GM et al

While there are serious problems with the charity industry, not discovering something or improving products services etc. isn't one of them. The person who makes a discovery will benefit. Others will adjust. This is the GM would invent a better car but don't to because it will affect sales of existing auto line. There is a whole batch of silly literature that plays on this theme. In contrast in the government sector there is no incentive to change, reform improve because every mistake brings with it a host of interests and budget expansion.

I should have added, another error in the article is that it assumes that the increase in top marginal tax rates raised revenue in the short term. SS taxes did as they can't be escaped, but it is unlikely that income taxes had much effect on the deficit but would impact investment and savings decisions. How? It isn't knowable in any meaningful way. I guess the folks at TH Finance are numbers crunchers so have a naive Keynesian, monetarist or mixed views of economics. Fair enough, the Austrians would tell them to not waste their time and that doesn't pay nearly as well. I like numbers too, but have been around long enough to know I'm just playing.

No, like libertarians most want people to live with the consequences of their decisions. The real differences reside in embracing private decentralized, traditional values and practices. These can be seen as religion based or as 4 thousand years of trial and error when people families, and communities were responsible for their own behavior and suffered the consequences. These norms, mores, notions of sin and practices come to us through our religious traditions and other inherited institutions, thus not every generation has to learn right and wrong from scratch. They can, as Burke advised us, draw on the bank of wisdom of ages and of nations. Libertarians rely on reason, which Burke distrusted because he correctly assumed that it was quite limited, moreover we can't separate our personal interest from our feeble attempts at reason. Libertarians get most of the economics right, and that is crucial. They also see more clearly the threat of the administrative state, than do many conservatives so they must work together. Some of the social issues divide them, but both sides views on these matters are threatened by the administrative state and the growing threat of fascism. Get the State out of our lives and free people will work out their differences, or not, it won't matter.

So we must have really had a lot of crime before welfare and presumably it is worse in neighborhoods where welfare is low. What a racist comment. You assume that minorities would just go out and commit crime if we didn't subsidize their destructive behavior. Welfare doesn't prevent anything except upward mobility, human development and stronger families.

Charity giving has been corrupt and corrupting for decades. If one wants to help someone, to pay attention, preferably know the person and forget the tax write off. This is true of political giving and foundations as well. The parties spend on "consultants", who know little or nothing about the substance of issues and care even less, and on stupid adds. Foundations pay themselves well, enjoy expense accounts and travel around raising money and holding conferences. The issues groups, environmental etc. spend money on lobbies that posture and try to make news to help them raise money. It all starts and ends with big corrupt government. The best way to end it is to abolish the IRS with a Fair tax, abolish discretion in the regulatory bureaucracy by establishing simple standards that create the right incentives. Corruption metastasizes virulently and it originates with folks who aren’t accountable and always spend other peoples money.

Indeed, but then pay attention to what they spend it on.

Libertarians tend to be young and may be a reaction to our overpowering government drift now gallop toward fascist state which the establishments of both parties support. Kids grow up and some of them will learn that the notion of individual freedom is grounded in traditional views of the family, Christianity, and human dignity. Conservatives should point out that we don't have to redefine marriage to eliminate discrimination of gays. Privatize social security and other laws that affect to whom one can leave one's estate, designate as a dependent etc. As to marijuana, the issue is the entire war on drugs.

The analysis is screwy. They assert that the tiny sequestration will have a negative effect and that the reason the tax hikes will slow growth is because they reduce the deficit. This is Keynesian and flat wrongheaded. Moreover, it assumes that these models actually can predict the future based on a few changes in spending and taxes and that short term adjustments to spending, deficits and revenues tell us anything about the medium and long term.. They don't because they can't. We can know the direction of really stupid policies such as Obama care and an increase in the marginal tax rate on income, but not the net effect in the short medium or long run. What if the deficit were shrunk by cutting waste on the one hand and raising revenues by replacing income taxes with a consumption tax? What would be the effect? We can't know in the short run because we have been distorting and punishing the economy for so long we can't know what the short term adjustments would be, but we know the medium and long term direction and it would be good and while growth would be part, the most important reaction would be more start ups entrepreneurship, risk taking, innovation, and human flourishing. Keynesian thinking is so ingrained in folks, especially economists even so called conservative ones, that they can’t shake it. ,

MCain is just not very bright. Rubio is harder to explain. He is too young and very naive but he is smart and should have a future. He should run for Governor so we can judge who he really is. In the mean time we have to look among the governors for our next leader.

Keynesian economists dispute this simple calculus by saying that if the funds are borrowed and if the unemployed are hired the resources used are free. That is, while the loan must be repaid since the money draws idle resources back into the economy and since there is a multiplier the economy will grow by enough to pay back the loan. The argument is of course flawed on many levels. First Keynesians look at averages, aggregates from the past. These averages tell planners nothing about who is unemployed why and what to spend the money on. They assume that even if we did know, our congress would be wise enough and disinterested enough to spend the money where it would help. It also assumes that the sectors that are in decline and hence the source of unemployment are the ones where the borrowed money should be spent. And lastly it assumes that aggregate demand drives growth, innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. These are all obviously not true.