Taxation
John Fund has written a powerful editorial entitled Hey, Big Spender: FDR and Truman made cuts when crises demanded it. Why won’t Bush?. Here are some highlights: With almost no debate and with precious few provisions for oversight, Congress has passed President Bush’s mammoth $62 billion request for emergency Katrina relief. House Speaker Denny Hastert…
Mark Tapscott has written a powerful editorial asking Has the GOP Lost Its Soul? …Their differences [between President Reagan and Alaskan GOP Rep. Young] are nowhere more evident than on limiting government and reducing federal spending. Reagan said in his first inaugural speech that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the…
In the June 13 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore wrote an editorial entitled Real Tax Cuts Have Curves (available for a fee): …The Laffer Curve helped launch the Reaganomics Revolution here at home and a frenzy of tax rate cutting around the globe that continues to this day. The theory is really…
If you want another example of how misguided incentives in the public sector lead to bad outcomes, here is another pathetic example (available from the WSJ for a fee): …What’s meaningful about the [highway] bill the Senate passed yesterday…is just how quickly and utterly some Republicans have abandoned all spending principle. The 89-11 Senate vote…
Within my recent post on gambling is the observation, which is by no means an original thought, that government makes much revenue off of vice. The ironic flip side is that as government tries to “legislate morality” in the sense that they attempt to modify behavior (I’m thinking cigarettes here) by raising the cost, they…
Talking about a pro-tax ballot initiative defeated in Oregon during 2002, a Wall Street Journal editorial stated: When the budget issue is framed in terms of higher taxes, voters don’t understand why government should be exempt from the same spending discipline the rest of us live by. “I am a normal person and when I…
Talking about a pro-tax ballot initiative defeated in Oregon during 2002, a Wall Street Journal editorial stated: When the budget issue is framed in terms of higher taxes, voters don’t understand why government should be exempt from the same spending discipline the rest of us live by. “I am a normal person and when I…
Robert Whitcomb’s writing, as much as conservatives might find to disagree with, is refreshing for the simple fact that he obviously thinks things through and is willing to take an unpopular position when his thinking demands it: Corporate-income taxes — local, state or federal — are absurd, and should be abolished. I say that as…
