The Democrats running for president all promise large spending programs if elected—Medicare for All (or for all who want it), free or cheap college, infrastructure development, and (for Andrew Yang) a $12,000 annual income grant. Given the interest generated by my two recent Washington Spectator pieces on wealth taxes and financial transaction taxes, it seems […]

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Over the years, many prominent economists have advocated taxing financial transactions. During the Great Depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash, John Maynard Keynes advocated such a tax to curb financial speculation and help ensure that investments went to productive endeavors rather than short-term gains. Nobel laureate James Tobin proposed a financial transactions tax […]

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During the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Elizabeth Warren vigorously defended her proposal for a new type of tax in the United States—an annual tax on wealth. “It’s time to tax the top one-tenth of 1 percent fortunes in this country,” she said. Indeed, the very rich do need to pay higher taxes. Their tax […]

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If President Trump has his way, things are about to go from bad to worse for America’s poor. On May 7, the Office of Management and Budget proposed changing the way that poverty gets measured in the U.S. The public has 45 days to respond to this proposal (June 21); then the government will decide […]

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The president’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal is yet another attack on poor families. The administration has proposed slashing funding for critical programs that help low- and moderate-income individuals access healthy and nutritious food, receive critical health care services, and live in safe and affordable homes. Specifically, the president proposed to cut $230 billion from the […]

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