The Worst-Case California Wealth Tax Scenario Is That It 'Succeeds'
Government spending is the biggest, most economy-sapping tax of all. But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves.
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Essays
Writing by John Tamny and Parkview contributors, from the latest commentary to the collected archive.
52 essays · Newest first
Clear filtersLegal Tourism Is A Growing Tax On Economy-Boosting M&A
In the M&A space, money is rarely left on the proverbial table. Insufficient bids will ultimately be revealed as just that.
Though It Would Be An Improvement, a Flat Tax Is a Wealth Tax
California must have the best tax code of any U.S. state. How else to explain that in the past year the Golden State attracted three times more investment than all 49 other U.S. states combined?
Non-Profit Taxation Would Amount to Quadruple Taxation of the Rich
Without the rich, non-profit organizations would be relatively scarce. The previous statement isn’t ideological as much as it’s merely a statement of the obvious that whether the arts, ideas, health,…
Better Reading Lists Will Not Fix a Problem Of Too Much Tax Revenue
“The state of the world is terrifying.” That’s the excellent Bret Stephens from a recent conversation he had with the similarly excellent Frank Bruni at the New York Times. Stephens might admit to…
"Honoring" Lindsey Graham With Tax Hikes Is Abjectly Foolish
The power “team picture” routinely changes in Washington. This historical truth doesn’t seem to be landing with Republicans in Congress, or their media allies.
In the Federal Tax Debate, the Free-Market Side Is Being Played
Elon Musk’s enormous wealth will soon enough appear small. For evidence, see a popular chart listing the looming federal tax bills for multi-billionaires in the U.S. Musk will apparently be assessed…
No, We Have Soaring Debt Because Elon Musk Pays Too Much Tax
As is well known, SpaceX floated its shares last week. Elon Musk is the world’s first, but surely not last, trillionaire. Let’s refer to Musk as the Frederic Bastiat “seen.” From there, let’s pivot…
Social Security Was Always Just An Extra Tax. That’s Why It’s Not “Broken”
Maya MacGuineas has been predicting budgetary and Social Security doom for ages. Of course she has. What does she have to lose? If she’s right after having been wrong, she can claim that she was a…
Tax Rates Are Dangerously Misleading As a Tax Burden Gauge
U.S. workers are – by far – the most taxed workers in the world. Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in $39 trillion worth of federal debt. Yet not everyone agrees. A recent report by…
It’s Truly Sad to Contemplate Elon Musk Paying $500B In Taxes
Elon Musk only takes big leaps. It’s a reasonable bet that there’s no laddered, tax-free, municipal bond aspect to his investment portfolio. Musk is an enemy of government waste, not a subsidizer of…
A Tax Cut for ‘Working Families’ Does Nothing For Economic Growth
When did Republicans quit on supply side and go John Maynard Keynes on us? What can’t be said enough is that supply-side economics isn’t about fiddling with the tax rate to increase tax revenues by…
More Tax Revenue Is a Certain Path to Soaring National Debt
Central planning is bad, which means government spending is bad. Contra the most prominent number in economics (GDP), government spending is by its very name an economic wrecking ball. These truths…
Please Mitt Romney, Do Not Pay More In Taxes
“And on the tax front, it’s time for rich people like me to pay more.” As some may know, but exponentially fewer than he surely hoped, that’s what 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney…
Never Have Federal Tax Cuts Ever “Starved the Beast”
Why do Silicon Valley startups never rate loans? Because money is ruthless, and there’s not an interest rate high enough to compensate lenders for loans to business concepts that fail quickly over 90…
More Tax Revenue Won’t Solve a Problem of Too Much Tax Revenue
Soaring government debt is in the U.S.’s future, and at borrowing costs that will continue to decline. See the excellent Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal if you’re doubtful. Arguably the…
Why Is Paul Ryan So Eager To Increase Federal Tax Revenues?
Somewhere along the way Republicans forgot that when governments take in dollars, they’re not staring lovingly at them. Each dollar represents access to resources for politicians who will direct…
Taxation Is Easily the Least Harmful Aspect of Government Spending
Taxes are routinely awful, and annually unearth dread in all of us as we cower before Congress’s outsourced tax collector (the IRS). We do so while trying to grasp the meaning of a tax code that…
Replying to Michael Munger Replying to John Tamny On SALT, Debt
Responding to me, Duke professor Michael Munger writes that, “If the real hawks like John Tamny get their way [full SALT deduction], with the cap going up to $100,000 or more, the loss in tax revenue…
$100,000+ State Retirees In Illinois Speak to the Urgency of a SALT Credit
The Illinois Policy Institute’s Brad Weisentein wrote at RealClearMarkets last week that there are at least 32,000 former government workers in the state of Illinois who can claim $100,000+ income…
Excessive Federal Taxes Foist California and New York Onto All of the U.S.
Government spending amounts to the central planning of precious resources by politicians. Worse, it amounts to the warping of the people and businesses on which it’s spent precisely because no one…
To Limit the Federal Government, Texas Should Levy a State Income Tax
Texas should institute a state income tax. So should Florida and Tennessee, along with all U.S. states that presently don’t have an income tax. Please read on. This is decidedly NOT a call for more…
John Maynard Keynes Resides Inside Right-of-Center SALT Critics
West Virginia must be rich, right? All that federal money that flows there year after year. Hopefully readers see the obvious flaw, or contradiction. Government spending saps economic growth, by its…
Congress Contemplates What Might Be the World’s Cruelest Tax
Amid the worst stretch of the global political panic over the coronavirus, the U.N.’s World Food Program estimated that 285 million of the world’s poorest were on a rapid path to starvation. To even…