Taxes and Spending

The US government is the world's largest debtor with deficits feeding debts that pile on in increasingly larger numbers of numbing proportions, writes Christopher Mayer.

The government has no business stockpiling anything, including oil. But when three socialist amigos like Senators Charles Schumer of New York, Barbara Boxer of California and Harry Reid of Nevada all urged the Bush administration recently to help ease gasoline prices by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), you know what's up. These three are all facing the voters come November, and they know from their many years in politics that nothing agitates the boobeoisie and engenders conspiracy theories like high gas prices.

Debt is an institution in American government, long established and widespread. A cursory glance at debt statistics will quickly show that there has been a lull in the truth about debt, namely, that it cannot grow indefinitely at the rate at which it has been growing—at least not without a serious revaluation of the dollar, something we are already in the midst of seeing.

William Anderson examines the common myths of the gas price increase, and then turns to the question of why prices are as high as they are.

Cross-posted at Liberty & Power blog.

Charles Adams is a rare tax historian who leads us back to Greeks and Romans and the history of liberty. The Battle of Marathon was critical for Greek civilization to seize control of Western Civilization. The Greeks had no direct taxation, just indirect. This is what fostered liberty.

Recorded at Mises University 2003.

Recorded at Mises University 2001.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman recently scored a front-page story about President Bush that would have galvanized DC conservatives three years earlier if the same words had been written about President Clinton.

Gregory Bresiger explains all you need to know about the SEC's proposal to ban "soft dollars" in mutual fund management. Once again, the regulators and reformers are about to make the wrong decision, which means another generation of social engineers will have to come up with more reforms to correct the errors of the previous generation of reformers and busybodies.