Tax Politics
The Politics of Taxes
Era of Great Enrichment is on the Decline
Deidre McCloskey’s recent treatise (How the West (and the rest) Got Rich) on was a thoughtful essay on the power of liberty and its impact on economics. For the most part, McCloskey did a fine job explaining classical liberalism (“worthy of a free person”) and how the...
Dave Brat Gets It Wrong on Jobs and Immigration
Congressman Dave Brat wrote a stunning Op-ed in the Richmond Times Dispatch ("Immigration is killing Americans' job prospects") in which he blames immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- for the current anemic economy. Rightly citing “meager job growth” and “stagnant...
Social Security Reform, Part II: The Payroll Tax and Retirement
Entitlement reform is necessary for the fiscal health of this country, but it is something that no one wants to talk about, much less tackle. How can we begin? How can we open up the conversation and the possibility to reform and improve our social security system?...
Social Security Reform, Part I: The Accounting
Our Social Security System is bankrupt. In fact, there is not enough money in the entire world for the United States to make good on its entitlement promises to its present and future retirees. And one of the key reasons for this is that the government uses a...
Obamacare Uninsured Number Still Not on Target
A few weeks ago, the Feds trotted out a statistic aimed to bolster support for the fledgling Obamacare legislation. While many Obamacare exchange groups have discontinued coverage or announced double-digit premium rate hikes, federal officials announced that the...
3 Years Later, IRS Reveals List of Targets
As a tax practitioner, I have been following the IRS scandal since the beginning. Here's the latest update -- the list of IRS target have been released, 3 years later. From the Washington Times: More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for...