If deficits don't matter, why bother with taxes? The regime has the answer: taxes are important for punishing people we don't like, rewarding our friends, and for maintaining control over the public.
Government revenues are outpacing population growth, yet government agencies can’t seem to carry out even the most basic functions. The solution? More tax revenue and bigger budgets!
The reliability and service life of the F-35 were greatly exaggerated in earlier reports. Now the aircraft is looking like an even bigger boondoggle than before.
The more the government spends, the worse it is for the health of the economy and thus for economic growth. Experts who advocate for very strong government stimulus never bother to ask how those measures are going to be supported by the larger economy.
Murray Rothbard was a pioneer in analyzing taxation from an Austrian or causal-realist standpoint. However, he never explicitly engaged the standard theory of deadweight loss from taxation. This article develops the Austrian analysis of taxation further toward this end
The assertion that “tax-financed public goods can make us all better off” is just that: an assertion. As Rothbard showed, there is no reason to just assume consumers would pay for these amenities were they not forced to through taxation.
The economic analysis of repudiation applies to the debt of all levels of government and to all countries. The central question is not how big the government is or how much it owes, but rather whether the debt is funded by taxes.
Every depression generates a clamor among many groups for special privileges at the expense of the rest of society—and the American depression that struck in 1784–85 was no exception.
Social activists now regard the minimum wage as another welfare program that can reduce the costs of programs like Medicaid and food stamps, and can reduce inequality. But the minimum wage is very poorly targeted for these purposes.
