Receive Updates from Chris Edwards
Chris Edwards is the director of tax
policy studies at the Cato Institute, and
editor of www.DownsizingGovernment.org.
Before
joining Cato, Edwards was a senior economist on the congressional Joint
Economic Committee, a manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and an economist
with the Tax Foundation.
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Chris Edwards (May 21, 2012)
Is Washington gridlock the GOP’s fault? That’s what Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution claim in a recent... more
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Chris Edwards (May 20, 2012)
Occasional episodes of government mismanagement explode into big scandals, such as the General Services Administration’s party in Las Vegas that wasted more than... more
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Chris Edwards (May 14, 2012)
The Washington Times discusses whether Mitt Romney’s political and policy team is looking too much like George W. Bush’s team. The reporter quotes me in his... more
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Chris Edwards (May 13, 2012)
My new piece at Daily Caller looks at how the Democratic Party’s approach to tax policy has changed over the decades.
The piece was prompted by a recent... more
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Chris Edwards (May 06, 2012)
There’s an internal contradiction in the way that Keynesian-oriented economists and policymakers address the federal budget situation. I’ve noticed it over and over. A... more
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Chris Edwards (May 04, 2012)
The Sunday New York Times described Apple’s successful efforts to reduce its U.S. and California corporate tax burdens. The article hints that the situation is a... more
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Chris Edwards (Apr 24, 2012)
Andrew Sullivan cited an op-ed of mine last week regarding the complexity of the tax code.
One person commenting on Andrew’s article said:
I am a corporate tax lawyer with... more
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Chris Edwards (Apr 22, 2012)
The Tax Foundation reported that Tuesday was Tax Freedom Day (TFD), which is the day that Americans stop “working for the government” through their tax payments and start... more
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Chris Edwards (Apr 21, 2012)
In recent weeks President Obama has been on a quixotic search-and-destroy mission for the few remaining millionaires who aren't already paying a huge pile of taxes.... more
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Chris Edwards (Apr 16, 2012)
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released the fifth edition of its “Rich States, Poor States” report yesterday. For fiscal wonks the report is a fun read, as... more
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Chris Edwards (Apr 08, 2012)
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that there are more union members in the public sector than in the private sector in the United States. Thirty-nine percent of... more
By
Chris Edwards (Apr 01, 2012)
When House Budget chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his tax reform plan recently, liberals pounced on it as an unfair giveaway to the rich. In The Washington Post, E.J.... more
By
Chris Edwards (Mar 25, 2012)
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has introduced his annual budget blueprint. The plan will likely pass the House but won’t become law this year.
However, the... more
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Chris Edwards (Mar 19, 2012)
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency that constructs and maintains a wide range of infrastructure for military and civilian purposes.1 This essay concerns the... more
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Chris Edwards (Mar 05, 2012)
David Boaz was watching CNN on Friday and noticed a chart that looked suspicious.
President Obama and other policymakers have expressed concern about the high U.S. corporate... more
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Chris Edwards (Mar 04, 2012)
The Washington Post reports that a doctor in Texas bilked Medicare and Medicaid out of $375 million. That’s a lot of money, but improper payments represent somewhere... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 27, 2012)
President Obama has a new budget and a new Treasury study that promise “tax reform.” He says that he wants to abolish “dozens of tax loopholes,” but he also proposes a... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 26, 2012)
The congresswomen’s comments are so cartoonish, I don’t even have to comment on them. But I thought Cato readers would like to know what the minority leader of the U.S. House... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 21, 2012)
When President Obama released his FY2013 budget, it was more of the same—trillion-dollar deficits, huge spending, and tax hikes on high-earners. The president... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 18, 2012)
The Washington Post did a great job last week comparing spending earmarks by members of Congress with the locations of property they own in their states. Some members are... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 13, 2012)
Like other government hand-out programs, the unemployment insurance system suffers from a substantial fraud problem. The Washington Post reports that 90 D.C. city... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 12, 2012)
One of the issues discussed in my new essay on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is the lobbying by groups of American Indians seeking official tribal status. The BIA has... more
By
Chris Edwards (Feb 06, 2012)
Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at Cato and editor of www.DownsizingGovernment.org. He is a top expert on federal and state tax and budget issues. Before... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 05, 2012)
CBO has released a study comparing the wages and benefits of private sector and federal non-military workers. The study uses statistical techniques to make comparisons with... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 04, 2012)
It’s been a year since Republicans assumed control in the House in the wake of the 2010 elections, which were powered by Tea Party concerns about massive federal spending and... more
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Chris Edwards (Feb 03, 2012)
Cato has published a new section on www.downsizinggovernment.org that examines the Department of the Interior.
Interior is not one of the largest departments in terms of... more
By
Chris Edwards (Jan 30, 2012)
Let’s do some fact checking on President Obama’s corporate tax comments in the State of the Union.
Claim: “Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and... more
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Chris Edwards (Jan 28, 2012)
The release of Mitt Romney’s tax returns is generating debate about the federal tax rates on capital gains and dividends of 15 percent. Great, let’s have a debate about why... more
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Chris Edwards (Jan 22, 2012)
My friend David Brunori announced this week that he is no longer a “liberal” but a libertarian, although he says of the “bleeding heart” variety.
This is interesting because... more
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Chris Edwards (Jan 21, 2012)
Chris Edward's of Cato and Downsizing Government explains how Obama's latest proposal to merge government agencies won't make the federal government... more
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Chris Edwards (Jan 13, 2012)
The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama administration will propose a 0.5 percent cost-of-living pay increase for federal workers in its upcoming budget. The... more