Despite a brief moment of national unity following the terrible massacre in Las Vegas, Pat Buchanan questions whether or not the country can hold onto that for very long. Pat says that with a focus on identity issues like "race, religion, ethnicity, culture, history and politics," America is being pulled apart. He writes: We Americans may celebrate our multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural diversity as our greatest attribute. But the acrimony and the divisions among us seem greater than ever before in our lifetimes. Blacks, Hispanics, feminists, Native Americans, LGBT—all … [Read more...]
Who Wins from a Corporate Tax Cut?
Writing for the Cato Institute where he holds the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics, Ryan Bourne explains that there will be many winners if corporate tax rates are cut. Shareholders, employees and consumers will share the spoils, but the proportion of the benefit each group receives is harder to predict. He writes: Cutting the corporate income-tax rate seems a rare area of consensus for Republican lawmakers considering tax reform, which is good news for working Americans. Despite opponents’ attempts to suggest otherwise, there is reason to be confident that … [Read more...]
Carlson Slams NFL for No Respect
Should the GOP Cut Taxes Even if it Raises the Deficit?
With the constant barrage of criticism over the country's big spending from Republicans, you would think it would be easy in a GOP controlled government to make cuts. You'd be wrong of course. The GOP has shown that despite a party-wide aversion to big spending, when it comes down to anyone giving up the appropriations afforded to their special interest group the calls for cuts quiet down. So without the ability to cut spending, it would seem dangerous to cut taxes, thereby widening America's already large deficit gap. Despite this fear, Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the … [Read more...]
A Former Democrat Takes Missouri to the Right
Over the decades the official political affiliations of President Donald Trump have shifted at least five times according to the Smoking Gun. Now another party flipper is the governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens, and he's becoming a GOP star. Greitens is a former Navy SEAL, who, since switching to the GOP and winning the governorship has pushed forward an ambitious conservative agenda. For starters Greitens passed a Right to Work bill (something I've written about many times including here, here, here, and here) that Missouri's former governor, Democrat Jay Nixon, had vetoed multiple … [Read more...]
Is There Anything Good About a VAT? You May Be Surprised
For years Dan Mitchell has criticized the value added tax (VAT). There are major problems with the way European nations have implemented the VAT. The biggest is that they didn't get rid of all their other taxes first. At his blog International Liberty, Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, explains under what conditions a VAT might actually be favorable. He writes: Whenever I see an otherwise sensible person express support for a value-added tax, it triggers a Pavlovian response. And it’s not a favorable reaction. I’ve criticized Tom Dolan, Greg Mankiw, and Paul Ryan, for … [Read more...]
Class Warfare is Holding America Back
As the Senate and Congress ready themselves for a debate over tax reform, Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, writes that the policymakers should ignore the shouting of class warriors and, like Reagan, focus on the entire economy. Faster economic growth is the best solution to the problems of everyone in the economy. Mitchell writes: Reagan’s tax policy (especially the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) was good because the President and his team ignored the class-warfare crowd. They didn’t care whether all income groups got the same degree of tax relief. They didn’t care … [Read more...]
Whether Left or Right: Totalitarianism Deserves Scorn
When communists and Nazis are battling in the streets, don't allow yourself to be pulled on to one side or the other. Totalitarian ideas are bad no matter what form they take. Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute explains why here: ...I much prefer the coercion found in western democracies compared to the totalitarian versions of coercion found in many other parts of the world. At least we have the rule of law, which limits (however imperfectly) capricious abuse by government officials. That’s not the case in many countries. Our courts also are generally independent and our Constitution … [Read more...]
Wealthy Connecticut Can’t Tax its Way to Stability
For years Connecticut's cities have been relying on a morphine drip of state aid to get their books balanced. But now the state itself can't afford to hand out all that aid and the drip is coming to an end. The state's capital city Hartford, as I have written, is on the verge of bankruptcy. Connecticut has borrowed and spent, and raised taxes and spent, with no thought to fiscal restraint. The assumption might have been that Connecticut's vast hedge fund wealth would always be available to bail the state out, but that reality is fading as more hedge funds leave the state for greener (and … [Read more...]
Targeting the Rich with Taxes Tends to Hurt the Poor
Whenever Becky and our kids and I head down to the boatyard to take our 30 foot power boat out on the water for the day, we're typically surrounded by the mega yachts inhabiting Newport's docks during the season. Recently visitors to Newport could view Le Grand Bleu, one of the world's largest private yachts out in the bay. The mega yachts and the other summer traffic keep thousands of people employed and Newport's waterfront thriving each summer. At his blog, International Liberty, Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute explains what happens when tax policy drives the … [Read more...]