Taxes and Spending

It's vital to debunk promises of "free stuff" but we often concentrate too much on the "free," and not enough on the "stuff."

The consequences of our government’s rigged society are all around us, be it the increasing reliance on food stamps, a far reaching tax system, or the gratuitous examples of well-connected elites enriching themselves from state intervention.

Bernie Sanders has been compared to Ron Paul because both men have waged insurgent campaigns. But that is where the comparisons should end, as Sanders really just offers a ramped up version of the status quo.

Food stamps were near and all-time high in 2015. They remain high thanks to a weak economy and a large expansion of the program during the Bush and Obama years.

Contrary to the popular myth being passed around, three-fourths of Americans pay taxes on their income. It's a nearly inescapable flat tax on income known as the payroll tax. And it now generates nearly as much income for the Feds as the tax more commonly known as the "income tax."

Economists Akerlof and Shiller contend that people are too gullible and ignorant to be allowed to deal with a potentially deceptive marketplace on their own. The solution is to have the government manage the markets for them.

About half of the states pay for government spending in the other half.

My neighbor Sam is deeply in debt. But, he tells me that he owes all that money "to himself," so he thinks it's not a problem. I think he's in deeper trouble than he thinks.

Municipal waterworks are government-run and government-owned, and generally an extension of local governments. But, bizarrely, when something goes wrong, it's somehow the fault of the private marketplace.

American history is a story of non-stop efforts by governments to intervene in the marketplace through regulations, monopolies, and subsidies. Most surprisingly, these market interventions appear to place a central role in causing economic crises over the years.