In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s award winning play about Sir Thomas More’s opposition to Henry the Eighth’s annulment of his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, there occurs this exchange between More and his friend the Duke of Norfolk:
Norfolk: Oh confound all this. I’m not a scholar, I don’t know whether the [...]
“We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”
- Eric Hoffer -
I try not to parry with the paranoid, but in this case I will make an exception just to show how wackozoid tax protesters can be.
Over the years I have been confronted by several dozen tax protesters peddling the gamut of [...]
Tags: Absurd Tax Protester Arguments · Opinion
As expected, demogogues from both sides of the political spectrum have been exploiting yesterday’s bombing of an Austin, Texas federal building by Andrew Joseph Stack. Liberal bloggers claim that Stack was the quintessential tea partier who hated government, taxes and the IRS. Conservative bloggers claim that Stack was a model socialist who hated organized religion, big business and the rich.
They’re both right.
Yesterday, I [...]
Did you know that Professor Paul Caron is a Bolshevik for suggesting that the tax code requires that medal-winning Olympic athletes include the value of their gold, silver or bronze medals in their taxable incomes?
Joe Kristan writes in Explaining Something Doesn’t Mean You Agree With It that the good Professor received the following letter calling him a dastardly Muscovite for [...]
Tags: Gross Income · Individual Taxation · Opinion
George Will wrote this in his book review of Philip Howard’s Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from too Much Law:
Defensive, and ludicrous, warning labels multiply because aggressiveness proliferates. Lawsuits express the theory that anyone should be able to sue to assert that someone is culpable for even an idiotic action by the plaintiff, such as [...]
Tags: Opinion
It’s become a cliche to criticize the BCS, but in my opinion its a mindless preoccupation. And now ESPN reports even the President is getting in on the act in spite of the fact that he repeatedly whines about all of the horrible, time-consuming, and overwhelming catastrophes his predecessor, George W. Bush, left on his plate:
The [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · Opinion
E nominus patri, et feli, e spiritu sancti.
The New York Times reports that average Oregonians will be asked to vote on a measure that will increase taxes on a special class of Oregonians - those who have more than they do:
Facing $3 million in state cuts and no way to raise money, the school district here cut back to a [...]
Tags: Opinion · Philosophy · Tax Policy
Paul Caron has published links to the entire series of blog posts written by me, Professor James Maule and Professor Linda Beale on the issue of Wealth, Taxes and Politics:
Jim Maule (Villanova), A Tax Policy Determination Clue (1/6/10)
Linda Beale (Wayne State), Who’s Rich? What’s Going on With Those Freshwater Economists? And More Posts Worth Reading (1/7/10)
Peter [...]
Tags: Opinion · Philosophy · Politics
The New York Times reports that the banking industry is not taking the proposal of a special bank tax lying down (emphasis added):
In an e-mail message sent last week to the heads of Wall Street legal departments, executives of the lobbying group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, wrote that a bank tax might [...]
Tags: News · Opinion · Tax Policy · The Economy
“Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche -
Professors James Maule and Linda Beale have responded on their blogs to my recent post titled Two Professors, an Angry Bear and Hate the Rich Syndrome.
I know it’s hard to fathom, [...]
Tags: Opinion
Wall Street Journal – Taxes Blog
