A Learning Moment about Government Greed for Yale’s Cloistered Academics

Even though it’s theoretically possible to design a desirable budget deal that includes a tax increase, I’m a big advocate of the no-tax-hike pledge for the simple reason that – in the real world – support for genuine spending restraint and real entitlement reform evaporates once politicians think higher revenues are an option. Heck, bumping […]

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Red Light Cameras, Government Greed, and the Libertarian Quandary

Like the good people of Arizona, I despise speed cameras. But not because I want reckless driving. Instead, my disdain is based on the fact that governments set up cameras where speed limits are preposterously low in order to generate revenue. And I speak from personal experience. Like the good people of Houston, I also […]

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Guided by the Spirit of Fox Butterfield, the New York Times Inadvertently Confirms that Tax Competition Is Needed to Curtail Government Greed

More than two years ago, while writing about the Laffer Curve, I described the “Butterfield Effect.” 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 […]

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Taliban Tax Tyranny

When I write about taxation, it’s normally to address core economic issues such as marginal tax rates and double taxation. Or sometimes very wonky topics such as depreciation, carry forwards, and worldwide taxation. But I confess my favorite tax-related columns involve bizarre example of taxation from around the globe. For instance, I wrote back in […]

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Traffic Cameras and Greedy Government

Local politicians can be just as greedy and callous as state politicians and national politicians. Even if it means mistreating poor people. Perhaps the best evidence for the preceding sentence is the way that traffic cameras are used to generate revenue. Indeed, local politicians use cameras as a way of grabbing more money even if […]

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Should the United Nations Decide that Low Taxes Are a Violation of Human Rights?

Professor James Buchanan won a Nobel Prize for developing the theory of “public choice,” which looks at how politicians, bureaucrats, and voters seek to maximize their self interest, generally in ways that lead to an ever-expanding burden of government. Some people wonder why Buchanan’s analysis was prize-worthy when the unseemly nature of government has long […]

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Government Failure in Minneapolis

One might think that the most poorly governed city is a place such as San Francisco, Detroit, New York City, and Chicago. Or Seattle, if we just count recent history. But let’s not overlook Minneapolis. I wrote two months ago about that city’s hostility to capitalism, but the problems go well beyond run-of-the-mill government greed. An article in […]

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Happy Brexit Day

Today is Brexit Day. As of 6:00 P.M. EST (Midnight in Brussels), the United Kingdom no longer will be a member of the European Union. This is definitely good news in the long run since the U.K. will now be somewhat insulated from inevitable economic crises caused by the European’s Union’s dirigiste economic model and […]

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How Nations Can Create (and Retain) Millionaires and Billionaires

Because they wrongly assume the economy is a fixed pie, some of my friends on the left think it’s bad for there to be rich people. They actually think that must mean the rest of us have less income. But that’s not true. At least it’s not accurate if we start with the assumption that […]

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Great Moments in International Taxation

Back in 2013, I wrote about a gay guy adopting his long-time lover in order to escape the evil and pernicious death tax. I speculated that this would cause confusion and angst in some circles. Traditional leftists would want to applaud the adoption because of their support for gay rights, but they would be conflicted […]

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Occupational Licensing: Another Way Politicians Hurt the Poor and Help their Cronies

Experts in the field of political marketing periodically tell me that you need to have sympathetic victims when trying to change policy. When pushing for Obamacare repeal, highlight a family who lost its health plan and now has to pay twice as much for insurance. When advocating for repeal of the death tax, publicize a […]

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Four Quirky Moments in Overseas Taxation

In my research and travels, I come across all sorts of strange stories about tax policy. Sometimes I learn about bizarrely foolish tax policies, such as the German tax on online coffee sales that loses money for government. Sometimes I learn about heartening protests against government greed, such as Irish taxpayers refusing to pay a […]

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Occupational Licensing, Government Thuggery, and Greed-Fueled Cronyism

What word best describes the actions of government? Would it be greed? How about thuggery? Or cronyism? Writing for Reason, Eric Boehm has a story showing that “all of the above” may be the right answer. At first it seems like a story about government greed. When Mats Järlström’s wife got snagged by one of […]

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Great Moments in Local Government

I focus most of my ire on the federal government because bad policy from Washington is the biggest threat to our nation’s freedom and prosperity. But we also get plenty of bad policy from other levels of government. I periodically focus on the foibles of states such as California, Illinois, and New York. Today, though, […]

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Nation Punishes Productive People Worst of All?

Back in 2014, I shared some data from the Tax Foundation that measured the degree to which various developed nations punished high-income earners. This measure of relative “progressivity” focused on personal income taxes. And that’s important because that levy often is the most onerous for highly productive residents of a nation. But there are other […]

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The Local Government Extortion Racket

What do Andy Johnson, Anthony Smelley, the Hammond family, Charlie Engle, Tammy Cooper, Nancy Black, Russ Caswell, Jacques Wajsfelner, Jeff Councelller, Eric Garner, Martha Boneta, James Slatic, Carole Hinders, Salvatore Culosi, and James Lieto, as well as the Sierra Pacific Company and the entire Meitev family have in common? They are all victims of brutal, […]

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You Be the Judge: Traffic Enforcement, Predatory Government, and Legitimate Class Warfare

One of the most important bulwarks of a just society is equal justice under law. That principle is even etched in stone above the entrance to the Supreme Court. My belief in equal treatment is one of the reasons I support the flat tax. As an economist, I like the pro-growth impact of tax reform. […]

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