing how a free market would save lives, so you won’t be surprised that I find this short video very persuasive. I’m genuinely curious why some people are opposed to this reform. Seems like it’s a win-win-win situation. [...]

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The Federal Budget Process and Bureaucratic Incentives, Nicely Captured by a Cartoon

I’ve done a video on excessive compensation for bureaucrats and I’ve written many times about wasteful spending, but here’s a cartoon that manages to effectively combine both concepts. If your eyes are getting old like mine, you may need to click on the image to read everything. This cartoon is good, but here’s another that [...]

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The U.S. Army vs OWS Protesters

Even though I expressed some support for the Occupy protesters the other day, I strongly reject their entitlement mindset. So you can imagine how I found this image both humorous and accurate. Maybe I’m biased because a lot of my softball buddies are in the military or former military, but each soldier is worth about [...]

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American Politicians Should Copy Canada’s Leftist Government of the 1990s and Cap Spending

Welcome Instapundit readers! Canada’s fiscal restraint (relative to the U.S., at least) is not the only positive development. Canada also has privatized its air traffic control system and fought against European schemes for bank taxes. No wonder Canada now ranks above America in both the Economic Freedom of the World Index and the Index of [...]

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Will Europe’s Feckless Politicians Destroy the Euro?

As demonstrated by the new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, there are five key lessons to learn from the fiscal crisis in Europe. Unfortunately, Europe’s despicable political class has not learned from their mistakes. They are not taking the simple and obvious steps that are needed to address the problems of spendthrift [...]

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This Cartoon Does Show How Politicians Think

This is probably my favorite political cartoon, and this one is the most-viewed post in the history of this blog, but here’s one probably should be near the top because it so perfectly captures the mindset of the political class. Though if you want to teach economics, here are good cartoons about incentives, Keynesian economics, [...]

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In Semi-Defense of OWS Protesters

Even though I’ve expressed a small bit of sympathy for their motives, I’m not a fan of the OWS protesters. But other than sharing some jokes about the movement (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), I haven’t had much to say. But this video showing a clash with police at UC Davis is rather troubling. I realize that [...]

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Supercommittee Fight May Tell Us Whether the GOP Is Beyond Salvage

Some people have asked why I’m so agitated about the possibility that Republicans may acquiesce to tax increases as part of the Supercommittee negotiations. Rather than get into a lengthy discourse about the proper role of the federal government or an analysis of how the Bush-Obama spending binge worsened America’s fiscal situation, I think this [...]

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This Is Why I’m Proud to Be an American

At a basic level, my attitude on patriotism is captured by this t-shirt. And hold the snarky comments. My view is not influenced by the woman modeling it. Or, if you want something with more substance, this Penn & Teller routine is very instructive. But this polling data, taken from a recent report from the [...]

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What Matters More to Republicans, Defending Taxpayers or Expanding Government?

Yesterday, I unloaded on supposed conservatives who are toying with a tax increase to enable more government spending. Why would they take that route in the “Supercommittee” deliberations, I wondered, when they can deliver a guaranteed victory for taxpayers by holding firm and allowing a sequester to occur, which would automatically slow the growth of [...]

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Would You Rather Have Bailouts or Real Capitalism?

Earlier this month, I took part in an online debate for U.S. News & World Report about whether Europe or the United States was in deeper fiscal trouble. I wrote that Europe faced a bigger mess, though I warned that the United States was making the same mistakes of costly and inefficient welfare-state policies and [...]

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Some “Conservative” Members of the Stupid Party Push for Tax Increases to Enable Bigger Government

What would you do if you saw somebody standing at the top of a skyscraper, about to jump? Would you avert your eyes in horror? Would you watch in dismay as they plummeted to the ground? These are similar to the thoughts that are going through my mind as I watch Republicans begin the process [...]

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Five Lessons for America from the European Fiscal Crisis

I’ve written about the fiscal implosion in Europe and warned that America faces the same fate if we don’t reform poorly designed entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. But this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, narrated by an Italian student and former Cato Institute intern, may be the best explanation [...]

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Does Socialism Work? A Classroom Experiment

I posted a video making this point earlier in the year, and I also posted a version of this joke back in 2010, but here’s another version that’s worth sharing because of the five lessons to be learned at the conclusion. ================================= An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had [...]

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The French Government’s Moral Depravity and Self-Imposed Fiscal Suicide

Appearances can be deceiving. I saw an article with a blaring headline that warmed my heart: “France’s Sarkozy Eyes Welfare Rethink, Fraud Clampdown.” Could it be, I thought, that the political elite finally realized that the welfare state was the wrong model? Had they finally realized, as demonstrated by these cartoons, that it was foolish [...]

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