The Economic and Human Cost of Occupational Licensing

I wrote three columns about occupational licensing in 2017 (here, here, and here), but have since neglected the issue. It’s time to revisit the issue, and we’ll start with this John Stossel video. One of the reasons I’m writing about the issue is that the Archbridge Institute issued a report last year that ranked states […]

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Fraudulent Emergency Spending

For decades (literally), I’ve maintained that make-believe budget cuts are the biggest form of budgetary dishonesty in Washington. But this John Stossel video discusses another scam politicians use to squander more money. So-called emergency spending is not a trivial problem. Here’s a chart from Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett, which documents $12 trillion of supposed […]

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OECD Bureaucrats Criticize USA for Absence of Parental Leave Mandate

Usually with regard to government-run health care, folks on the left commonly criticize the United States for being the “only country” that does not  provide this or that handout from the government. That should not be a persuasive argument without first looking at whether the United States is doing better or worse than other nations. […]

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Government Debt Is Falling, but for a Very Bad Reason

I rarely write about the national debt for the simple reason that it is far more important to focus on the burden of government spending. After all, improper spending saps economic vitality, regardless of whether it is financed with taxes, borrowing, or money printing. But I’m writing about debt today because something very interesting has […]

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The Harmful Consequences of China’s Leftward Shift

Back in 2019, I divided China’s recent economic history into three periods. Mao’s utter and total failure Deng’s partial liberalization Xi’s backsliding to statism The net result of these three periods is that China did enjoy some growth thanks to partial liberalization. The good news is that the wrenching destitution and suffering of the Mao […]

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Save Lives by Slapping Down the FDA’s War on Vaping

There are many reasons to have disdain for the Food and Drug Administration (pandemic failures, baby formula shortage, delayed drug approval, human cruelty, etc) and this video gives you another. If you don’t want have time to watch the video, all you really need to know is that there is a lot of scientific evidence […]

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D.C. Politicians Are Pushing Industrial Policy

Politicians in Washington very much like the idea of industrial policy. Steve Forbes, however, warns that legislation to expand cronyism would be a very bad idea. As Steve notes, politicians foolishly claim we need our own version of industrial policy so we can compete with China’s industrial policy. But China is suffering in part because […]

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Should Advocates of Economic Liberty Prefer Hungary or Denmark?

I’m a big believer in focusing on results rather than reputation or rhetoric. For instance, many Republican politicians talk a good game about spending restraint. But when you crunch the numbers, it turns out that they often increase spending even faster than Democrats. What’s true about politicians (the gap between reputation and reality) can also […]

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Further Debunking Keynesian Economics

The private sector reacted quickly (when allowed by sluggish and inefficient government) to the coronavirus pandemic. We quickly got everything from vaccines to personal protective equipment. That’s the good news. The bad news is that politicians also reacted quickly. The crowd in Washington used the crisis as an excuse to spend money. Lots of money. […]

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Deconstructing Biden’s Corporate Tax Cartel, Part II

Yesterday’s column explained why Biden’s proposed global cartel for corporate taxation was a bad idea. In this clip from a recent panel hosted by the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna, I speculated on whether the plan would become reality. I encourage you to watch the 4-minute video, but all you really need to know is […]

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Expanding the Welfare State with Per-Child Handouts

Two days ago, I shared data showing that people in the big nations of Western Europe only have about 75 cents of income for every $1 that Americans earn. That’s a remarkable gap, and it’s getting larger rather than smaller, even though theory says that shouldn’t happen. But what’s even more shocking is that a […]

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Walter Williams, RIP

One of America’s leading public intellectuals, Walter Williams, has passed away. In 2014, I shared a teaser for Suffer No Fools, a video biography of his life. To commemorate the life of this great man, here’s the full video. I first got to know Walter when I was a Ph.D. student at George Mason University […]

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Tax Increases Will Generate More Spending, More Debt, and Less Prosperity

Because of changing demographics and poorly designed entitlement programs, the burden of government spending in the United States (in the absence of genuine reform) is going to increase dramatically over the next few decades. That bad outlook will get even worse thanks to all the coronavirus-related spending from Washington. This is bad news for America […]

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Coronavirus and the Failure of Big Government: A Closer Look at the CDC

I’ve written four columns (here, here, here, and here) on the general failure of government health bureaucracies to effectively respond to the coronavirus. The pattern was so pronounced that it even led me to unveil a Seventh Theorem of Government. I’m not surprised at this outcome, of course, given the poor overall track record of […]

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Coronavirus and Subsidized Unemployment

Remember the “jobless recovery” of the Obama years? Part of the problem was that President Obama kept extending unemployment benefits, which subsidized joblessness, as even Paul Krugman and Larry Summers had warned. The good news was that Congress eventually said no in 2014 (actually one of the three best things to happen that year). After […]

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A Primer on “Price Gouging”

