Essential Liberty
The Bob Zadek Show
Debt & Taxes
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Debt & Taxes

Halloween happens to fall on a Sunday this year, which means my guest this weekend will have to weave the topic in with the spooky holiday. Chris Edwards, my go-to expert at Cato on all things debt and tax-related, should have no trouble frightening my listeners with his latest analysis.

Where to start? The skyrocketing debt has economists murmuring about inflation. But sometimes the proposed solutions are even more terrifying than the problem itself – as in the case of new taxes on capital gains, corporate income, and even a special so-called "billionaire's tax" on unrealized capital gains. Edwards returns to the show to break down the folly of scapegoating the wealthy, and why this approach is likely to backfire.

All the while, tax revenues have actually grown to their highest rates. Yet rather than using the windfall to reduce debt, Democrats are proposing a new spending binge that makes the 2008 stimulus look like chump change. As always, the government promises that its spending spree will stimulate innovation and growth, but Edwards points to the well-established link between debt and reduced growth.

They say that death and taxes are the two inevitabilities. Massive debt, however, is not inevitable.

Tune in for a special Halloween edition of The Bob Zadek Show to hear how we can turn back the debt clock, or at least stop the ticking time bomb that it represents.

Discussion about this podcast

Essential Liberty
The Bob Zadek Show
Bob talks about the issues that affect our lives on a daily basis from a purely libertarian standpoint. He believes in small government, fewer taxes, and greater personal freedom.<br /><br />America has lost its way, but it cannot and does not need to be reinvented. Our founders were correct about their approach to government, as were John Locke, Adam Smith and the other great political philosophers who influenced them. The country’s first principles are economic and social freedom, republicanism, the rule of law, and liberty. Bob believes we must take the best of our founding principles and work from them because a country without principles is just a landmass.