I wrote yesterday about a handful of strange legal developments in Canada. In a display of balance, however, I noted in my conclusion that in recent decades, Canada has been “very sensible” with regard to economic issues (spending restraint, welfare reform, corporate tax reform, bank bailouts, regulatory budgeting, the tax treatment of saving, school choice, and privatization of air traffic control). But “very sensible” […]
I periodically ask my left-leaning friends to identify a nation that became rich with statist policies. They usually point to Sweden or Denmark, but I point out that Sweden and Denmark became rich in the 1800s and early 1900s when government was very small. At that point, they don’t really have any other response. That’s because, as I pointed out in this […]
The biggest challenge, when I talk to politicians about the free-market agenda, is convincing them that they should restrain the growth of government. To be more specific, I think they often understand and accept the argument that ever-rising fiscal burdens are bad for a nation’s economic and moral health, but they are afraid that voters and interest groups will kick them […]
If you’re reading this, you are a very lucky person because you were born at the right time. If you were born 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or 1,500 years ago, the odds are overwhelming that you would have endured a very short and difficult life, one that was characterized by unimaginable poverty. But […]
Since there’s a big debate about whether there should be tax cuts and tax reform in the United States, let’s see what we can learn from abroad. And let’s focus specifically on whether changes in tax policy actually produce “revenue feedback” because of the Laffer Curve. In other words, if tax rates change, does that incentivize people to alter how much they […]
When I’m in Europe giving speeches and participating in conferences, it’s quite common that folks on the Left will attempt to discredit my views by asserting that Americans are selfish and greedy. Since I’m generally sympathetic to Ayn Rand’s writings, I don’t see anything wrong with people striving to make themselves better off. Moreover, Adam […]
I’ve always viewed Ayn Rand’s most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, as a warning about the dangers of over-regulation, over-taxation, and excessive redistribution. I won’t spoil the plot for those who haven’t yet read the book, but it’s basically a story about what happens to a society when the people pulling the wagon decide that’s no […]
Now that Donald Trump has been elected, one of my main goals will be to convince him and his team that it would be wrong to leave government spending on autopilot (and it would be even worse to spend more money and increase the burden of government!). Since Trump semi-endorsed the Penny Plan, I don’t […]
Whenever I need to explain the difference between socialism and capitalism, I start by noting that socialism technically is different from Obama-style big-government redistributionism and cronyism. Socialism involves something more pervasive, involving government ownership of the means of production (which, if you read this postscript, is why Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom is far […]
