Doug Bandow Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. W ith John McCain's big victory in New Hampshire, a genuine race seems to be developing for the Republican nomination. Not that there's much reason to care who wins. The most basic issue is taxes. Today, Americans turn more money over to government than they spend on shelter, food, clothing and transportation combined.
People face the highest peacetime tax burden ever.
Washington alone takes 40 percent of the nation's economic wealth for its own use. Revenues have been growing 7.6 per cent annually since Bill Clinton's election in 1992, two and a half times the rate of inflation. A burden that would shock the average medieval serf would be more bearable if Americans were getting good value for their money. But the budget today reflects organized looting on a vast scale. Profitable businesses collect subsidies to invest overseas.