Power over Principle
The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they’ve made government even bigger.
Free Market
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Deep in Debt
The Federal government, which sets the pace, reported a $555 million deficit for the 2003 fiscal year; its total debt is given at $6.783 trillion. For the next two years the budget deficits are estimated at $566 billion to $644 billion each, which should increase its total debt to more than $8 trillion, or some $27,000 for every man, woman, and child.
Tyranny, Thy Name is Flat Tax
The "Coalition Provisional Authority" (the US government) in Iraq has instituted a 15 percent tax in Iraq based on the view that "these collections are for the benefit of the Iraqi people." The US will tax income, the transfer of "real property," car sales, and gasoline. The US claims that this is a lower tax than Saddam had, but this is only true in the most technical legal sense.
Iraq’s Phone Monopolists
With the passage of time, the nature of post-Saddam Iraq becomes clearer, as does the Bush administration's lack of commitment to free-market principles.
The Mystery of Production
The Economist magazine asked in a recent issue: "Why on earth can’t the world’s richest country ensure that Baghdad has water and electricity?" One might think that a publication dedicated to covering the world of markets would already know the answer. The US government is trying to solve economic problems in Iraq, including the provision of essentials like utilities, through military means. If guns and force could provide the essentials of life, the Soviet Union would have been a utopia.
Grit, Grime, and Economic Development
It is not a short step from poverty to prosperity, and the transition itself has long been exploited by opponents of the market economy.
Socialized Medicine in America
Thanks to the untiring efforts of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Americans have been faced with the greatest expansion of the government into medical care since the 1960s. When these moves are complete, the free market in American medicine will be practically gone. Interventionism will be in complete possession of the field of battle, and the task of the government will be to mop up the remaining opposition.
What’s Wrong with Terror-Futures Markets?
A growing recognition of the superiority of markets over planning has created an unviable hybrid: the planned market, one created not by property owners by the state and for the state.
