by Dan Mitchell | Mar 5, 2026 | Blogs, Government Spending, States
If you follow state fiscal policy, there’s a very important battle happening in the Pacific Northwest. Democrats in the state of Washington are trying to muster the votes to push through an income tax. As depicted by the chart, the spending burden...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 3, 2026 | Blogs, Taxation
Is it time to pack our belongings and head to Argentina, where Javier Milei is dramatically improving economic policy and cultural attitudes? I’m joking, but also not joking. The reason I’m not joking is that there’s a very depressing...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 2, 2026 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
One of the key insights of good tax policy is that people respond to incentives. If tax rates are punitive, people will do what they can to protect themselves from predatory government. Especially if they have any ability to control the timing,...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 1, 2026 | Blogs, Taxation
Class-warfare tax policy is always a bad idea. Economists generally don’t like class-warfare policies because it is foolish to impose high marginal tax rates on productive behaviors such as investment and entrepreneurship. Politicians should not like...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 28, 2026 | Blogs, Economics
Back in 2024, J.D. Vance picked a fight with Frederic Bastiat. He lost, unsurprisingly. What Vance did not understand (or pretended not to understand) is that government intervention has “unseen” effects that are almost always negative. Today, let’s...
