Tweet

Mr. Donald J. Trump
President, Executive Branch
United States Government
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Trump:

On New Year’s Eve your office released a “Fact Sheet” stating that you “imposed reciprocal tariffs to take back America’s economic sovereignty, address nonreciprocal trade relationships that threaten our economic and national security, and to remedy the consequences of nonreciprocal trade.”

Two things.

First, by its nature, all trade is reciprocal. Each party gives something to the other party and receives in exchange something that each party values more highly. Therefore, your punitive taxes – a.k.a. tariffs – on Americans’ purchases of imports are aimed at correcting a problem that doesn’t exist.

Your only possible retort that would retain as much as a tenuous connection to logic would be to insist that foreigners regularly dupe us Americans into buying things that we don’t want to buy – that is, to insist that we Americans are incurably stupid at conducting our own economic affairs, while foreigners are so astonishingly clever that they routinely swindle us out of our own money. Do you, sir, really believe that your fellow Americans are generally the intellectual inferiors of foreigners?

Second, by obstructing each of your fellow Americans’ voluntary, peaceful trades with foreigners you diminish the economic sovereignty of each and every one of us. What (il)logic leads you to conclude that by obstructing – with your taxes on our purchases of imports – the economic sovereignty of 340 million Americans, you thereby “take back America’s economic sovereignty”?

Your tariffs do for us Americans the opposite of what you assert: they diminish our economic sovereignty and, in this sorry bargain, also make us poorer than we’d otherwise be.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Tweet

George Will describes the Trump administration’s recent actions in Venezuela as “monster-hunting, untainted by a whiff of legality.” A slice:

As Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) said, “Everything is what it is, and not another thing.” Narcotics trafficking is a serious crime. It is not a terrorist activity. Neither is the self-“poisoning” of Americans who ingest drugs.

So, the administration must improvise post facto rationalizations for the forcible regime change in Venezuela, rationalizations harmonious with the president’s recent pardoning of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president convicted in a U.S. court of shipping here more than 400 tons of cocaine. “The Honduran regime,” McCarthy writes in National Review, “figures prominently in the indictment of Maduro brought by the first Trump administration.” Maduro’s lawyers will have fun with this.

And perhaps with this: When Theodore Roosevelt asked Attorney General Philander Knox to concoct a legal justification for the unsavory U.S. measures that enabled construction of the Panama Canal, Knox replied, “Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.”

Also writing about Trump’s seizing of Maduro is Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle. A slice:

It’s hard to imagine a worse leader for Venezuela than Nicolás Maduro, who combined corruption, economic mismanagement and brutal repression in one repulsive package. That doesn’t mean America was right to invade the country and arrest him, which strikes me as both unconstitutional and unwise. And while it’s hard to imagine a worse leader than Maduro, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there, waiting in the wings.

The Cato Institute’s Ian Vásquez, Justin Logan, Brandan Buck, Marcos Falcone, Katherine Thompson, Clark Neily, and Jeffrey Singer ponder Trump’s seizure of Maduro.

Reason‘s Eric Boehm explains what shouldn’t – but, alas, what nevertheless today does – need explaining, namely, Trump should have gotten Congressional authorization if he wanted to strike Venezuela and capture Maduro.” A slice:

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to approve military strikes against foreign countries. Federal laws, like the War Powers Resolution, allow for unilateral executive action only in response to an imminent threat against Americans or U.S. troops. That separation of powers is fundamental to American democracy—not an optional arrangement for presidents to discard when it is politically or logistically inconvenient.

At a press conference on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump termed the attack an “extraordinary military operation,” which he claimed was unlike anything seen since World War II. Therefore, there should be no debate about what this was: a military strike, one that utterly lacked congressional authorization.

Trump also clarified that the U.S. would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition” to a new leader. “We are going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place,” he added.

Again, that leaves little room for debate. This was a regime change operation, and one that creates an ongoing responsibility for the American military.

Vice President J.D. Vance tried a different line of argument earlier on Saturday, when he claimed on X that Trump did not need congressional authorization for the attack on Venezuela because “Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism. You don’t get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas.”

That argument, however, shreds the concept of separation of powers. The executive branch makes indictments. If it is also allowed to use the existence of those indictments to authorize military strikes in foreign nations, then there is no need for Congress to be involved at all.

