Liberals are fond of quoting Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, "taxes are what we pay for a civilized society"---but at the time taxes were just 10% of GDP. Now they are triple that. Is that civilization or theft?

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert says the current tax code is just too complicated. He wants the current code scraped---and replaced with a flat tax... continue reading »

Yesterday, I pointed out that even with the supposedly "devastating" sequester cuts, government spending still grows.

But the sequester does bring some actual cuts. The parts of the budget labeled "discretionary" (about a third of it) would be cut about 7%.

But that doesn't mean there's a need for "devastating" cutbacks or even cuts in basic services like air traffic control. As Senator Rand Paul points out on my show tonight at 9PM ET:... continue reading »

President Obama says the sequester is like taking "a meat cleaver to the budget."

I wish that were true. This week, I grab a meat cleaver and point out what ought to be cut.

Despite the big spenders' hysteria about "long TSA lines, no meat inspection, abandoned children!", the sequester doesn't even cut the budget! It just slows it's growth... continue reading »

President Obama warns that if Congress allows automatic budget cuts known as the "sequester" to happen:

"Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off... tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care... Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, causing delays!"

The media is hysterical, too.

"Watch out! Like the asteroid headed to earth, they're coming -- $86 billion in automatic budget cuts," CNN anchor Carol Costello warned... continue reading »

I'm glad Gary Johnson is in the presidential race. Unlike most politicians, he makes the case for strongly limited government:

Johnson proposes to cut federal spending by more than 43 percent: "Balance the federal budget now. I think that unless we do that, we're going to find ourselves in a monetary collapse."

To do that, he'd go where the money is. He'd cut the big programs that will soon bankrupt us. That includes Medicare. Conventional wisdom says what he's proposing is cruel and, for a politician, suicidal... continue reading »

In my syndicated column this week, I write about the family budget I featured in my last show:

Add eight zeros to that, and you get the federal government's budget. That's unsustainable.

Yet:... continue reading »

President Obama says his new budget will put the country on a more sustainable fiscal path, but his path adds $1.3 trillion dollars to our already massive debt.

What would happen if you planned your family's budget the way the politicians plan theirs? I showed people this chart:

... continue reading »

Obama's new budget is 1,470 pages long. On page 1,318, Obama announces he will end funding for the DC "Opportunity Scholarship" program, which gives poor kids the option of going to a private school instead of being stuck in the government monopoly. [HT: Fox News' Ed Henry]... continue reading »

This week, Obama released his new budget. He talked about the "tough choices" he was making to reduce the deficit. In his State of Union speech, he claimed that he had already agreed to "$2 trillion in cuts and savings."

But Obama misleads. From my syndicated column this week:... continue reading »

Government does too much, but defense is what government is supposed to do: keep us safe from our enemies.

But Ron Paul says our current government goes too far. This week, we debate that.

David Henderson, an economist at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School says Ron Paul is right, but Colonel David Hunt with 29 years in counter-terrorism operations, says Rep. Paul's foreign policy ideas are naive... continue reading »