Columnist.
House Speaker Paul Ryan just made his pitch to the country about tax reform. He wants it, and he wants it before the end of 2017 because, as he said in his prepared remarks, "we cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip by." That's all well and good, except that the main factor holding up tax reform is the speaker's insistence that the United States adopt a distortive and unfair border adjustment tax to pay for the reform.
There's a disturbing and counterproductive tendency to scapegoat individual businesses for responding predictably to conditions established by the choices politicians make.
As part of its "Infrastructure Week," the Trump administration is holding infrastructure-themed events around the country this week to promote $1 trillion of private and public infrastructure investment.
Love it or hate it, the recently proposed 2018 federal budget is dead on arrival. Some say that's because it's unrealistic.
President Donald Trump's first budget proposal is finally out, and it boldly promises to deliver a "new foundation for American greatness." I guess that grandiose language is supposed to resonate with those voters who don't understand how the budget process actually works. The sad reality is that this budget would accomplish no such thing, for several reasons:
One of the obstacles to reversing the tide of growing government is that so many of the laws and regulations advanced with the rhetoric of limited government end up expanding government's scope and power instead.
There is a lot of debate over President Donald Trump's record after his first 100-plus days in office. Defenders of the president point to his successful efforts on deregulation, the successful appointment to the Supreme Court of Neil Gorsuch and his steadfast desire to implement substantial tax reform.
Public fear is an ally of big government. When fear sets in among the populace — often with encouragement from self-interested politicians — the result is usually an expansion of governmental power and a loss of individual rights.
I've previously argued that the Trump administration should stop funding the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development because of its advocacy of higher taxes and tax harmonization. At the time, I was told that my position could be perceived as hypocritical because our government is responsible for the adoption and enforcement of the hideous Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Let me address this omission.
Whenever innovation produces a new technology or product that benefits the masses, government bureaucrats inevitably try to smother it with excessive regulation. They often even have the gall to claim they are doing so for public benefit. Such is the case with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rules on prepaid debit cards.
How would you feel if I told you that we taxpayers are spending millions of dollars every year to fund an army of bureaucrats who advocate higher taxes and bigger government around the globe?
When the national debt ceiling's suspension was automatically lifted March 15, yet another countdown commenced. Congress will be compelled to raise the government's borrowing limit again before April 28 and fund the government. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office released yet another report showing that our debt crisis may be here sooner than later and be bigger than ever.
After last week's Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill debacle, President Donald Trump and the House Republican leadership seemed ready to throw in the towel and give up on health care reform.
The deadline for filing federal income tax returns is approaching fast. While this is understandably a frustrating time for many, it's also the one time during which many taxpayers are confronted with just how much of their earnings are captured by the government.
If the pre-budget rumors are true, President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to drain the swamp by putting a few corporate welfare programs, such as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp., on the chopping block. Unfortunately, getting rid of cronyism in the federal government won't be easy, given the deep-rooted and mutually beneficial relationship between politicians and commercial interests. Still, the new administration and Congress could take some action in the coming year to move in that direction.
The release of the House Republicans' health care reform plan is the latest reminder that misguided objectives drive many policy decisions in Washington. Unfortunately, it often results in bad policy outcomes with real economic costs.
Let me dream for a second that the Trump administration is serious about rolling back the expansion of government that occurred during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama years. In that case, much of this effort will require congressional action. And that, of course, means persuading enough politicians to do the right thing without undermining the overall goal by having to pay each of them off with a new pet project for their district. What can the president do?
The goal of health care reform is to provide better health care to everyone at a lower cost, year after year. The solution is not to provide a better third-party-payer system — e.g., health insurance or government-provided health insurance — but instead to allow technological development and entrepreneurship to improve the current business model through groundbreaking innovations that empower consumers, improve quality and cut prices. We have seen it happen in many industries, such as transportation, room and board, and tech.
There's a full-court press underway to convince President Donald Trump that it would be a good idea to impose a carbon tax on the American people. He's hearing about it not only from well-connected businessmen such as Elon Musk but also from establishment Republicans. Let's hope he has the fortitude to resist their exhortations.
President Donald Trump is unhappy that a federal judge put the kibosh, at least temporarily, on his executive order blocking immigrants and other travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations. Though the order was framed as something to address a national security issue, it became clear very quickly that one of its most immediate impacts was denying legal workers, who pose no security threat, the ability to leave and re-enter the country — at great cost to them, their employers and the country's productivity.
