“Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes.” — Dave Barry Crystal Lewis hadn’t the slightest idea what “MOPIRG” was. Each...
POLITICS
How Tax Credits Help Overcome the Obstacles Facing the Uninsured
Uninsured individuals and families need health care coverage. A key factor keeping them from getting coverage is its cost. Some policymakers suggest opening government controlled public programs, such as Medicaid and SCHIP, to the uninsured. These programs, however,...
A Flat Tax for Iraq
With the end of war, the United States is now working rapidly to restore civil administration in Iraq and get its economy moving again. A key issue will be the Iraqi tax system, which cannot wait until all the questions about Iraq’s form of government are worked...
Random Thoughts for April 2003
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Even though Saddam Hussein’s regime has been toppled, there are still pockets of resistance — not only in Iraq but in Paris, Berkeley, and in the editorial offices of the New York Times. These die-hards may hold out...
Why Michael Jordan Makes More Than I: From Whence Comes Income?
Here’s part of a letter from a reader: “A hard-working, conscientious person can earn $10,000 a year in a fast-food restaurant. At the same time, movie stars and athletes, who make very little contribution to society, can earn in excess of $10,000,000 a...
Rick Santorum’s Moral Outrage
Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is under fire. According to the transcript of the now infamous interview he gave to AP reporter Lara Jakes Jordan this week, Santorum believes that regulating consensual sex between adults is a compelling government interest, while...
Who’s to Blame for the Destruction of Iraqi Museums, Libraries, and Archives?
Who’s to blame for the destruction of Iraqi museums, libraries and archives, amounting to what The New York Times calls “one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history”? The Bush administration, say academic specialists on...
What if Firearms Manufacturers Shrugged?
As the California Assembly moves closer to enacting a state-wide ban of .50 caliber weapons and ammunition, it is interesting to note the response of one firearms manufacturer faced with the prospect of a similar ban last December. Below is a copy of a letter from the...
Tax Cut Politics
The Bush administration is understandably upset that its proposal for a $726 billion tax cut has effectively been watered down to $350 billion in the Senate and $550 billion in the House. However, this is less of a barrier to enactment of the administration’s...
A Leftist ‘Indictment’ of Communist Cuba
In the opening few lines of Marc Cooper’s editorial piece in the LA Weekly, he writes: “Have you ever imagined what it would be like living in a society where, say, a John Ashcroft would be unrestrained by the niceties of constitutional law? Where...
Affirmative Action Quota “Logic”, Part 2
Princeton professor James M. McPherson’s recent arguments for affirmative action, in a newsletter to members of the American Historical Association, makes many sweeping assertions and implicit assumptions that need not even be challenged to show the shakiness of...
California Assembly says, “Let them eat lead!”
The worst possible nightmare for many politicians–and especially for California Assembly members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Paul Koretz–is that citizens actually start to pay attention to their everyday shenanigans. Several times now, socialist fiefs in...
What Will They Think?
The discussion of how we set up a new government in Iraq has been dominated, as has so much during this war, with the question: what will THEY think? “We can’t let it look like the new government is our puppet,” say the commentators. Why not? It...
Turning Iraq Into Another Iran
Many commentators have remarked recently that the U.S. stock market has not rebounded by as much as they expected, especially given the recent, rapid U.S. military success in Iraq. But these observers fail to recognize that the market is forward-looking — and...
Why the Holocaust Can Happen Again
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are urged to memorialize the millions who suffered and died in the Nazi concentration camps. The purpose is not merely to pay tribute to the victims, but to learn what made an evil of such magnitude possible–and to prevent it...
“Iraqi Freedom” Requires Individual Rights
Having been forced to recognize that our soldiers won a brilliant military victory in Iraq, media commentators are trying to minimize that achievement by loudly proclaiming how much more difficult it will be to “win the peace” by establishing a stable and...
