My March 23 Capitol Hill speech defending tax havens against fiscal protectionism is now a two-part Youtube series, complete with the powerpoint slides from my presentation. Unfortunately, we are fighting a defensive battle and the other side is making progress. If you have any suggestions for making stronger arguments for tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

The Economist has posted rebuttals to first-round arguments in my tax debate with French economist Thomas Piketty. Piketty seems to think that everyone with a high income has a “grabbing hand” that comes at someone else’s expense.

The debate over tax rates on the rich is important, but Piketty is important in himself because he is widely cited in the media and elsewhere as if he were a neutral authority. For example, President Obama’s budget featured a chart showing that the top 1 percent of earners have greatly increased their share of national income over the decades, using Piketty’s numbers.

But Alan Reynolds has found serious flaws in Piketty’s calculations. Piketty bases his calculations on tax return data, but reported income under the federal income tax has changed greatly over time. 

The bottom line is to be suspicious when you see a chart on income trends that is sourced to this advocate of 80 percent tax rates.

That’s the title of an alarming, but informative, video over at Reason TV. The video contains lots of eye-popping comparisons between amounts being spent on bailouts/“stimulus” and previous big-ticket government expenditures like the World War II and the New Deal.

And if you haven’t done so already, check out my colleague Dan Mitchell’s videos on the fallacies of Keynesian economics and the folly of so-called fiscal “stimulus” packages.

The spirit of 1776 is alive and well in Kauai:

Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii’s Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park — for free.

“We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part,” Slack said. “Just like everyone’s sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn’t wait anymore.”

It’s amazing what a little private initiative and economic incentive can do. Contrast this story with that of a bridge being built to connect Microsoft campuses in Redmond, WA with federal “stimulus” money.

I was a panelist for a Tax Notes forum on April 3 regarding Obama’s tax policies. The other panelists were Len Burman of the Urban Institute and Gene Steuerle of the Peterson Foundation. It was an expert and ideologically diverse panel, but nobody was fond of Obama’s fiscal policy direction. (In the photo, that’s former CBO director Rudy Penner to my left. Photo credit to Derek Squires)

Tax Notes summarized the discussion: “A diverse panel of economists and tax specialists largely agreed … that President Obama’s tax and budget plans at best would fail to forestall long-term fiscal ruin and could even hasten its arrival.” One point of agreement was that the tax code is too complex and it doesn’t need the complicated new tax credits that Obama has proposed.

Where we differed was on the need for added federal revenue, and herein lies the big tax policy battle ahead. Len thought that some form of new value-added tax (VAT) was inevitable in order that the government could raise more money. I am increasingly hearing that argument from top fiscal scholars, and I fear that the drumbeat for a VAT will get louder.

Dan Mitchell and I are dead-set against a VAT because it will be a tool to fund even larger government, as we discuss in Global Tax Revolution. But supporters of limited government need to start watching this issue and making preparations to ward off a Euro-style money machine.

Here are a few highlights from Cato Today, a daily email from the Cato Institute. You can subscribe, here

• The new edition of Regulation examines the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the legal drinking age and climate change policies.

• In The Week, Will Wilkinson argues that the Obama administration should rethink its drug policy and that prominent marijuana users should “come out of the closet.”

• Gene Healy points out in the Washington Examiner why the Serve America Act (SAA) is no friend to freedom.

• The Cato Weekly Video features Rep. Paul Ryan discussing the Obama administration’s budget.

• In Wednesday’s Cato Daily Podcast, Patri Friedman discusses seasteading and the prospects for liberty on the high seas.

We are in the middle of a nine-day debate at The Economist on the proposition that “the rich should pay higher taxes.” I’m on the “no” side of the proposition. French economist Thomas Piketty is on the “yes” side, arguing that we ought to impose an 80 percent tax on those with the highest incomes.

I need help! Thus far, readers are favoring Piketty 57 percent to 43 percent. Please go to the site and register your vote.

Are website visitors actually reading the statements, or do their votes just reflect their existing political biases? Are they mainly Europeans or Americans? We don’t know, but majorities in favor of 80 percent tax rates does not bode well for economic freedom.

On Friday, Piketty and I post our rebuttals to opening statements, and next week we make closing arguments.