Carlos Martinez assesses 67 years of communism in Cuba. A slice:

Even Cuban economists largely agree that the island’s problems stem not from the U.S. embargo but from the regime’s own policies. In addition, recent research by João Pedro Bastos, Jamie Bologna Pavlik, and Vincent Geloso found that the embargo explains only 3–10% of Cuba’s economic decline. The real culprits are nationalizations, the destruction of private property and markets, and their replacement with centralized economic planning. By 1989, even before Soviet support collapsed, these policies had already made Cuba approximately 55% poorer than it would have been otherwise.

“Why haven’t Trump’s tariffs had a bigger impact?” (HT Scott Lincicome) Three slices:

President Trump raised the taxes that the United States charges on imports last year to levels not seen in a century.

Prices of goods have increased as a result, and businesses that depend on imported products and supplies have struggled, with some closing their doors. Still, the effects have not been felt as strongly as some experts predicted after early April when Mr. Trump announced double-digit tariffs on imports from countries worldwide.

A new working paper from economists at Harvard and the University of Chicago helps explain why. It shows that the tariff rate importers have paid is significantly lower than the tariff figures that Mr. Trump announced. The reasons include exemptions for certain countries and industries, rates that were lowered for some goods by the time they arrived in the U.S. and evasion of the rules by some companies.

By analyzing the government’s tariff revenue and the value of imports, the economists concluded that the actual U.S. tariff rate was 14.1 percent at the end of September.

…..

This phenomenon does not mean that tariffs don’t burden U.S. companies and consumers. The researchers demonstrated that Americans were bearing the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, in contrast to what he and his advisers have claimed.

….

U.S. consumers and manufacturers are also paying higher costs. A working paper published in November by economists at Harvard Business School and elsewhere found that tariffs had pushed up the price of imported goods by roughly twice as much as domestic ones.

Ms. Gopinath and Mr. Neiman also traced the effect of tariffs on U.S. manufacturers, which often depend on foreign parts and metals. They found that companies making heavy-duty trucks, construction vehicles, cars and car parts, agricultural implements, and oil and gas machinery were among the most affected by higher tariffs.

“The logic was if foreign firms wished to sell to the mightiest consumer market in the world, they would have to pay a price,” Ms. Gopinath said. “In reality, the price has been borne by U.S. firms, and not by foreign firms.”

Writing at Civitas Outlook, Jon Miltimore reminds us of warnings by Hayek and Orwell that the more the state takes charge of people’s lives, the more it corrupts our access to, and grasp of, truth. Two slices:

The COVID-19 pandemic was a vast economic experiment. The federal government issued a wide array of public health “recommendations” that soon became dogmas. To question the efficacy of masks or social distancing — a policy we learned in 2024 had no basis in science — was to risk being censored or accused of spreading “misinformation.” Scientific debate gave way to official decree, and many who questioned “the plan” or resisted it lost their jobs or were booted from platforms.

None of this would have surprised Hayek, who warned that the plans constructed by central planners must be “sacrosanct and exempt from criticism.”

“If the people are to support the common effort without hesitation, they must be convinced that not only the end aimed at but also the means chosen are the right ones,” he wrote. “Public criticism or even expressions of doubts must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”

Hayek’s chapter is not primarily about censorship. Instead, he argues that the rise of state power will systematically undermine the concept of truth itself and the human pursuit of it.

…..

The economist Daniel Klein recently called “The End of Truth” the most important chapter in Hayek’s most important work. I couldn’t agree more. The chapter serves as a reminder that the human mind is not something to be controlled but something to be unleashed. If we forget this simple lesson, we risk surrendering the very capacity for independent thought that sustains civilization.

“The tragedy of collectivist thought,” he noted, “is that, while it starts out to make reason supreme, it ends by destroying reason because it misconceives the process on which the growth of reason depends.”

In March, 250 years after the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a new oratorio – to be performed by the New York Philharmonic – will celebrate this magnificent work. (HT Tyler Cowen)

Gustavo Dudamel — the Oscar L. Tang & H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Music & Artistic Director Designate — conducts the World Premiere of the wealth of nations, a highly anticipated commission from the Pulitzer Prize–winning composer David Lang. Inspired by economist Adam Smith’s 1776 magnum opus, Lang dramatizes this foundational work about economics as inspired by Handel’s treatment of Biblical texts in Messiah. “I want this work to be enjoyable and thought-provoking,” says Lang, “encouraging audiences to consider what we truly value.”

