Why Must America Be Last In Market Reform?

When even Russia and Sweden are outpacing us, something is horribly wrong.

by Rod D. Martin
June 24, 2005

Ever wonder why so many Americans criticize Russia's free market reforms?

Maybe it's because they're making us look bad.

Last week, Russia abolished the death tax. Yes, Russia: the land of the proletarian revolution, where the accumulation of wealth was itself abolished eighty years ago in a hail of bullets and blood. Acting on President Vladimir Putin's proposal made just this April, the State Duma voted 414-2 not only to end the confiscatory taxation of inheritances, but also the gift tax to close relatives, something else more “enlightened” Americans have not quite managed to do.

This is just the latest in a string of truly earthshaking reforms enacted under Putin, perhaps the most dramatic of which is Russia's July 26, 2000 adoption of a 13% flat tax. Besides wiping out crippling corruption in the tax collection system and doubling both compliance and receipts, Russia's flat tax has produced significant economic growth in a land still staggering from the …