Great Moments in State Government

States such as Illinois, California, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey have very serious structural problems because of high tax burdens and unsustainable spending levels (often associated with excessive pay and benefits for bureaucrats). I frequently write about those big issues, but I also like to periodically share examples of other bone-headed policies at the […]

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Great Moments in State Government

When I write about the actions of state governments, it’s usually to highlight a specific bad policy. As you can imagine, states like California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey give me a never-ending amount of material. But I frequently run across things that are happening in the states that don’t really merit an […]

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Why the So-Called Marketplace Fairness Act Is a Misguided Expansion of Power for State Governments

I’m either a total optimist or a glutton for punishment. I recently explained the benefits of “tax havens” for the unfriendly readers of the New York Times. Now I’m defending a different form of tax competition for CNN, another news outlet that leans left. In this case, the topic is whether states can reach beyond […]

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Great Moments in State Government

Back in 2010, I shared parts of a Dave Barry column that mocked the government for bizarre examples of stupid law enforcement. Barry was specifically making fun of OSHA bureaucrats for fining a company for the horrible transgression of saving a worker when a trench collapsed. But there are many other examples of law enforcement […]

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Great Moments in State Government: Pinhead Bureaucrats Threaten Family with Possible Prison Sentence for Rescuing a Baby Deer

As a public finance economist, I normally focus on big-picture arguments against excessive government. If the public sector is too large, for instance, that undermines economic growth by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy. The damage is then compounded by a needlessly destructive and punitive tax system. But I’ve also discovered that […]

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Debating Whether State Governments Can Impose Taxation without Representation on Out-of-State Merchants

If you saw my speech to Capitol Hill staff on the topic, you know I’m strongly opposed to schemes that would allow greedy state politicians to impose taxes on online sales that occur outside their borders. I reiterated these sentiments in a debate that was posted today by U.S. News & World Report. Here’s some […]

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North Carolina’s Attempted Censorship Shows How State Governments also Are a Threat to Liberty

I spend much of my time focusing on the dangers of a bloated federal government. And if you’ve ever paid attention to the name of this blog, you know I have a special interest in monitoring the ill-advised actions of foreign governments. But that doesn’t mean I have a Pollyanna view about state governments or […]

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The Boundless Stupidity of State Governments

I’m an over-protective parent. Even now, with my kids ranging between 18 and 23, I will try to herd them together while skiing so I can follow them down the slopes and watch for potential injuries. And I never got them a jungle gym when they were young, even though I somehow managed to survive […]

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Great Moments in State Government Stupidity

Make sure you don’t save an injured deer in Virginia. Not only will the bureaucrats take the animal away from you, but they’ll nail you with three misdemeanor charges just for good measure. I guess the legal approach would have been to let the dogs kill the helpless creature. Here’s part of the WTOP.com report. […]

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In One Image, Everything You Need to Know about the Washington-Created Welfare State (Part II)

As part of my everything-you-need-to-know series, I shared an incomprehensible flowchart showing the ridiculous maze of federal welfare programs back in 2015. Today, let’s look at another visual that captures what’s wrong with the Washington welfare state. As you can see, taxpayers are footing the bill for a system that spends more than twice what […]

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Who Should Pay to Rebuild Baltimore’s Key Bridge?

One of the big problems with centralization is that taxes are imposed on people living in communities across the country. The money then goes to Washington, where some of it is spent on bureaucracy (including the shadow bureaucracy), and then funds are sent back out to communities. That’s a recipe to make government more expensive […]

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More Good News Thanks to Colorado’s TABOR Spending Cap

Colorado has the best fiscal rule in the United States. The Taxpayer Bill of  Rights (TABOR) limits state government spending so that it cannot grow faster than inflation plus population. Does Colorado’s spending cap work perfectly? Of course not. Politicians in the Centennial State have spent decades coming up with ways evade and avoid TABOR’s […]

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Spending Caps and the Benefit of Fiscal Restraint

When making the case for spending caps, the best domestic example is Colorado and the best international example is Switzerland. What makes the Swiss example especially persuasive is a comparison over the past 20 years between spending growth in Switzerland and the United States. To use an education analogy, Switzerland is a star student (2.2 […]

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Great Election Result

Since I care about policies rather than politicians, yesterday’s most important election was a referendum that took place in Colorado. The big-spending lobbies once again tried to weaken the state’s spending cap, known as TABOR, or the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Yet even though Colorado voters lean to the left, they overwhelmingly rejected Proposition HH. […]

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Is Iowa Becoming the “Florida of the North”?

According to both Economic Freedom of North America and Freedom in the 50 States, Iowa is boringly average, ranking in the 20s. That’s better than being terrible, like New York or California. But it’s worse than being good, like Florida and New Hampshire. However, if we look solely at tax policy, Iowa goes from average […]

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Why Are U.S. Politicians Copying China’s Mistakes?

