Topic: Taxation

Economic Growth, Fiscal Policy, Taxation

Take the Government Out of GDP

– April 25, 2024

“Tax revenues are harvested from private citizens by means of coercion and extractive measures… Paying taxes to remain free of incarceration or not face withering financial penalties is hardly indicative of cooperative exchange. ” ~Tom Savidge and Peter C. Earle

Fiscal Policy, Taxation

Another Dismal Tax Day: Can It Drive Fiscal Reform?

– April 15, 2024

“The pain and uncertainty from an ever-changing federal progressive marginal individual income tax system with forced withholding and payment or refund later are destructive.” ~Vance Ginn

Art and Culture, Economic History, Taxation, Unemployment

Big-Government Welfare Crowds Out Beneficial Social Behavior

– April 11, 2024

“Means tested welfare necessarily crowds out the poor from productive employment by substituting government grants for family earning and community support.” ~Donald J. Devine

Economic Growth, Financial Markets, Taxation

Eating The Rich Won’t Feed the Beast

– April 2, 2024

“The hungry behemoth that is the US federal government is already eating the rich… Jeff Bezos’ great fortune would finance the government for… less than a week. ” ~Joakim Book

Crisis, Fiscal Policy, Taxation

Fiscal Federalism Turned Upside-Down

– March 25, 2024

“Federal spending spikes immediately after a recession or emergency, then lowers when the crisis subsides, but never down to pre-crisis levels.” ~Peter C. Earle and Thomas Savidge

Economic Growth, Taxation, Unemployment

Can Prosperity Feed Perceptions of Poverty?

– March 20, 2024

“The only sense in which the American middle-class is disappearing economically is that an ever-increasing percentage of American households earn annual incomes that are in the upper brackets.” ~Donald J. Boudreaux

Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy, Taxation

Young People Aren’t Nearly Angry Enough About Government Debt

– March 19, 2024

“We each owe more than $100,000 as a share of the national debt… Our earning years are subsidizing not our own economic coming-of-age, but retirement and medical benefits for people who navigated a less-challenging wealth-building landscape.” ~Laura Williams

Economic Growth, Fiscal Policy, Taxation

Unrealized Gains Tax is an Economic Fallacy

– March 15, 2024

“Taxing unrealized capital gains from property, stocks, and other assets is a bad idea. It undermines economic growth, stifles innovation, and infringes on personal liberty.” ~Vance Ginn

Property Rights, Regulation, Taxation

Two Birds of a Fiscal Feather

– March 14, 2024

“Both property tax increases and rent control continue to be controversial, after decades, in that they both represent forms of grand theft against housing owners and rental housing providers.” ~Gary M. Galles

Economic Education, Property Rights, Taxation

Cherry-Piketty Data

– March 5, 2024

“Whether the distribution is problematic and calls for correction is one question, but measuring the extent of inequality and whether it is getting worse is an entirely different issue.” ~Robert Mulligan

Economic History, Free Markets, Free Trade, Taxation

Tariff Truths

– February 26, 2024

“President Biden has maintained his predecessor’s duties on some $370 million worth of Chinese imports. Both national conservatives and liberal protectionists are dead wrong about tariffs and growth.” ~Tarnell Brown

Entrepreneurship, Regulation, Taxation

Income Inequality Rightly Understood

– February 26, 2024

“Any discussion of income inequality that fails to address whether the source added value for others or simply extracted unearned rents, is not merely incomplete, but misleading.” ~Robert Mulligan