Richard W. Rahn

RAHN: Democrats’ hypocrisy with the rich

Did you know that President Obama is responsible for the loss of more U.S. jobs than any other person? Did you know that Sen. John F. Kerry and his wife are three to four times as rich as Mitt and Ann Romney, according to the New York Times, yet paid a lower tax rate than the Romneys in 2003, the year before Mr. Kerry ran for president?

August 27, 2012

RAHN: Stop global economic malpractice

Two centuries ago, it was common practice for the doctors to bleed a patient in the belief that it would get rid of the "vapors" that were thought to be causing the illness. As a result, most patients got worse and many died. Much of the world is now suffering from equally incompetent politicos playing economic doctors.

August 20, 2012

RAHN: Economic lessons from the Olympics

Do you admire what the Olympic athletes have been able to accomplish, and do you think they should be applauded for their outstanding performances? Most people in the world would answer the question in the affirmative. Most people also admire and applaud great musicians and artists.

August 13, 2012

RAHN: Resist the U.N.’s disability convention

Which level of government do you think should have the responsibility for protecting the rights of the disabled -- local, state, federal or the United Nations? The United States has been a global leader in protecting the disabled and advancing its interests.

August 6, 2012

RAHN: No excuse for bad policies

The Obama administration and its apologists, including many in the media, keep telling us that the Great Recession was the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s, and that is why the recovery has been so anemic. Is that true?

July 30, 2012

RAHN: Irrational infatuation with biofuels

Are you upset about rapidly rising food costs and high gas prices? You can thank members of Congress and the administration for this situation. Much of the United States is in the midst of a major drought. That's not the fault of the political class, but those folks have made the consequences of the drought far worse for the entire world.

July 23, 2012

RAHN: Obama plans to fund government for eight days

When President Obama announced that he again wanted to increase taxes on the top 2 percent of taxpayers, I would have recommended to Mitt Romney that he reply by saying: "President Obama has called for a tax increase on job creators, which will only fund the government for eight days, while I have an economic growth program that will fund the government for eight years and beyond.

July 16, 2012

RAHN: Rise of the global tax collectors

The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to tax Americans at the federal level. Yet Congress continues to give away this most fundamental responsibility to international organizations, the most dangerous of which is the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

July 9, 2012

RAHN: Similar problems, similar solutions

SAN PEDRO, BELIZE

July 2, 2012

RAHN: Constitutional fix to overspending

Tea Party members are going to be very unhappy. Many of the new members of the House and Senate that the Tea Party helped elect are already becoming part of the political class, as evidenced by their votes for continued farm subsidies, refusals to put reasonable limits on the growth of the food- stamp program, support for unaccountable international organizations, and on and on.

June 25, 2012

RAHN: Wanted: Servants, not celebrities

Barack Obama has been loudly proclaiming that he is not responsible as president for the big increase in spending because it was already "baked in the cake." He could have been more accurate by noting that under the Constitution, Congress is responsible for spending.

June 18, 2012

RAHN: Wrong tools for the job

Assume you are a skilled heart surgeon and your patient needs a new heart valve, but you were given a spoon rather than a scalpel to cut open a chest. Relying on the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) to cure the lack of job growth is going to be no more effective than giving a heart surgeon a spoon.

June 11, 2012

RAHN: Taxation goes global

What government unit has the right to tax you - your local government, regional or state government, federal government or multinational organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Health Organization? The reason the question is becoming more important is that rising numbers of politically powerful persons and institutions are calling for global taxes on such things as financial transactions, tobacco, sugar and carbon emissions.

June 4, 2012

RAHN: Spending lies run into facts

Many in the political class, including President Obama and many members of Congress, have an interest in confusing, rather than enlightening, the public.

May 28, 2012

RAHN: How soon they forget

If you are a nonimmigrant American reading this, do you know why your ancestors came to America? The fact is, a large percentage of immigrants were trying to escape various forms of government persecution, including religious and tax persecution.

May 21, 2012

RAHN: Killers of banks and jobs

Last week, Jamie Dimon, CEO of the nation's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, revealed that the bank had made a $2 billion-plus trading mistake. The bank has more than $2 trillion in assets and made a profit of about $20 billion last year.

May 14, 2012

RAHN: Austerity is blamed

Denial is leading to collective economic suicide in Europe and the United States. The French on Sunday elected a socialist president who wants to raise taxes on those elusive rich and keep spending as if there is no tomorrow.

May 7, 2012

RAHN: Geithner’s willful negligence

What would you think of a secretary of the Treasury who failed to do serious cost-benefit analysis about regulations that could cost millions of Americans their jobs and cause innocent people to be subject to political abuse or worse and yet have almost no benefit to the United States?

April 30, 2012

RAHN: Corporate tax madness

The United States already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, but the Obama administration is proposing to make the U.S. even less competitive internationally by reducing the corporate tax deferral on income made abroad.

April 23, 2012

RAHN: Buffett rule’s deceitful consequences

Do you think it is more important to have a tax policy that raises the most revenue at the least cost in order to maximize job growth and economic opportunity or to have a tax policy like the Buffett rule, which falsely claims it would make all millionaires pay a higher tax rate than their secretaries?

April 16, 2012