Tweet

… is from page 189 of Johan Norberg’s wonderful 2025 book, Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages:

Tea was a drink for royals and nobles until Song [dynasty] farmers transformed tea cultivation from wild plants to controlled farming. It was not nature or tradition, but trade and productivity, that turned rice and tea into staples of the Chinese household.

Tweet

… is the closing line of this excellent letter by Steven Williams in the December 28th, 2025, edition of the Financial Times:

Industrial strength comes from innovation and coherent policy, not protectionist nostalgia.

Tweet

Steven Greenhut decries the current condition of the Republican Party. A slice:

We’ve become numb to narcissistic rage posts from our president, but the highly publicized Turning Point USA convention last week offers a preview into where the Republican Party is going after Donald Trump exits the stage. It’s not pretty. As we’ve seen recently in other squabbles within the conservative movement, the fireworks centered on the rhetoric of some conspiracy minded—but highly popular—right-wing personalities. TPUSA had it all: in-fighting, name-calling and innuendo.

In the old days, the conservative movement tried to police itself, as it shoved authoritarians and conspiracy theorists to the sidelines. Buckley took on the John Birch Society, which in its zealous anti-communism argued the United States government was controlled by communists. Standing up to the Evil Empire was a core part of conservative philosophy, but Buckley realized that allowing the fever swamps to engulf his movement only tarnished that goal.

Some critics argue Buckley wasn’t all that successful, but he was successful enough to keep the party from becoming what it has become now—where reasonable voices are drowned out by the likes of Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. If there are no adults in charge—and the party’s leader acts like a toddler, as he savages his foes in petty tantrums, renames buildings after himself and adds insulting White House plaques below the portraits of former presidents—then the whole trashy movement will one day be heaved into the dumpster.

Dan Rothschild offers this reason for optimism: The ideas currently peddled most prominently by politically ascendant individuals on the right and on the left are all old ideas. Two slices:

Put simply, fighting old bad ideas is a very different task in terms of scale, scope, and challenge than fighting new bad ideas.

The online new right is awash with intellectual energy, but it is almost entirely placed into service of revanchist efforts to re-popularize old bad ideas, or in the American context, to take various strains of foreign conservatism that have never had purchase in the United States and bring them to our shores. Among the more prominent of the online right philosophers is Curtis Yarvin, the Pied Piper of the so-called Dark Enlightenment. Yarvin has certainly been prolific over his decades of blogging and popular writing. But his underlying idea—that America needs to replace the constitutional order with an unelected CEO-king—is simply a pre-modern absolutist, non-hereditary monarchy with 21st-century characteristics.

Yarvin’s affect is novel, no doubt. Rather than writing for clarity, he seems to relish purple prose, non-sequiturs, and halting transitions. As John Horvat wrote for Law & Liberty, “He is brash, sarcastic, skeptical, and cynical. His style is irreverent and vulgar. He cares little for rules and formality.” No doubt he’s a good marketer to the very online set. But adopting the cocky, rebellious mien of a very online 21st-century Mick Jagger doesn’t make his ideas original.

The Catholic integralists similarly embrace an explicitly medieval view of the relationship between temporal authorities and religious ones; to wit, they believe as a normative proposition that the former should be directed by the latter. Not only is there nothing new about this idea (it was, of course, the pre-modern status quo throughout most of Europe), but it is also, as Law & Liberty contributing editor James Patterson has shown, based on a conception of Catholicism with no historical background in the United States. The story of modern Christian nationalism, to the extent it’s even a discernible ideology, is largely the same.

The less intellectual corners of the new right offer something even less novel; ideologically, they present a grab bag of racial essentialism, ethnic grievance, and antisemitism of varying degrees of gentility. As with Yarvin, novelty here is restricted to the realm of presentation and promotion, in particular, a delight in subverting social norms of decency.

…..

F. A. Hayek wrote that “old truths … must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.” So too must the critiques of the old falsities. In this regard, we find ourselves at least somewhat fortunate: old bad ideas may be making a comeback, but we stand on the shoulders of giants as we square up to the task of placing them back on the ash-heap of history. We cannot desist from the battle of ideas, but our task is qualitatively different than when we were facing genuine intellectual innovation and foment from illiberals on the left and right.

