If you live in tax hell — New York, Illinois, California, New Jersey or Connecticut — paying your state and local taxes could soon become even more painful. Congressional Republicans and President Trump have plans to lower federal tax rates for almost everyone and simplify tax rules. All good news. But there's a catch for residents…

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? That's exactly what the United States does when it sends its contribution to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Last year, as its single…

Could a Berkeley college professor who once advised the presidential campaign of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry derail the best opportunity for conservative tax reform in three decades?  As implausible as this may sound, it could well prove true if the Republican leadership in the U.S House of Representatives continue to insist…

If you're hunting for a job, hoping for a raise or depending on a retirement account, your future hinges on President Trump's next big undertaking, cutting taxes. And the picture looked rosy until last week. After the election, stocks soared on expectations that tax cuts would ignite an economic boom. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation was estimating…

What will President Trump do after the Obamacare debacle? For 48 hours, some Hill Republicans — and Trump himself — spoke as if the president and the GOP could smoothly, seamlessly and swiftly pivot to tax reform. Then, Monday night, came an Axios report that Trump might choose to pursue an infrastructure bill — the…

The United States continues to suffer the developed world’s highest corporate tax rate, which not only stifles growth and employment, but also incentivizes corporations to avoid or abandon our shores. Fortunately, a bipartisan consensus in favor of lowering rates and simplifying the code has emerged in recent years, and the Trump Administration…

For the past eight years, conservatives and libertarians correctly maintained that Obama Administration policies didn't salvage our economy from the last recession, they instead subdued the natural cyclical recovery that otherwise would've been much more robust.  Obama's agenda of massive federal spending, more regulation, higher taxes, new social…

Regardless of whether one actually voted for Donald Trump, the spectacle of post-election frenzy by the political left and mainstream media offers a fringe benefit for all conservatives and libertarians to savor.  Case in point:  Last week's announcement from Carrier that it had agreed with President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect…

It is especially painful for me, as an economist, to see that two small cities in northern California — San Mateo and Burlingame — have rent control proposals on the ballot this election year. There are various other campaigns, in other places around the country, for and against minimum wage laws, which likewise make me wonder…

Ponder this lopsided statistic for a moment.  The United States, with just 4% of the world's population, generates 64.4% - nearly two-thirds - of all new prescription and biologic drug patents worldwide.  Our nearest individual competitor, Japan, accounts for a distant second at 10.7%, and China merely 0.2%.  The entire combined European…

The choice for voters is clear: a tax cut from Donald Trump or a pay cut courtesy of Hillary Clinton. Trump is promising to slash income taxes to zero for millions of people currently paying them, and to reduce the tax bite on everyone. Clinton isn't cutting income tax rates for anyone. Instead, she's campaigning to hike business taxes, despite warnings…

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just revealed that this year's federal budget deficit will rise to $590 billion, a depressing 35% increase over last year's already-high $438 billion:  CBO now estimates that the 2016 deficit will total $590 billion, or 3.2 percent of GDP, exceeding last year's deficit by $152 billion... …

The United States accounts for just 4% of the world's population, and our brief 240-year existence remains a blink of an eye relative to other cultures hundreds or even thousands of years old.  Despite that, America stands unrivaled in human history in terms of sheer innovation, prosperity and power.  From powered flight to the moon landing…

On Monday, Donald Trump stopped the wisecracks and laid out a serious plan to jumpstart the nation's limping economy. He proposed tax cuts, regulatory relief, unfettered development of coal, oil and natural gas and fairer trade pacts. One item in his plan will do more than all the others to get the nation working again: cutting corporate taxes. Trump…

COLORADO SPRINGS — My adopted hometown will soon be the base of operations for a new Netflix movie starring aging elitist hippies Robert Redford (estimated net worth: $170 million) and Jane Fonda (estimated net worth: $120 million). A state economic development commission unanimously voted last week to fork over $1.5 million in taxpayer…

