November 4, 2013

Young Frogs Hop to New Ponds

By Gary Jason
A recent story concerning the French youth is fascinating.  It reports that a poll conducted by the leftist newspaper Le Monde shows that the French are not happy with their socialist government.  Seventy percent now believe that taxes are too high, and 80% hold that President Hollande's economic policies are on the wrong track.  And 54% believe that high tax rates increase, rather than decrease, inequality. Under the socialists, of course, the government has swollen. By next year, France will surpass Denmark as the biggest government on Earth measured as a percentage of GDP (at 57%). This is driving the French tax collectors into a frenzy of devising ways to pluck fiscal feathers from the national goose, no matter how much hissing it causes.  (The idea of cutting spending is, of course, dismissed out of hand.)  Tax agents now look for visible signs of wealth, such as fancy cars, to target individuals for audit.  This has...(Read Full Article)