Category: Other Articles

“Put another way: We all pay taxes together. Like it or not. Any time a politician tells you he is going to raise taxes but only on other people, he is selling snake oil. The truth is, politicians don’t know where taxes actually land. Nobody really does — and nobody but nobody knows in advance how that will shake out. When Senator Bernie Sanders talks about raising taxes on “the rich,” he is talking about raising taxes on everybody, whether he understands that or not. When Donald Trump promised that his tariffs — which are a sales tax — would be paid by the Chinese, he could not have been more wrong: Those costs were born by U.S. consumers and U.S. manufacturers, who were made to pay higher prices for their inputs.”

Click here for article at National Review.

Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers, businesses, and the U.S. economy at large. Written by CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews, it shines a light on the large and under-appreciated “hidden tax” of America’s regulatory state. The current edition marks 26 years since the first report was published as part of the Journal of Regulation and Social Costs in 1993. Click here to read the report.

A minimum wage determined by politics, rather than economic reality, may help some, but it harms others, including many of the most vulnerable workers among us: those with limited skills or job experience. Click here for article from Independent Institute.

The BLS is rightfully regarded as an objective, data-focused organization whose efforts are essential to a better understanding of the US economy. Its data collection and analysis set the professional standard for many economists to follow. However, ordinary Americans would have great difficulty using the BLS’s data resources to answer their own questions about the economy. Click here for article at Mercatus Center.

Given President-elect Biden’s promise to “fix” the vaccine situation via even more top-down supply chain mandates, we might need these lessons even sooner than we think. Click here for article at Cato Institute.

It sometimes feels as if advocates and opponents of minimum wage hikes are talking in different universes. In large part, that stems from completely opposite interpretations of the balance of the academic literature on the subject. Click here for the article from Cato Institute.