National Health Care and Government-Subsidized Suicide

One of the obvious dangers of government-run health care is that politicians and bureaucrats will get to decide what health care you should receive. In many nations, this means people die because they no longer have access to medical treatment. But Oregon’s government system goes one step further and actually offers to pay for suicide. Foxnews.com reports:

Mr. Obama, Tear Down this Building!

I call for the elimination of the Department of the education in this debate on CNBC (and remark that the building should be torn down and a foot of salt put on the ground so nothing can ever spring forth again).

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Tax Oppression Index Ranks America in Bottom Half of Industrialized Nations

A thorough new study of 30 nations from the Institut Constant de Rebecque in Switzerland reveals serious shortcomings in America’s tax system. The report, entitled “Tax burden and individual rights in the OECD: an international comparison,” creates a Tax Oppression Index based on three key variables: the overall tax burden, public governance, and taxpayer rights. The good news is that the United States has a comparatively low aggregate tax burden, though America’s score on this measure would be much better in the absence of a punitively high corporate tax rate. The bad news is that corruption and inefficiency in Washington drag down America’s score for public governance. The ugly news is that America has a very low rating for protecting taxpayer rights – largely because politicians have tilted the playing field to favor the IRS, including the fact that taxpayers lose the presumption of innocence provided in the Constitution. Here is a brief description of the study:

The OECD’s campaign against “harmful tax competition” and “tax havens” has overshadowed the essential issue, namely the important roles that both tax competition and “tax havens” play for capital preservation and formation, leading to higher prosperity and better protection of individual rights throughout the OECD. The tax oppression index is based on 18 representative criteria measuring fiscal attractiveness, public governance and financial privacy in the 30 member states of the OECD. Switzerland appears as the country with the lowest tax oppression – due to a relatively low tax burden and a more [classical] liberal institutional order, including its citizens’ right to veto legislation, political decentralization, and protection of financial privacy. Germany and France, on the other hand, whose governments have supported the OECD’s efforts, are among the most questionable states in terms of safeguarding their residents’ individual rights. …The tax oppression index evaluates the 30 OECD member states on three complementary dimensions quantified by 18 representative criteria, on the basis of OECD and World Bank data. The index enables relevant conclusions about the tax burden and individual rights among those countries.

Switzerland earns the top ranking in the report, followed by Luxembourg, Austria, Canada, and Slovakia. Italy and Turkey have the worst systems, follwed by Poland, Mexico, and Germany. The United States is tied for 19th, behind even the welfare states of Scandinavia. With Obama promising the raise tax rates and increase the power of the IRS, it may just be a matter of time before the U.S. is competing for the world’s most oppressive tax regime.

February 2017 Addendum: Here’s the relevant table from the study.

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Taxpayers Get Screwed

Since politicians get to spend other people’s money, and use that process to raise campaign cash and buy votes, there is no limit to the stupid things they are willing to fund. The new study on condom use is merely the latest example. Foxnew.com has the details:

Don’t Buy a Used Car – or Take Political Advice – from this Guy

Karl Rove should have been named Man of the Year at some point by the Democratic National Committee. The political consultant/Bush adviser played a big role in expanding the burden of government, convincing Bush to saddle the nation with fiscal disasters such as the no-bureaucrat-left-behind education bill, the corrupt farm bills, the pork-filled transportation bills, and the horrific new entitlement for prescription drugs. He also helped ruin the GOP image with his inside-the-beltway version of “compassionate conservatism,” thus paving the way for big Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008.

I can understand why libertarians have no desire to listen to his advice, but I’m baffled why Republicans or conservatives would give him the time of day. Yet he is a constant presence on FOX News and has a weekly column in the Wall Street Journal. With no apparent irony, his latest WSJ column is entitled “How to Stop Socialized Health Care.” Too bad he didn’t follow his own advice in 2003 when pulling out all the stops to enact the biggest entitlement in four decades.

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All the President’s Czars.

President Obama has appointed at least 16 Commissars Czars to oversee aspects of the U.S. economy. On FOX, I explain that this is bad news from the economy and a potential rat’s nest of corruption.

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Obama’s New “Stimulus” Idea: Wasting Money Faster

Here’s my debate with Christian Weller on CNBC. I don’t necessarily blame the current Administration for all the job losses since the passage of the so-called stimulus, but I definitely reject the notion that making government bigger is a recipe for growth.

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Is Obama White House Saddling America with Global Taxes and a New Foreign Aid Boondoggle?

The U.K.-based Guardian reports that the United Nations and other international bureaucracies dealing with so-called climate change are scheming to impose global taxes. That’s not too surprising, but it is discouraging to read that the Obama Administration is acquiescing to these attacks on U.S. fiscal sovereignty. The Administration also has indicated it wants to squander an additional $400 billion on foreign aid:

…rich countries will be asked to accept a compulsory levy on international flight tickets and shipping fuel to raise billions of dollars to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to combat climate change. The suggestions come at the start of the second week in the latest round of UN climate talks in Bonn, where 192 countries are starting to negotiate a global agreement to limit and then reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The issue of funding for adaptation is critical to success but the hardest to agree. …It has been proposed by the world’s 50 least developed countries. It could be matched by a compulsory surcharge on all international shipping fuel, said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish environment and energy minister who will host the final UN climate summit in December. …In Bonn last week, a separate Mexican proposal to raise billions of dollars was gaining ground. The idea, known as the “green fund” plan, would oblige all countries to pay amounts according to a formula reflecting the size of their economy, their greenhouse gas emissions and the country’s population. That could ensure that rich countries, which have the longest history of using of fossil fuels, pay the most to the fund. Recently, the proposal won praise from 17 major-economy countries meeting in Paris as a possible mechanism to help finance a UN pact. The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, called it “highly constructive”. …Last week, a US negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, said that the US had budgeted $400m to help poor countries adapt to climate change as an interim measure. But that amount was dismissed as inadequate by Bernarditas Muller of the Philippines, who is the co-ordinator of the G77 and China group of countries.

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Seventy Minutes of Dan Mitchell

Some people complain that my youtube videos are too long, and they average only about seven minutes, so it is with some trepidation that I post here a link to my recent speech in Norway. But if you are looking for a thorough explanation of how government intervention caused the financial crisis AND the need to fix fiscal policy by slashing government spending and implementing a flat tax, there are worse ways of spending seventy minutes.  A supposed friend already has joked the the first minute, featuring an introduction in Norwegian by the leader of the Progress Party, is the best part of the video.  But I’ll let you be the judge.

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The Link Between Big Government and Corruption

This video (hopefully) makes the case that smaller government is the best way to reduce sleaze in Washington.

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Keynesian Economics Is Wrong

Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance.

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