A Victory for the Laffer Curve, a Defeat for England’s Economy

A new study from the Adam Smith Institute in the United Kingdom provides overwhelming evidence that class-warfare tax policy is grossly misguided and self-destructive. The authors examine the likely impact of the 10-percentage point increase in the top income tax rate, which was imposed as an election-year stunt by former  Gordon Brown and then kept [...]

‘Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?’

Ronald Reagan’s poignant question to then President Jimmy Carter during a debate in 1980 clinched the presidential election. Carter presided over one of the worst economies. The economy had tanked and inflation had skyrocketed. Additionally, Iranian radicals had held 52 Americans hostage for almost a year. But that’s nothing compared to our nation’s economic malaise [...]

Layoffs Hit Renowned L.A. Music Magnet, Times Reporter Blames Republicans

About three miles south of Beverly Hills in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Beverlywood is Hamilton High School. An otherwise ordinary Los Angeles Unified School District-sponsored juvenile detention center, Hamilton is home to a couple of well regarded magnet programs, particularly the Academy of Music Magnet. The Music Magnet is the old stomping [...]

Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a Shutdown

According to news reports, Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach any sort of budget agreement before April 8, when a short-term spending bill for the current fiscal year expires.

Barring some new development, this could mean a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government.
This makes both sides very nervous. Democrats don’t want the spending [...]

Can You Read This and Not Despise the IRS?

A previous post of mine at International Liberty addressed the issue of whether Republicans were right to trim the IRS’s budget. The following case study of IRS thuggery should convince everyone that the answer is a resounding yes.

First, some background. The federal government made a rather troubling decision a few years ago to investigate, persecute, prosecute, and [...]

Left Attacks Florida Gov. Scott for Supporting Transparency They Endorsed in Minnesota

While this proactive disclosure of frequently-requested information won the Governor brownie points with some “open government” advocates, the head of the AFL-CIO and at least one major newspaper accused Gov. Scott of selectively releasing information to advance his pension reform agenda.

Why Does Obama Hate Small Business?

I’ve started more than a dozen small businesses. For one, over $20 million was invested by me and investors who believed in me. I’ve paid payrolls, health insurance, payroll taxes, workers comp, and unemployment insurance for hundreds of employees.

Because of that, my employees were able to pay their mortgages, buy groceries, send their kids [...]

April 5th Will Decide Who Governs Wisconsin: The Voters or 4 Judges

Had the federal government passed a law (in the best interest of the people, naturally) mandating that every household in America purchase a handgun and learn how to use it in order to protect themselves and in turn save the government money on police protection, that law would be a constitutional issue for the courts [...]

What Are Republicans Thinking?!?

I posted yesterday at International Liberty about the stunning political incompetence of Republican Senators, who reportedly are willing to give Obama an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a vote (yes, just a vote) on a balanced budget amendment.

As I explained, there is no way they can get the necessary two-thirds support to [...]

Hey, Let’s Tax People for the Miles They Drive

From The Hill:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.
The report discussed the [...]

Government Motors: The Coming General Motors Failure Will Be At Taxpayer’s Expense

The Obama Administration has proclaimed TARP and the subsequent bailout for General Motors a great success. US Treasury Deputy Timothy Massad recently said, “Where we are today shows that the program, by any reasonably objective measure, was a success.” But is GM, now much derided as “Government Motors” the success that Obama says it is? [...]

Are Republicans Winning the Budget Battle but Losing the Budget War?

Among advocates of limited government, there is growing unease about the fiscal fight in Washington.

This is not because anything bad has happened. Indeed, Democrats thus far have been acquiescing – at least on a temporary basis – to conservative demands for $61 billion of spending cuts over the rest of the current fiscal year. This [...]

More Hypocrisy from Backers of California Internet Sales Tax?

As California Democrats continue to press for an unconstitutional new tax scheme targeting out-of-state, online retailers, it has emerged that an additional two retailers alleged to be backing the effort themselves decline to collect and remit tax on Internet sales made to customers resident in states in which those retailers maintain no physical presence.
Recently, Capitol [...]

