Author Archives : Dan Mitchell
To the Extent America Has an Infrastructure Crisis, that’s an Argument for Decentralization rather than a Bigger Federal Government
Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute looks at the topic of infrastructure spending and I’m left with mixed feelings. Some of what he writes is very good. Yes, the claims of an “infrastructure crisis” by President Obama, many liberals…are exaggerated. …yes, existing laws and regulations turn infrastructure projects into boondoggles that take an order of magnitude longer to complete […]
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Another Brutally Disturbing Example of Government-Run Healthcare from the United Kingdom
It’s time to add to our collection of horror stories from the U.K.’s government-run healthcare system (previous examples can be found here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, and here). What makes today’s story different, though, is that the bureaucracy not only is denying care to a small child, but also seeking to prevent the family from seeking treatment elsewhere. Check out these excerpts […]
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America’s Ever-Expanding Regulatory Swamp
Maybe I’m biased because I mostly work on fiscal policy, but it certainly seems feasible to come up with rough estimates for the damage caused by onerous taxes and excessive spending. On a personal level, for instance, we have a decent idea of how much the government takes from us and we know the aggravation […]
read more...Financed by American Tax Dollars, the OECD Endorses Obama’s Statist Agenda for the U.S. Economy
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is once again pushing for bigger and more intrusive in the United States. The international bureaucracy’s “Economic Survey” of the United States reads like it was produced by some interns at the Democratic National Committee. Since the OECD […]
read more...The Simple Lesson We Should Learn from Global Economics
I very rarely feel sorry for statists. After all, these are the people who think that their feelings of envy and inadequacy justify bigger and more coercive government. And I get especially irked when I think about how their authoritarian policies will hurt the most vulnerablein society. But I nonetheless feel sorry for statists when I […]
read more...The Punitive Economic Cost of Class-Warfare Taxation
I’ve already shared a bunch of data and evidence on the importance of low tax rates. A review of the academic evidence by the Tax Foundation found overwhelming support for the notion that lower tax rates are good for growth. An economist from Cornell found lower tax rates boost GDP. Other economists found lower tax rates boost job creation, savings, […]
read more...Laughing about Corporate Inversions
There’s lot of criticism of the IRS and the tax code on the Internet. Indeed, I like to think I contribute my fair share. But I’m surprised at (what I consider to be be) the limited amount of humor on those topics. As I look through my archives, I can find only a few cartoons about the overall tax […]
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A Lower Corporate Rate Is a Practical And Good Response to Inversions
It boggles the mind to think that the United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. But it’s even more amazing that America arguably has the most punitive corporate tax rate in the entire world. Here’s some of what I wrote on the topic for today’s U.K.-based Telegraph. …the United States has the highest corporate tax rate […]
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An Italian Doctor Joins the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame
In April of 2013, I introduced a Moocher Hall of Fame to “celebrate” some very odious examples of welfare dependency. Since that time, I keep thinking that it’s time to do something similar for government bureaucrats. This compilation from last December would be a good place to start, though I’d have to figure out whether to have group memberships so […]
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