This book by Alan Viard and Robert Carroll proposes to completely replace the income tax system with a progressive consumption tax.

The "Buffett Rule's" stated goal of making millionaires pay the same tax rates as the middle class is appealing. Unfortunately, the proposal is based on inaccurate claims about the tax system and its enactment would penalize the investment that fuels long-run economic growth.

Roger Scruton discusses why the environmental movement fits well under the umbrella of conservatism through his new book,  How to Think Seriously About the Planet.

Alan D. Viard, a resident scholar at AEI, reviews the budget outlook, the need for tax reform and the benefits of moving to a progressive consumption tax. He also discusses his forthcoming book, Progressive Consumption Taxation: The X Tax Revisited, which he coauthored with Robert Carroll of Ernst & Young. The book will be published by AEI Press in the Spring.

The best way to attract investment to the United States is not to penalize domestic firms that invest abroad, but to remove penalties on firms, domestic or foreign, that invest here. Numerous governments around the world have reached similar conclusions about their own economies and have reduced corporate income tax rates to attract investment to their shores.

We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week. Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls, moving toward 50 percent approval. But his weakness was apparent in his State of the Union address: issues. 

Most of Americans believe that all should start at more or less the same place with more or less the same opportunities to succeed and that government should protect the returns for hard work yet they are marginalized by a 30 percent coalition that effectively wants the government to penalize success.

For many in the U.S., the worrisome events occurring in Europe recall the 2008 financial crisis. If Greece or some other country should fail to meet its debt obligations, the result could be much like the 2007 mortgage meltdown in the United States. Why is all this happening again?