Life is full of hidden costs, taxes, and other annoyances that hit us hard in the wallet, but one gnat in particular has been biting at me since the day I set up my first residential telephone line. It’s the “phonebook fee,” a monthly charge BellSouth, GTE and other telephone companies exact for the privilege of keeping our private information out
What was once a center stage, winning issue for Reagan-type Republicans now fails to strike a responsive chord with the electorate. As if to advertise the tax issue’s demise, the GOP recently coupled a minuscule tax reduction with an increase in the minimum wage. Pundits offer various reasons for the demise. One is the healthy economy. The
The only good tax is no tax. Why? How would we fund government without taxes? Those are good questions to ask. But first let’s understand what taxes are. Throughout most of history, governments--usually monarchies headed by kings, emperors, pharaohs and other major or minor tyrants--actually owned everything under their rule, including, believe it
A few days ago I received an e-mail telling me that some producer at ABC-TV News was hoping to find some evidence of what taxation does to people. The post went on: “Specifically, the producer wants to find someone who is trying to cope with the high medical costs of helping an ill family member. She wants to make the point that if this person
Gasoline prices are zooming (45% over last year) and drivers are worried that this may affect their summer vacation plans, while truckers marched on Washington D.C. protesting high diesel costs. Pursuing votes, presidential candidates are scrambling to provide political solutions for the doubling of heating oil prices in New Hampshire in the last
Recently, one of my lords and masters on the Potomac sent me a letter. Social Security Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel wrote to say that, “We are pleased to send this Social Security Statement to help you understand what Social Security means to you and your family.” I’m glad someone is “pleased.” Looking at the record of my payroll taxes over 30
A crucial part of a national political campaign involves enlisting economists to endorse the candidates’ plan. Every four years, statements are circulated by the campaigns and economists are urged to sign up. Mises Institute adjunct scholar Mark Thornton, though certainly not a supporter of Gore, would not, as a matter of principle, sign the Bush
The Free Market 18, no. 1 (January 2000) A common misconception in popular thinking about business is that companies need to be helped along and supported by government. If a community fails to help business, it is said, it will miss out on jobs and prosperity. We see this happening across the country. Cities use public funds to build sports
The Free Market 18, no. 3 (March 2000) Statism has so permeated our culture that even the games we play reflect the popular belief in omnipotent government. For example, one of the most successful computer games of all time is the SimCity series, which requires the player to plan a city in exhaustive detail from uninhabited terrain. Over five
The Free Market 18, no. 4 (April 2000) The good news that tax audits and property seizures are down obscures a more important point: by slow degrees, step by step, the tax man in America has gained total control over everyone’s economic life. An almost perfect system of espionage over every facet of the fiscal system has slowly evolved until
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.