Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review:
The American Left has shared this maddened perplexity at its country’s character and this hope for its effacement. Marxists at home and abroad were always mystified by the failure of socialism in the U.S. They thought that, as the most advanced capitalist society, we would have had the most restive proletariat. Instead we have had a broad and largely satisfied middle class. Even our unions, in their early history, were anti-statist, their radicalism anarchistic rather than socialist. At the Progressive convention of 1912, Jane Addams saw “a worldwide movement toward juster social conditions” that “the United States, lagging behind other great nations, has been unaccountably slow to embody in political action.”
Hence the search for foreign models. In the early 20th century, the Left was fascinated with all things German and brimmed with enthusiasm for Bismarck’s welfare state. Woodrow Wilson, in a sentiment typical of progressive intellectuals, deemed Bismarck’s creation an “admirable system”; he was less admiring of the American Founding. Herbert Croly, the founder of The New Republic and one of the most significant progressive intellectuals of the era, was another Bismarck admirer. Croly advocated rule by “expert social engineers” to bring to these shores the best innovations of the modern dictatorial movements taking over in Europe....
The Left’s search for a foreign template to graft onto America grew more desperate. Why couldn’t we be more like them — like the French, like the Swedes, like the Danes? Like any people with a larger and busier government overawing the private sector and civil society? You can see it in Sicko, wherein Michael Moore extols the British national health-care system, the French way of life, and even the munificence of Cuba; you can hear it in all the admonitions from left-wing commentators that every other advanced society has government child care, or gun control, or mass transit, or whatever socialistic program or other infringement on our liberty we have had the wisdom to reject for decades.
Daniel J. Mitchell, the Cato Institute:
The former communists running Russia apparently understand tax policy better than the crowd in charge of U.S. tax policy. Not only does Russia have a 13 percent flat tax, but the government has just announced it will eliminate the capital gains tax (which shouldn’t exist in a pure flat tax anyhow).
Here’s a passage from the BBC report:
Russia will scrap capital gains tax on long-term direct investment from 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev has said. …Mr Medvedev told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that long-term direct investment was “necessary for modernisation”. …Its oil revenues fund, which has been financing the deficit, is expected to end next year, and the government wants to attract more foreign investment to boost the economy.
Sounds like President Medvedev has watched my video explaining why there should be no capital gains tax. Now we just need to get American politicians to pay attention.