Affirmative Action Quota “Logic”, Part 1
Old-timers may remember a radio program about a crime-fighting hero called The Shadow, who had “the power to cloud men’s minds, so that they cannot see him.” Affirmative action has that same power today. Some of the murkiest thinking of our times has...
War Crimes Trials
Baghdad has fallen. The war is nearly over now and the time will soon come to assess the actions of Iraq’s former leaders. Coalition forces reportedly carry a “deck of cards” with the pictures of 55 Iraqi leaders of the regime and orders to pursue,...
Government Subsidizing Obesity?
Dr. Robert Atkins died last week of complications from a fall on April 8. Famous for the high protein/low carbohydrate diet that he pioneered, overweight people the world over mourn his death. [1] For many, he was their savior, giving them a workable method for...
Remembering Elian Gonzalez
I met Elian Gonzalez during a visit to the Miami house which had become the flashpoint for a profound philosophical conflict–days before his pre-dawn seizure on Saturday, April 22, 2000. Springing from his uncle’s house with the exuberance of a child...
Cuba’s Cruel Joke
“Can I have your bones?” the old woman asked my eight-year-old daughter, pointing to the gnawed remains of the chicken leg that had been her lunch. Seeing that my daughter was perplexed, the old woman displayed a box of chicken bones that she had collected...
The Ultimate Assault Weapon: California’s Committee on Public Safety
California Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz is at it again. A year ago, Koretz tried to cash-in on widespread fears of terrorism by sponsoring a bill to ban .50 caliber rifles in the state. To woo emotive soccer moms, he nonchalantly labeled the rifles “sniper...
Fund-amentals
Mutual funds, which were invented roughly 80 years ago and have boomed in the past decade, are a triumph of financial democracy. They give small investors access to the sort of money managers who once worked exclusively for the wealthy. Funds also offer broad...
Rules to Live By
Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, now HealthSouth. Will the scandals ever end? Frankly, no. There are more than 6,000 companies listed on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange alone, and a few always will be led by unscrupulous managers who lie, cheat and steal. The U.S. has...
Without Selfish Individuals, Nothing
“Deny self and build community”–the mantra of our age. Preachers praise it. Professors teach it. Many feel tingly at the mere thought of it. But a community is not a god; it’s simply a number of individuals. As economist Ludwig von Mises...
Not in My Name, cont’d.
This came in from St. Andrews, Scotland: Dear Right Wing Reactionary, I hope that someday you, or your family, will have the oppurtunity to live in poverty without healthcare, social security or welfare. Then, possibly, you could experience the utter dispare and...
Russia’s Flat-Tax Miracle
It’s never fun to admit failure. But Russia’s 13 percent flat tax forces me to confess a certain degree of incompetence. For 10 years, I’ve been working in Washington to replace our convoluted tax code with a simple and fair flat tax. But as every...
“War’s New Face” Revisited
Daniel Pipes’ recent column identifies changes to the way the West (namely, the USA and Israel) conduct war. He seems to report this factually and there is no explicit opinion on the matter, but the implication is that he doesn’t have a problem with...
Stumbling Over the Truth About Missile Defense
Winston Churchill once said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” Churchill was not speaking of national security or missile defense, but his words apply nonetheless. The...
Shareholder Values
As the season for annual meetings begins, activists are presenting shareholders with resolutions seeking social change and better corporate governance. A few of the proposals have merit; most are obnoxious but harmless. And nearly all will be rejected – mainly...
First Amendment Bull: Tim Robbins vs. Free Speech
Lately, it seems as if almost every week some leftist celebrity finds the time and energy to publicly demonstrate their gross misunderstanding of a simple two-word phrase: “free speech.” Although few people expect them to be literate enough to read the...
Not in My Name: My Version of a “Statement of Conscience”
Thousands of Americans chose not to pay their federal income tax this year as a political statement, many because they don’t want their money supporting the U.S. military. [Associated Press, 4/16/03] I would gladly concede to war protesters the right to withhold...
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