Tax policy

Archive for Tax policy

Three Myths About Tax Reform

My latest FEE article. An excerpt: The “correct” amount of saving, in terms of economic theory, is that which people choose in a free market. People have underlying preferences for present versus future consumption, and they engage in mutually advantageous trades — guided by interest rates — to rearrange the timing of their income and […]

Murphy vs. Krauthammer on Gas Tax

My latest at IER. For you folks, here’s the part I want to highlight: First, let’s use a trick from the minimum wage debate, which I’m sure Krauthammer and other Fox contributors will appreciate. When a progressive says how great boosting the minimum wage to (say) $10/hour would be, the easiest way to show the […]

Correcting Hartmann on U.S. Tax History

My latest at Mises CA. On Facebook I saw a meme with 60,000 shares from “U.S. Uncut” that was simply awful. You don’t realize how awful it is until I walk you through it. Come, let us explore together.

A Revised Brain Teaser on Tax Policy

OK you guys are getting too hung up on it being gasoline in the previous post. Let me start over. Now in the following, I’m not necessarily saying each arguments in any of the steps is correct. I’m just saying, you could easily see an economist going along with the chain of logic, and yet (as […]

A Brain Teaser for Economists

This post is aimed at professional economists, but those of you with real jobs should feel free to chime in as well… I’m working on a response to Charles Krauthammer’s call for a $1/gallon hike in the gas tax, and I am making the point that (absent negative externality issues) it increases the deadweight loss […]