The new paternalists advocate using excise taxes to discourage undesirable behavior and to offset costs imposed on third parties. But using tax policy to socially engineer behavior gives rise to another social pathology: wasteful political entrepreneurship.
Adam J. Hoffer is an assistant professor of Economics at the University of WisconsinLa Crosse specializing in political economy, public choice, and public finance.
William F. Shughart II is a Distinguished Research Advisor at the Independent Institute and the J. Fish Smith Professor in Public Choice in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.
Michael D. Thomas is an associate professor in the Economics and Finance Department at Creighton University.
Economic PolicyEconomyFederal Tax PolicyGovernment and PoliticsLaw and LibertyPolitical TheoryPublic ChoiceRegulationTaxesTaxes and BudgetThe Nanny State
Other Independent Review articles by Adam J. Hoffer | |
Fall 2021 | Taxing Sin |
Fall 2015 | We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money |
Other Independent Review articles by William F. Shughart II | ||
Fall 2024 | The DOJs Complaint against Apple Doubles Down on Earlier Antitrust Law Enforcement Mistakes | |
Spring 2023 | FDRs Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism | |
Winter 2022/23 | The Chevron Doctrine: Its Rise and Fall, and the Future of the Administrative State | |
[View All (10)] |
Other Independent Review articles by Michael D. Thomas | ||
Winter 2024/25 | A More Humane Altruism: Effective Altruism Meets Humanomics | |
Winter 2023/24 | Living Better Together: Social Relations and Economic Governance in the Work of Ostrom and Zelizer | |
Fall 2020 | Markets against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public, and Private | |
[View All (5)] |