Tag: taxes
Why millennials should want lower taxes
September 20, 2022 | Post
Lower taxes are known to contribute to long-term economic growth, and after enduring so many economic setbacks, this would be the best chance millennials have of being able to secure a brighter future.
Why the gas tax holiday should be made permanent
July 6, 2022 | Post
America needs to address its infrastructure woes, but a regressive tax with a disproportionate impact on those who can least afford it is not the way to go about finding solutions. If a federal gas tax holiday is implemented, it should be made permanent.
Congestion tax in Manhattan: Readers speak!
March 9, 2018 | Post
Last month, I wrote a post that asked whether Manhattan should tax ride-shares, tax all vehicles, do something else, or do nothing at all. And you had some ideas about that. Below, I have tried to combine your answers (I got nearly 30) into a manageable set of categories. Responses were about evenly split among […]
Does Manhattan need a congestion tax on Uber?
January 10, 2018 | Post
Charging “prices” does not a market make.
Is the USA really the highest-taxed nation in the world?
October 6, 2017 | Post
President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the United States is the highest-taxed country in the world. The data people are using to fact-check him are misleading.
Markets work with altruism, too
April 4, 2017 | Post
The market can route self-interest toward the common good. But the market channels altruism better than the state too.
Don't raise Uncle Sam's credit limit
April 2, 2017 | Post
Once again, the United States government is rapidly approaching a fiscal debt ceiling. After March 16, 2017, Uncle Sam is not legally allowed to borrow any more money to cover its budget deficits, unless Congress votes to raise the debt limit like it has every time in the past. Uncle Sam’s debt has been growing […]
Entitlements driving Washington to trillion-dollar deficits
March 29, 2017 | Post
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released the “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027.” This annual report provides the federal government’s most comprehensive analysis of the current state of federal spending, taxes, and debt. It also provides a framework within which to analyze the President’s budget proposal and upcoming Congressional legislation. The news is […]
Want to help women? Lower marginal tax rates
March 27, 2017 | Post
This year April 17 is Tax Day. Those who pay little tax count themselves as lucky winners. Some of the biggest losers will be married, working women, who are being discouraged from working by high rates of tax. Higher marginal tax rates discourage married women from working. When single women work and are considering marriage, […]
The House GOP leadership’s health care bill is ObamaCare-Lite — or worse
March 12, 2017 | Post
This bill is a train wreck waiting to happen.
Is taxation theft?
February 27, 2017 | Post
I have my doubts about the “taxation is theft” meme making the rounds on my Facebook feed.
Deregulation gets the beer flowing.
February 5, 2017 | Post
Breweries will open as long as it is profitable. When taxes and regulations raise the costs of opening a brewery, we will see fewer of them.
Inflate-gate: How the NFL exaggerates the value of the Super Bowl
February 3, 2017 | Post
Over 100 million Americans will turn their attention to Houston this weekend, as Tom Brady suits up against the Atlanta Falcons for his record seventh Super Bowl. But, according to the NFL, it’s not just the Patriots’ quarterback who will be looking to make it big in Houston. The real winner is supposedly the city […]
So did Obamanomics work or not?
January 29, 2017 | Post
How to evaluate the economic record of Barack Obama? To even begin answering, it’s necessary to go beyond just counting the number of jobs created during his presidency (10 million) or calculating the average growth rate (1.5%) or even looking at something more wonky like the labor force participation rate.
Taxing global trade is not deregulation
January 28, 2017 | Post
Trump-style economic nationalism, like the more full-throated fascism with which it shares much, aims to bring back the mythical glory days of the nation. But if we really want to make America great (again), we should learn the lesson of history, as well as economic theory, that prosperity comes from the free movement of goods, services, and people regardless of arbitrary political lines.
4 New Year's resolutions for the Trump administration
January 3, 2017 | Post
Trump doesn’t seem like the type for self-improvement, but here are four unsolicited recommendations anyway.
The black hole of Pentagon finance
December 27, 2016 | Post
The Pentagon suppressed a 2015 study exposing $125 billion—yes, billion—in administrative waste, over a five year period, in order to protect its own budget from being slashed.
The case of post-Soviet Georgia shows us that economic freedom and human dignity are inseparable
December 21, 2016 | Post
I was still a Soviet citizen when I first read some of the international documents on human, economic, and political rights.
An economic analysis of protectionism clearly shows that Trump’s tariffs would make us poorer, not greater
December 17, 2016 | Post
Trump’s base will be hurt the most by his wealth-destroying and punitive trade policy.
Buy 'em out – a new strategy for cutting government
November 9, 2016 | Post
In 1930, total government expenditure was 10% of GDP. Of that, approximately 3% was federal spending, and 7% was state and local spending. Today, government expenditure is about 40% of GDP, with 25% of that spending federal, and the remaining 15% state and local.
Solar energy can’t survive without massive subsidies
October 30, 2016 | Post
Solar power can only survive with an army of lobbyists dedicated to securing millions in taxpayer dollars.
Let’s tax the iPhone to save BlackBerry
October 13, 2016 | Post
It’s not BlackBerry’s fault the Apple iPhone has become the go-to smartphone for consumers worldwide.
The answer is a new government program. What’s the question?
October 13, 2016 | Post
Politicians have never met a new taxpayer-funded government program they didn’t like.
The Estate Tax is a Fundamentally Flawed Economic Policy
September 28, 2016 | Post
There are two problems with an estate tax: 1. The belief that estates should be taxed at all reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of economics, and 2. The actual taxing of estates has very different effects than those that advocates imagine it will have.