Industrial policy is when politicians use subsidies, mandates, protectionism, and other forms of intervention to provide unearned benefits to a specific companies and/or specific industries. The politicians claim that the free enterprise system somehow is too inefficient or too short-sighted to produce the ideal outcome, so they have to intervene. Some of them may even […]

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The Feel-Good Map of 2023

Last year, I shared the “Feel-Good Map of 2022” that showed 18 states had lowered personal and/or corporate income tax since the start of 2021. And that was after showing a map of 11 state lowering tax rates the previous year. Courtesy of the Tax Foundation, we now have the 2023 version of that map. […]

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Class Warfare and Utility Pricing

Good folks on the left (and every other part of the spectrum) push for equality of opportunity. And what’s great about that approach is that more opportunity for one person does not require less opportunity for another person. Bad folks on the left push for equality of outcomes. And that’s unfortunate because an agenda of […]

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Nauseating Government Thuggery

It’s hard to pick the worst government policy since there are so many options. Death tax – The IRS penalizing saving and investment by grabbing money just because someone dies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Government entities that helped give us the 2008 financial crisis. OECD subsidies – American tax dollars flowing to a […]

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TABOR’s Track Record: $8.2 Billion in Taxpayer Savings

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has a video on spending caps that focuses on international evidence, such as Switzerland’s debt brake. Here’s a video from the American Legislative Exchange Council that that looks at a successful domestic spending cap – Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Here’s the short and simple explanation of how the […]

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A Libertarian Quandary in Canada

There’s much to admire about public policy in Canada, including good policies today (private air traffic control and no department of education) and good policies in the past (rigorous spending restraint in the 1990s). But there are also mistakes. Like the fiscal policies of the current Prime Minister. Today, we’re going to look at a […]

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A State Suicide Pact, Part I

There are some very important long-run demographic and cultural trends in the United States. The aging of the population – and the concomitant problem of poorly designed entitlement programs – probably belongs at the top of the list. But another big trend is internal migration, which occurs when Americans move from one state to another. […]

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Assessing North Carolina’s Fiscal Policy

When I first started citing the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index back in 2013, North Carolina was one of the 10 worst states. In a remarkable turnaround, North Carolina is now one of the 10 best states. The big improvement is partly because the state joined the flat tax club. But there were […]

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Fiscal Follies: Texas vs. California, Part VIII

I have a seven-part series (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) comparing Texas and California, mostly to demonstrate that the not-so-Golden State has hurt itself with excessive taxation and a bloated government. Today, we’re going to augment our comparisons by looking at a very practical example of how California’s approach is much worse. […]

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Fiscal Fights with Friends: Centralization Is the Wrong Way to Fix Medicaid

I’ve previously explained the difference between entitlement spending and discretionary spending. I have also explained that entitlements are the main reason the United States faces a very grim fiscal future. And I’ve specifically written that Medicaid is the entitlement program most in need of reform. Moreover, I explained in this video that Medicaid’s split-financing model […]

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TABOR Is America’s Fiscal “Gold Standard”

If Republicans do as well as expected in next Tuesday’s mid-term elections, especially with regard to gubernatorial and state legislative contests, I expect that more states will enact and expand on school choice in 2023. That will be great news for families. But I also want great news for taxpayers, and that’s why I’m hoping […]

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, What State Has the Best Tax Policy of All?

Because I dedicated last week to European fiscal policy, I didn’t get a chance to write about the Tax Foundation’s latest version of the State Business Tax Climate Index, which was released October 25. Last year, the top-4 states were Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, and Florida. This year’s report, authored by Janelle Fritts and Jared […]

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European Fiscal Policy Week, Part II: The Right Response to Italy’s Fiscal Crisis

I wrote yesterday to speculate about a possible fiscal crisis in Italy. Today, here are my thoughts on why there should not be a bailout if/when a crisis occurs. I have moral objections to bailouts, but let’s focus in this column on the practical impact. And let’s start with this chart, which shows debt levels […]

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The Volcanic Version of Government-Subsidized Moral Hazard

I’ve written several times about federally subsidized flood insurance, mostly to complain that it is terrible policy. People are encouraged to build homes in low-lying areas, which then leads to needless destruction during floods. The monetary cost is significant, but I get even more upset that responsible people are forced to finance other people’s irresponsible […]

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A Flunking Grade for the Department of Education

Whether I’m debating the quality of government schools or the funding of government schools, I routinely share this chart from the late Andrew Coulson. There are two obvious takeaways from this data. Taxpayers have been shelling out ever-larger amounts of money. All that money has produced no improvement in student test scores. Those two takeaways […]

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