Bush Was Not a Conservative

There’s an interesting debate in the blogosphere about whether President George W. Bush was a conservative (here’s a good summary of the discussion, along with lots of links, though I especially like this analysis since it cites my work.).
I’ve already explained that Bush was a statist rather than a conservative, and you can find additional [...]

New York Considers Hiking Cigarette Tax…Again

Despite the economic climate and anti-tax wave rolling across the country, New York is once again proposing tax hikes on tobacco. Senate Bill S. 2981 would add an additional $1.65 tax to the already staggering $4.35 the state levies in taxes on a pack of cigarettes—a move likely to upset smokers in the Empire State [...]

The Country Can’t Afford A GOP Loss On Taxes

Since the beginning of government, the ambition of those who spend money has rarely been matched by the ability of citizens to pay for government.  Modern day America, California or Greece are not exceptions to the rule, just examples of yesterday on a more grand scale today.  As perpetual as that problem is  - so [...]

Tax Increases Will Lead to More Spending, Not Lower Deficits

There’s a significant debate now taking place in Washington – largely behind closed doors, but sometimes covered by the media – on whether fiscal conservatives should maintain a rigid no-tax-increase position. One side of the debate features Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, which is the organization that maintains the no-tax increase pledge. The [...]

Loud Mouthed, Violent Teachers Shut Down Townhall Meeting

Is this the distempered, hatemongering that our “teachers” are teaching our children?
The video below is the last seven minutes of a townhall meeting that was held on March 7 in Wisconsin. It was hosted by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R, WI) and State Senator Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa). The video shows that the pols quietly listened to [...]

Hypocrisy from California Tax Hike Backers?

Capitol Confidential has previously reported on legislation introduced by California Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner that seeks to impose a new, and unconstitutional, tax on out-of-state, online retailers including (ironically) a number of eBay users.  Capitol Confidential has since learned that a prominent corporate sponsor of such efforts is retail giant Target, and that a number [...]

Obama and Democrats Play Smoke and Mirrors With the Budget

The numbers being floated around by President Obama and Congressional Democrats during this year’s budget battle are all spin and sleight of hand. Not that this should surprise anyone – the President has a history of using smoke and mirrors – especially when it comes to taxpayer dollars.

Last year’s Democrat-controlled Congress failed to pass a [...]

Collective Bargaining Is a Privilege, Not a Right

I keep hearing the narrative that somehow, as though it were written in stone, collective bargaining is a right for public sector unions. I would disagree entirely: collective bargaining is a privilege, not a right, for public sector unions. And you know what? About 50 years ago, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. agreed with me. The union’s Executive [...]

Unions to Connecticut Governor: You Owe Us

Connecticut’s first Democratic governor in 20 years, Dannel Malloy, won his race last November by less than a percentage point, largely because of the public sector unions of the state, who worked tirelessly to have him elected. So, when Malloy unveiled his budget a couple of weeks ago, proposing to close his state’s deficit of [...]

Republicans Are Right to Cut the IRS Budget

One of my many frustrations of working in Washington is dealing with perpetual-motion-machine assertions. The classic example is Keynesian economics, which is based on the notion that you magically create additional economic activity by having the government spend money instead of allowing the private sector to decide how it gets spent (in an especially bizarre [...]

Tax Competition Is a Powerful Mechanism to Restrain the Greed of the Political Class

Here’s a new mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, narrated by Natasha Montague of Americans for Tax Reform, that explains why the process of tax competition is a critical constraint on the propensity of governments to over-tax and over-spend.
The issue is very simple. When labor and capital have the ability to escape bad [...]

To Surly, With Love: Are Teachers Overpaid?

Public school teachers are at the forefront of protests against state budget cuts and restrictions on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere.
Teachers have a lot to lose. According to Department of Education statistics, in 2007-2008 (the latest year available), full-time public school teachers across the country made an average of $53,230 in [...]

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