Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
New CF&P “Economics 101” Video Highlights Key
Lessons From European Fiscal Crisis
(Washington, D.C., Wednesday, November 16, 2011) The latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), narrated by Silvia Morandotti, a student at The University of Milan, draws upon the European sovereign debt turmoil to provide timely lessons for US policymakers. Entitled, “The European Fiscal Crisis and Lessons for America,” the video puts a spotlight on the ongoing crack-up of the Eurozone, and explains how the United States can avoid a similar fate.
The video offers five key lessons from Europe: 1) Higher taxes mean bigger government, not lower deficits; 2) Politicians cannot be allowed to impose a value-added tax; 3) Big government slows growth, but also cripples the human spirit; 4) Nations reach a dangerous tipping point when a majority of people live off government; and 5) Bailouts don’t work.
The US fiscal outlook has been severely darkened thanks to the spending binge of Presidents Bush and Obama. By following these five recommendations, however, policymakers can successfully reverse course before America suffers a Greek-style fiscal collapse.
Links to the video: YouTube | Blip.TV | Dailymotion
“Lawmakers are currently focusing on deficits, and historically that means they will be tempted to raise taxes, which would be a huge mistake,” said CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan. He continued, “The European lesson in a nutshell is that you cannot tax your way out of a spending problem.”
“European politicians have driven their welfare-states off a cliff” added Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. “With their sovereign debt crisis exploding before our eyes,” he concluded, “even politicians ought to be able to conclude that high-tax welfare states are not sustainable.”
Executive Summary
Many European welfare states have been caught in a downward spiral of taxes, spending, and debt. This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity identifies key lessons for policymakers seeking to avoid the inevitable fiscal crisis caused by the welfare state.
This new video is part of CF&P’s Economics 101 video series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people. This is the fifteenth video in the series.
The other Econ 101 videos: Free Markets, Not Redistribution, Is Best Way to Reduce Poverty, Seven Reasons Why Tax Increases Are the Wrong Approach; Tax Competition: A Powerful Force to Restrain Big Government; Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government; Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way Around; Indexing the Capital Gains Tax to Protect Taxpayers from Inflation; Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare; The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws; Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities; Cost of the Internal Revenue Code; Lessons Learned From Sweden; Government Monopolies; Moral Hazard; and Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes.
Web Page for Economics 101 Videos:
http://freedomandprosperity.org/videos/economics-101-series/
CF&P Foundation has also released more than four-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, Six Reasons Why the Capital Gains Tax Should Be Abolished, a three part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://freedomandprosperity.org/videos/economic-lessons-series/
Web Links:
Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZzJE7i8JWY
Dailymotion
http://blip.tv/economics/the-european-fiscal-crisis-and-lessons-for-america-5740285
Blip.TV
http://blip.tv/economics/the-european-fiscal-crisis-and-lessons-for-america-5740285
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
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