C. Jarrett Dieterle urges progressives not to “force 20th-century rules on 21st-century workers.” A slice:

According to surveys, gig workers prioritize flexibility and autonomy. Imposing one-size-fits-all rules will result in outcomes such as arranged scheduling for car-share drivers.

In other words, drivers will have less ability to spontaneously log into their apps and earn extra cash whenever they can fit it in. Many companies are likely to restrict and control the number of drivers allowed on their platforms at any one time to manage heightened labor costs under the new rules.

Ultimately, there are better options for helping gig workers. Concepts such as a portable benefits model, which establishes flexible benefit funds that operate similarly to retirement accounts for the self-employed, would allow drivers access to more of the benefits available to full-scale employees without unduly restricting flexibility. A bevy of states, including deep-red Tennessee, deep-blue Maryland and purple Pennsylvania, have launched portable benefit pilot programs in recent years, underscoring the bipartisan potential of this alternative model.

Pictures are sometimes worth much more than 1,000 words – as here, exposing the cluelessness of a newly (in)famous four words. (HT David Henderson)

Pondering Comrade Mamdani’s promise of “the warmth of collectivism” is the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal. A slice:

The inaugural address of a mayor isn’t typically of national interest, but Zohran Mamdani is an exception. The New York City mayor’s speech on New Year’s Day laid out the large scope of his socialist ambition and how little it is rooted in reality.

Give him his due: He has real charisma and political talent. While he says Bernie Sanders is his hero, Mr. Mamdani is the anti-Bernie as a political actor: smiling not snarling, more optimistic than aggrieved. He can almost make socialism sound appealing if you missed the last century, which as it happens he did.

But every so often the 34-year-old mayor says something that reveals his harder-edged politics. In his inaugural it was this: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

That line could only be uttered by someone who overlooks the human misery that has been visited in the name of “collectivism.” The greatest killers of the 20th century put the virtues of the collective above individual rights and liberty. For the cold reality of collective warmth, we recommend “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It was a very cold day in Siberia.

Also appalled by the historical ignorance or indifference of Metropolis’s new mayor is Jonah Goldberg. (HT Scott Lincicome) A slice:

Colloquially, the reason collectivism acquired a bad odor that sometimes even communism did not emit was because of collectivization. At least when one denounces communism, communists spout the usual “but true communism was never really tried!” Precisely because of its bloodless academic nature, the word “collectivism” evades such defenses. No serious person can claim that “true collectivism was never really tried,” in part because, again colloquially, collectivization is the fully realized act of putting collectivism into practice.

The Soviets used collectivization to describe their effort to transform agriculture, and they killed millions in the process. In Ukraine in the early 1930s, collectivization led to such mass man-made starvation and cannibalism that Soviet authorities had to distribute posters that read, “To eat your own children is a barbarian act.”

When I first heard Mamdani refer to the “warmth of collectivism,” I immediately thought of Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History. In one scene, she describes how a slave-laborer fell in the snow from exhaustion. The other slaves—and they were slaves, owned by the state, as Chamberlin would put it—rushed to strip the fallen man’s clothes and belongings. The dying man’s last words were, “It’s so cold.”

Collectivization under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” led to millions more Chinese famine deaths from 1959 to 1961—from a lowball estimate of 20 million to a high of 45 million.

Now, I don’t for a moment think Mamdani has anything like that in mind. Moreover, even if he did, nothing like that can be orchestrated from New York’s City Hall.

But here is what I do think is interesting and worrisome about his use of the term “collectivism.” I can only think of three possibilities for it: 1) Mamdani is ignorant of the term’s historically grounded connotation, 2) he knows it and doesn’t care, or 3) he knows it and does care.

Under the second and third options, he could be trying to reclaim the positive connotation of collectivism—a connotation it has not had for at least a century. Or he could be trying to troll people—like me—into attacking him and overreacting to a word his fans have no problem with.

I suppose there’s a fourth possibility. He has a bad speechwriter—or is one—and just made a stupid, lazy mistake. After all, he could have used “community,” “communal,” “solidarity,” “cooperation,” “shared sacrifice,” or some such treacle.

Tweet

… is from pages 128-129 of Norbert Michel’s excellent, data-rich 2025 book, Crushing Capitalism: How Populist Policies are Threatening the American Dream:

Critics who are dissatisfied with America’s free-enterprise economy reject the notion that people’s voluntary associations in markets, civil society, and families benefit the common good. By implication, these critics want whoever is in power politically to define the common good.

