Sam Bowman

A Taxpayers’ Alliance report released today finds that the government has raised taxes 299 times since May 2010, and only cut taxes 119 times.

I’m not surprised about the direction of changes to the tax code, but the sheer number of tax increases is really quite amazing. Eight years ago, George Osborne said he was in favour of “simpler and flatter taxes”. I’m not sure what happened to that.

One attractive aspect of an EU exit would be the exit of the Common External Tariff. As Daniel Hannan has pointed out, the Single Market is more like a customs union than a free trade bloc. All goods coming into Britain from outside the EU are subject to tariffs, designed to protect European industries from cheaper competition.

I've written for PoliticsHome today about why the whole debate over same-sex marriage misses the point. Why are we even having a discussion about which groups of people should be allowed to 'marry' others, I ask, when marriage has historically been a private institution that had nothing to do with the state? 

Shale gas seems to be sparking an energy revolution in the United States, but has made little traction in the UK. In his column for The Scotsman yesterday, Peter Jones discussed the main problem with shale in the UK compared with the US:

Madsen says the news that we waste up to half the food we produce is a big reason to be cheerful:

Much is wasted in developing countries between farm and consumer because it is stored or transported badly, with some of it consumed by pests or allowed to rot.  In the developed world there are over-zealous sell-by dates and a reluctance by retailers to take misshapen vegetables, or a tendency to promote over-buying by generous two-for-one offers.

Following the benefits cap debate today, I can’t help but think that, yet again, the government has missed the point. Yes, the cap will save some money. Virtually everything the government spends money on needs to be cut. But where are the pro-growth policies? Where are the jobs that people on welfare are supposed to take? And where is the wholesale reform of the state that would allow the really big cuts to be made?

The RSA has blogged about the Bleeding Heart Libertarians, who I’ve also written about in the past. The RSA give a fair outline of what the bleeding hearts believe:

In between the turkey, spiced beef and mugs of hot port, I spent some of Christmas thinking about the state. Specifically, how to make it smaller.

Milton Friedman used to say that cutting taxes would force governments to cut spending to make ends meet. The last ten years has basically proved him wrong. Why cut spending when you can spend more, tax less and let the next lot pay the bill?

The old ‘tax cuts first’ strategy is dead. For a smaller state, we need to cut spending as we cut taxes, and avoid government borrowing as much as possible.

A festive video from the people who brought you the Hayek-Keynes rap.