After Hitler’s National Socialists were defeated in World War II, the allies imposed price controls on the German economy for the ostensible purposes of fighting inflation and preventing “price gouging.” That policy led to massive shortages, black markets, and hoarding. Fortunately, as described in this video, a very clever economist abolished those controls, thus setting […]

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The Adverse Unintended Consequences of Paid Sick Leave

Back in 2008, the soon-to-be Chief of Staff for President Obama infamously stated that, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Sure enough, the Obama Administration – elected in the aftermath of the financial crisis – quickly rammed through a so-called stimulus, followed by Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. Now it’s happening again. Politicians […]

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Because Trump’s Winning on the Economy, He’s “Losing” on the Trade Deficit

Early last year, I shared a video explaining that trade deficits generally don’t matter. I even suggested trade deficits might be a sign of economic strength because foreigners who earned dollars were anxious to invest them in the American economy. I’m recycling this video to make a point about trade and the economy for both […]

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Education Week, Part III: How Subsidies from Washington Are Making Colleges More Expensive and Bureaucratic

As part of National Education Week, I’ve looked at the deterioration of K-12 government schools and also explained why a market-based choice system would be a better alternative. The good news is that we have a choice system for higher education. Students can choose from thousands of colleges and universities. The bad news is that […]

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Industrial Policy Is a Recipe for Cronyism and Stagnation

Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave. A Republican president is pushing protectionist policies that hurt American consumes and taxpayers. A Republican president and Congress are spending like drunken sailors (apologies to drunken sailors). Now some Republican politicians are promoting a version of central planning called “industrial policy.” This newfound flirtation with industrial […]

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A Primer on Tax Competition and the OECD

Speaking in Europe earlier this year, I tried to explain the entire issue of tax competition is less than nine minutes. To some degree, those remarks were an updated version of a video I narrated back in 2010. You’ll notice that I criticized the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in both videos. And with […]

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More Global Evidence for Spending Caps

Spending caps are the most effective way of fulfilling my Golden Rule for fiscal policy. And we have good evidence for this approach, as I explain in this FreedomWorks discussion. I also discuss tax competition in the interview, as well as other topics. You can watch the entire discussion by clicking here. But I’m sharing […]

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The Continuing Battle against Cronyism at the Export-Import Bank

One of the worst examples of Washington cronyism is the Export-Import Bank, which has provided subsidies for big companies that sell to foreign buyers. Corrupt firms such as Boeing and General Electric argue that they need help from the Ex-Im Bank in order make those sales. Is that true? Interestingly, we had a real-world test […]

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Yellow Vest Protesters in France =/= Tea Party Activists in America

I admired the Tea Party because it was made up of people who were upset by the bipartisan waste and corruption of Washington. And I think they even had a positive – albeit only temporary – effect. But the “Yellow Vest” protesters in France, as I explain in this interview, are much less coherent. Needless […]

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Four Options in the Fight over Parental Leave

I have this quaint notion that the Constitution guarantees economic liberty by limiting the power of Washington. Needless to say, parental leave is not one of the enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8. Sadly, many people (include the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) don’t share my view. So let’s set aside that objection […]

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How Washington Profits from “Tax Extenders”

Since I’m a proponent of tax reform, I don’t like special favors in the tax code. Deductions, exemptions, credits, exclusions, and other preferences are back-door forms of cronyism and government intervention. Indeed, they basically exist to lure people into making decisions that otherwise aren’t economically rational. These distortionary provisions help to explain why we have […]

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The Harmful Campaign Against Vaping and E-Cigarettes

As a fiscal policy wonk, I’ve come across depressing examples of counterproductive tax provisions (health benefits exclusion, ethanol credits) and spending programs (the entire HUD budget, OECD subsidies). But the folks who work on regulatory policy may get exposed to the most inane government policies (Fannie-Freddie mandate, EEOC rulings). For example, consider how the government […]

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NAFTA, USMCA, and Dodged Bullets

I don’t want to write about Trump’s new NAFTA deal (which now has the clunky acronym of USMCA), largely because not much changed since the partial deal with Mexico was unveiled. Also, it’s hard to get too worked up about the new agreement since it largely tinkers with the status quo. And since I was […]

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Trump and Trade: Evolving from Bluster to Danger

I wrote a few days ago about Obama’s weak track record on the economy and included the relevant part of a Fox Business interview. In that same interview, I also talked about Trump’s performance. As you might expect, I said nice things about tax reform and regulatory relief, but was rather alarmist about his protectionism. […]

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Trump and Trade: Protectionist Buffoon…or Master Negotiator Using 3-Dimensional Chess to Lower Tariffs?

By starting a trade war, President Trump is playing with matches in a gunpowder factory. Other nations are retaliating, creating the risk of escalating tit-for-tat protectionism. But is that really what’s happening? Is it possible that the President instead is playing hardball to get other nations (who generally have more trade barriers than America) to […]

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