by Dan Mitchell | May 26, 2026 | Blogs, Taxation
Given California’s well-deserved reputation for tax-and-spend policies, you won’t be surprised to learn that state government spending over the past decade has grown much faster than population plus inflation. And that’s true whether looking...
by Dan Mitchell | May 25, 2026 | Blogs, Government Spending, Health Care
As a fiscal policy wonk, my usual concern about Medicaid (the government health problem for low-income people) is that it is a huge – and rapidly increasing – fiscal burden. As captured by this chart. But sometimes I get agitated not by...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 29, 2026 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I sometimes root for bad things to happen. In my defense, I don’t like bad things, but in some cases I think bad outcomes will generate powerful evidence against bad policies. And this can result in a net increase in...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 8, 2026 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I constantly remind people that government spending is the most important fiscal variable, not deficits/debt. After all, it is government spending that drains resources from the productive sector of the economy, regardless of whether it is financed...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2026 | Blogs, States
My First Theorem of Government is the simple observation that insiders are the biggest beneficiaries of government. I was motivated to release that theorem because bad news for taxpayers is good news for bureaucrats, consultants, contractors, lobbyists, and...