On the other hand, a true free-enterprise system that maximizes people’s ability to freely cooperate to improve their lives produces the closest to a broadly agreed-upon version of the common good. One of the main reasons that the critics’ approach has repeatedly failed is that it denies this reality. Instead, it empowers one small group of people to define the common good for everyone else. Tragically, supporters of this scheme ignore the evidence that more economic freedom leads to more opportunity and more prosperity, and that government barriers to economic freedom reduce people’s ability to improve their lives.

Tweet

Here’s another follow-up letter to a new, and persistent, correspondent.

Mr. L__:

Thanks for sharing the Wall Street Journal report that mentions that, in response to Trump’s tariffs, Nissan is producing more automobiles in the U.S. You conclude that “this is a clear victory for Americans, and, vindication of the president’s tariffs.”

Not so.

First, because producing these vehicles in the U.S. is more costly than producing them abroad, insofar as these vehicles will be offered for sale to Americans, American automobile buyers are made worse off because they’ll pay higher prices. At the very least, neither you nor Trump has any way to know if the gains to U.S. autoworkers from Nissan’s expanded U.S. production exceed the losses inflicted on American auto purchasers.

Second, Nissan’s increase in U.S. automobile production necessarily decreases U.S. production of other goods and services. These tariffs draw American workers, capital, and raw material away from activities at which they have a comparative advantage and into an activity for with they have a comparative disadvantage. The productivity of the U.S. economy falls, causing economic growth over time to be lower than it would otherwise be.

Suppose Trump hires hoodlums to prevent your household from, say, buying chicken from supermarkets and other specialized suppliers. As a result, you set up chicken coups in your backyard and commence to raise and slaughter your own chickens. Your neighbor then shows up, and admiring your chicken coups and observing the time and energy that you and your family members exert to supply your own chickens, announces that Trump has engineered a “victory” for you: Before his intervention, no chicken production occurred in your household, but now, because of Trump’s intervention, you produce your own chickens.

Surely you’d regard your neighbor’s announcement as cockamamie. If it were in your best interest to produce chickens yourself, you’d do so absent Trump’s intervention. The very fact that you produce your own chickens only because Trump has made it too costly for you to acquire chickens from specialized suppliers means that Trump’s protectionism has made your household, not better off, but worse off. The same logic applies to the U.S. and its acquisition of automobiles.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Tweet

Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Editor:

Ram Charan wisely advises Pres. Trump to stop alienating U.S. allies with tariffs (“China Seeks Power, Not Only Trade,” January 2). But the bulk of Mr. Charan’s piece on China is deeply flawed.

His core argument is that Beijing is arranging to build “90% excess production capacity” in “key” industries, which it then uses to “flood markets with subsidized exports.” Sounds scary – until relevant questions are asked.

How do political operatives in Beijing know which industries are “key”? (Are Pres. Xi and his henchmen smarter than markets?) Which Chinese industries shrink as a result of Beijing’s redirection of resources, and might the shrinkage of these industries open new and useful opportunities to economies outside of China? By exporting “key” goods at bargain prices, how can anyone be sure that we Americans and other non-Chinese people are harmed by this bounty from Beijing, especially as it allows us to expand other of our industries? Because excess capacity costs more to build and maintain than it reaps in revenue, how, exactly, does a policy of creating excess capacity make China more powerful given that this policy necessarily makes China poorer? (If we want to weaken China’s economy relative to our own, shouldn’t we encourage Beijing to continue to use resources in this wasteful manner?)

Mr. Charan’s praise for Beijing’s rejection of market forces combines with his recommendation (heaven help us) that Congress create a “Department of Manufacturing” to reveal that Mr. Charan believes that the better economic system is socialism, not capitalism. It’s dismaying that someone can be so clueless about post-war economic history as to suppose that politicians and bureaucrats with the power to commandeer resources will outperform entrepreneurs and free markets at making economies wealthier and innovatively creating the true ‘industries of the future.’

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Tweet

Tom Palmer remembers Dan Grossman, who died on New Year’s Eve:

For those who knew him, Dan Grossman’s passing is a heavy loss. For those who did not, they should know that a great presence has left us, a tireless force for justice and morality, for liberty and dignity.
Dan was an entrepreneur who founded, built, and managed several companies that created value for many people, including customers, suppliers, and employees. He was ever alert to opportunities to create mutual benefit. At the age of fifty he sold his firms and devoted himself to making the liberty movement more effective. He joined many boards and in every case he introduced or strengthened proper accounting practices, solid board governance procedures, and improved management. I worked with the late Ethelmae Humphreys to recruit him to the board of the Foundation of Economic Education many years ago and he was an important reason for the turnaround and revival of that organization. He served on the boards of numerous organizations, including as chairman and then treasurer of Atlas Network.