So it's official, according to the U.S. Commerce Department:  This is the worst cyclical economic recovery since World War II.  But look at the bright side:  At least Barack Obama managed to double the nation's debt in just seven years and ran up the worst deficits in history achieving it.  Obama and his apologists habitually…

Hillary Clinton and the media are goading Donald Trump again into releasing his tax returns, suggesting he's unwilling to pay his "fair share." Sadly, even a few of Trump's fellow Republicans are piling on. Their crazy premise: Paying the IRS more than you legally owe makes you a better person. That's nonsense. Donald Trump is wisely resisting…

With our two major parties holding conventions this month and setting agendas for the next four years, now is the perfect time for Americans of all political persuasions to come together and urge comprehensive tax reform. Reforming our outdated tax code is a rare policy that maintains significant bipartisan support. Regardless of political affiliation…

On Monday, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen gave a somber assessment of the current jobs market, throwing cold water on President Obama's election-year messaging. President Obama has been bragging that America has "the strongest" economy in the world. Right, and pigs can fly. GDP growth under Obama has averaged a stagnant 1.7 percent…

President Obama and GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan want to expand it. Tax preparation companies and illegal immigrants are cashing in on it. Fraudsters have found bottomless ways to exploit it. The earned income tax credit, a bipartisan-supported "anti-poverty" benefit, is robbing honest, law-abiding Americans blind. Originally intended to…

"Saving the economy from a great depression."  That was Barack Obama's response when asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to identify his "biggest accomplishment."  In Obama's defense, it's not as though he enjoys a Reaganesque litany of accomplishments from which to choose - winning the Cold War, reversing a…

Middle-aged people laid off and unable to find work are taking another way out. They're killing themselves. Suicide rates are soaring, according to federal data released last week. Especially in economically depressed states and job-starved regions like upstate New York. People in need of work are twice as likely to take their own lives as employed…

Bernie Sanders asserts with religious fervor that "the rich" must pay more in taxes.  Except when it comes to Sanders himself, apparently.  It all makes for a satirical tale paralleling George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in which "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."  Sanders…

Do you or anyone you know insist that wealthier Americans should pay their "fair share" of the nation's taxes?  If so, then there's good news:  They already do.  In fact, according to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, they pay far more than their fair share.  The IRS recently released its annual summary of tax data…

The Center for Individual Freedom last week ran a full-page print advertisement in The Weekly Standard and Washington Examiner urging Congress to “Get to Work” on passing business tax reform. “With a 35% business tax rate - the highest among the OECD nations - U.S. businesses of all sizes are suffering,” the ad reads. &ldquo…

By now, many Americans are familiar with the public debt fiasco that plagues Puerto Rico. The issue has steadily risen in prominence as the gravity of Puerto Rico’s debt load sets in on the American public. Certainly, the island’s economic mismanagement has taken center stage in Washington, as Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla…

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that our economy grew just 0.7% in the final quarter of 2015.  Days later, the annual Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom revealed that our standing once again declined last year.  Adding particular poignancy is the way in which those two measures tragically…

Ka-ching! Wednesday's Powerball jackpot soared to $1.5 billion as get-rich-quick mania seized America this week. But you don't need to wait for the drawing to know who'll score the royal payoff. The biggest winner of the multistate numbers game is — drumroll, please — Uncle Sam. Powerball is a government-sponsored gambling racket…

Grass-roots conservatives have many unrealistic expectations and political objectives. And then sometimes they have a good point. The new budget deal arranged by John Boehner and Democrats -- approving $50 billion of additional spending in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017 -- will be split between domestic discretionary programs and defense. Cuts will…

Back when George W. Bush was president, liberals ceaselessly condemned his comparatively mild budget deficits.  When Barack Obama became president and proceeded to compound those deficits, however, they conspicuously went silent.  Recall what candidate Obama had to say about the issue on July 3, 2008.  On that date, the most recent…