Editor’s Note: Although negotiations concerning the “fiscal cliff” seem to be at an impasse, the one thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on is their desire to close tax loopholes. That is bad news for the economy, because as Ludwig von Mises said, “Capitalism breathes through those loopholes.” Closing loopholes to “broaden the tax base” has
[An army of] a hundred thousand men, costing the taxpayers a hundred million of money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred million can supply. That is which is seen. But, a hundred million taken from the pockets of the taxpayers, ceases to maintain these taxpayers and their purveyors as far as a hundred million reaches. This is
[ Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954)] To be sure, the original Populists, and the aping Democrats and Republicans, to say nothing of the conscious Socialists, little thought that their income-tax gadget would ever be used to “soak the poor.” It was an instrument, they thought, that could lend itself to no other purpose than to expropriate
The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on August 22, 2012, that scheduled tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 would reverse the current modest economic recovery. The CBO and other experts are of the view that large government spending cuts and tax hikes will cause severe economic slump. Experts hold that without action by Congress to
“The theory involves a conceptual conflation of democracy and liberty (freedom) that can only be called scandalous, especially coming from self-proclaimed libertarians. The foundation and cornerstone of liberty is the institution of private property; and private—exclusive—property is logically incompatible with democracy—majority rule. Democracy
[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] We have here, again, the same fallacy. We demand that foreign products should be taxed to neutralize the effect of the taxes that weigh upon our national products. The object, then, still is to equalize the conditions of production. We have only a
This may sound odd. Conservatives don’t love taxes. They want lower taxes. Right? They want lower taxes and smaller government. I wish that were true. It isn’t. Alexander Hamilton was a crusader for higher taxes and a larger national government in the 1790s. He wanted higher taxes in order to raise money for a higher federal debt. He wanted higher
Those of us who spent our younger years living in the coldest of the 50 states remember fondly those afternoons spent at play just after a fresh coat of snow blanketed the ground. We’d grab our jackets and gloves, run out of the house, and convene at the nearest large field (perhaps the backyard) and bask in the winter wonderland presented to us
Here’s a snapshot from the American landscape of convoluted crony capitalism: starting this September, if a man in Los Angeles buys a book from Amazon.com, the local sales tax he pays could go to the city of San Bernardino, which will then give 80 percent of the tax money back to Amazon itself. Such roundabout arrangements of redistributive
[image] In California, a law that promised to control politicians is now being used to control the public. California’s Proposition 25 promised to rein in runaway spending and “end budget gridlock” by hitting politicians’ pocketbooks. Every day on which lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget after their June 15 deadline each year would be a
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.