Dan always proceeded in two steps. First, to determine what was the morally proper course of action. He was morally upright in all matters and doing the right thing mattered greatly to him. Second, to determine the most effective and least costly means to do the right thing, with least costly meaning that more resources would be available for the work of making the world more just, more peaceful, and more free.
Dan Grossman made a difference with his life. It has been an honor to be his friend. He made my life so much better in innumerable ways. I know that I am one among many in that regard. Dan is missed and mourned by many all around the world. May his memory be a blessing.

Here’s the Atlas Network’s remembrance of Dan Grossman.

[DBx: I first met Dan Grossman in 1998 or 1999, when he joined the board of the Foundation for Economic Education and I was FEE’s president. We have been friends ever since. About once each month when Dan wasn’t traveling we would meet in downtown DC for lunch, always at a restaurant near Dan’s residence at the Watergate. Our last lunch was just before this past Thanksgiving. His intellect was razor-sharp; I’ve never known anyone who is more naturally impervious to b.s. and superficially relevant irrelevancies than was Dan. This feature, among many other excellent personal qualities – not least his generosity – made him a trusted, treasured advisor and friend. Like so many other people, I will miss him terribly.]

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post warns progressive Californians – and labor-union honchos – of the self-destructiveness of soaking the rich. Two slices:

Many progressives think of taxation the way teenage boys think about cologne: if some is good, more must be great. California, already reeks of overtaxation, but it’s thinking about trying out its most potent scent yet: a wealth tax. Just a whiff has some of the state’s wealthiest residents fleeing.

…..

Nor will unions stop with billionaires. After the most affluent people put down roots in states with worse weather but better tax climates, these activists will target the next tier of “rich” people who don’t have as much flexibility to flee.

That would be a disaster for California’s economy, and its budget, and eventually, for the union jobs that would be funded by confiscating successful people’s money. Californians who care about the future of their state should reject this proposal, which is the public finance equivalent of dumping an entire bottle of cologne over your head: No matter your intentions, the results will stink.

Also warning against soak-the-rich taxation is my intrepid Mercatus Center colleague, Veronique de Rugy. Two slices:

Start with a basic arithmetic problem that never goes away: High-income households already shoulder a disproportionate share of the federal income-tax burden. The top 1 percent pay roughly 40 percent of income-tax revenues; the top 10 percent pay well over two-thirds. And when taxes and other transfers of wealth are factored in, the system has become increasingly progressive over time.

…..

In other words, the call to tax the rich today makes it harder for young people to become rich tomorrow. Thanks a lot.

That matters not because everyone should be a billionaire but because economic mobility depends on the possibility of outsized success. When the returns on extraordinary or unique effort, risk-taking, and skill acquisition are diminished, fewer people invest in them. The evidence is clear that more progressive tax systems reduce incentives to accumulate human capital and expand businesses over the long run. These costs show up slowly—in lower productivity, slower growth, and fewer opportunities. But they do show up.

Last March, Benn Steil and Elisabeth Harding offered this evidence in support of the economically sound conclusion that protected industries become less-productive industries:

My GMU Econ colleague Bryan Caplan writes of his latest book project – one that’s due out in Fall 2027.

John O. McGinnis looks back on 2025 as “the year of unaffordability.” A slice:

Given that bad government regulation is at the heart of the affordability crisis, the most effective antidote is deregulation. Thus, the most significant source of optimism for classical liberals in 2025 was the Trump administration’s domestic deregulatory agenda. Most importantly, the Trump administration has made substantial changes to the overall regulatory structure. It has emphasized regulatory budgeting and required the deregulation of ten rules for every new rule issued. It has mandated that new regulations be issued, or existing ones survive, only if they are based on the best reading of the statute, thereby suggesting that the administration will reconsider regulations grounded in overly aggressive readings that supported expansive regulation.

GMU Econ alum Nikolai Wenzel isn’t optimistic about the near-term fate of Gotham.

Arnold Kling has an idea for a “Trump Derangement Index.”