For many Americans, today’s Tax Day thoughts will likely center on how much of a year’s earnings must be surrendered to Uncle Sam to fund the federal government. But another concern is why we lose so much income and so many jobs because our tax system is so badly designed. For our elected officials, Tax […]
Some years ago, I conducted an ambitious research project to document and explain patterns of human accomplishment across time and cultures. My research took me from 800 BCE, when Homo sapiens’ first great surviving works of thought appeared, to 1950, my cut-off date for assessing lasting influence. I assembled world-wide inventories of achievements in physics, […]
It is easy to exaggerate the importance of economic ideas in shaping public policy. The United States’ move to an all-volunteer army is a good example. Public policies change over time, as with the emergence of the income tax early in the 20th century, deregulation of airlines and banking and the recruiting methods of the […]
First, if each new immigrant lowers living standards, new people also lower living standards. But without new people, America’s economy would lack the workers it needs to operate. This highlights an economic principle that economist Deidre McCloskey calls “human resourcefulness.” It is the idea popularized by the late Julian Simon that people are the “ultimate […]
Everyone except President Barack Obama understands that the federal government has a spending problem. Yet Uncle Sam gives away more than $600 billion to states and localities every year. It’s time to turn off the spigot, implementing the Reagan vision of transferring program responsibilities and revenues sources away from Washington. The original governmental system for the newly […]