Topic: Fiscal Policy

Capitalization and Corporate Tax Cuts for the Rich

– May 22, 2021

“When you recognize corporate tax hikers’ massive measurement distortion on top of their trifecta of false premises, it makes it hard to take tax hike promoters’ claims as anything more than intentional misrepresentations that, if heeded, would harm those whose votes they are using it to pander for.” ~ Gary M. Galles

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Are Tax Increases Popular?

– May 19, 2021

“Voters seem to be on the right side on the big-picture question of ‘Should taxes be higher?’, but if they think tax increases are going to happen, it’s quite likely that they will support the most economically damaging types of class-warfare levies.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell

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Assessing Potential for Higher Inflation

– May 12, 2021

“Monetary policy is intentionally supporting fiscal policy and supporting levels of indebtedness from the Federal government that are unprecedented. The result has been an explosion of M2 that increases the risk of inflation. There is a fair chance that policymakers will succeed. But, for the possibility of success, they risk a monetary-fiscal crisis.” ~ James L. Caton

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What Happened to All Those Jobs?

– May 12, 2021

“We have far fewer jobs than we expected to have and, at the current tepid recovery, a decade’s journey to return to the health we had just prior to Covid-19. This is, of course, bad enough. Sober reflection, though, should lead quickly to the conclusion that the ruling class in Washington will manage to do even more to harm the economy in the meantime. It’s what they do, after all.” ~ Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan

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The Buchanan Thesis

– May 11, 2021

“Those of us who decry large and intrusive government should demand that government annually balance its budget. The tighter the constraint on government’s access to resources, the freer and more prosperous the people will be.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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The New York Times Argues With Itself About Biden and Taxes

– May 6, 2021

“Government spending by its very name is the politicized allocation of precious wealth first created in the private sector. In other words, government spending delays the mass production of yesterday’s luxuries and tomorrow’s must-haves by limiting investment. Page B1 in the April 29th New York Times shows us why this is true.” ~ John Tamny

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Biden’s Infrastructure Boondoggle

– May 4, 2021

“The immediate lesson from all of this is that Biden’s plan is a boondoggle waiting to happen (just as would have been the case with Trump). The longer-term lesson is that we should get the federal government out of the business of infrastructure.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell

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When Politicians Say Fair Tax, They Only Mean More Tax

– April 30, 2021

“So what exactly is anyone’s ‘fair share?’ That’s a hard question, and it’s made harder still when people tasked with answering it do everything they can to avoid answering it. As long as this continues, calls for the rich to pay ‘their fair share’ will never end because, in light of the numbers, proponents seem not to mean ‘fair’ at all. They simply mean, ‘more.'” ~ Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan

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Burning Issues of Government Spending

– April 29, 2021

“Government spending starts with taking money from taxpayers and setting 20 percent of it on fire. Even if the remaining funds were spent on very efficient projects, they have very little chance of creating net benefits for the economy.” ~ Thomas L. Hogan

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New York’s Fiscal Suicide

– April 10, 2021

“If the tax increases are enacted, expect to see a significant drop in taxable income as upper-income taxpayers either leave the state or figure out other ways of protecting their income. I don’t know if the state will be on the downward-sloping portion of the Laffer Curve, but it’s safe to assume that revenues over time will fall far short of projections. And it’s very safe to assume that the economic damage will easily offset any revenues that are collected.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell

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Janet Yellen Is Serious, and That’s Really Sad

– April 9, 2021

“Yellen plainly feels individual U.S. tax rates aren’t high enough, so she seeks global tax harmonization on the corporate level in order to get another swipe at individuals. On their own, Yellen’s desires rate ridicule. As evidenced by the trillions Treasury collects every year from taxpayers in order to fund a government with powers ‘few and defined,’ Americans are already overtaxed.” ~ John Tamny

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A Trillion Here, a Trillion There

– April 2, 2021

“In the end, the total of what comes out of the economy is limited by the total of what is produced, no matter that you can borrow or print up unlimited amounts of money. Borrowing and printing up trillions and trillions of dollars isn’t real. It’s a special form of deceit we economists call inflation.” ~ Clifford F. Thies

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