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.]
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
