Over the years, I’ve shared many charts, graphs, and tables to help people understand that the welfare state is fundamentally unsustainable. And, assuming there’s not genuine entitlement reform, many of these fiscal estimates show that the United States has a very…
Dan Mitchell
Daniel J. Mitchell is the President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation. Dr. Mitchell advocates limited government and fundamental tax reform, and is the nation’s leading opponent of tax harmonization schemes developed by the Brussels-based European Union, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations.
In addition to fiscal policy, Dr. Mitchell is a trenchant observer of economic developments and an expert on Social Security reform – particularly the fiscal policy impact of reform and what the US can learn from other nations that have created personal retirement accounts.
Crying About Obamacare
I asked back in September whether all the bad news about Obamacare meant it was time to feel sorry for President Obama and other statists. Some people apparently didn’t realize I was being sarcastic, so I got some negative feedback. I’ve since learned to be more…
A Primer on the Laffer Curve to Help Understand Why Obama’s Class-Warfare Tax Policy Won’t Work
My main goal for fiscal policy is shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and lowering the burden of government spending. But I’m also motivated by a desire for better tax policy, which means lower tax rates, less double taxation, and fewer corrupting…
New CBO Numbers Show a Remarkably Simple Path to a Balanced Budget
A just-released report from the bean counters at the Congressional Budget Office is getting lots of attention because the bureaucrats are now admitting that Obamacare will impose much more damage to the economy than they previously predicted. Of course, many people…
Obama’s Dismal Legacy of European-Style Long-Run Unemployment
Looking at labor markets, my biggest concern is the drop in labor force participation. The data from the Labor Department on the employment-population ratio, for instance, suggest a permanent reduction in the share of the population that is working. And since economic…
What Motivates the Left, Envy or Greed?
Why do statists support higher tax rates? The most obvious answer is greed. In other words, leftists want more tax money since they personally benefit when there’s a larger burden of government spending. And the greed can take many forms. They may want bigger…
Ideal Toys for Left-Wing Children
Imagine you’re a statist and you want to raise your kids to have the same spiteful and envious mindset. What’s the best approach? Well, sending your children to a government schoolis an obvious first step. But kids sometimes rebel against big-government orthodoxy, so…
MyRAs Are the Wrong Way of Helping Ordinary People Save Money
As part of his State-of-the-Union speech, President Obama announced he was going to unilaterally create a new retirement savings account that supposedly would be available to all workers. Employers would be mandated to facilitate these”MyRA” accounts, and the money…
Yet another Example of the Failure of Keynesian Economics
Early last year, with the sequester about to begin, President Obama stated that “these cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls.” He made this statement…
We Need a Debate about the Size of Government, but It Helps to Understand Basic Fiscal Facts
Self awareness is supposed to be a good thing, so I’m going to openly acknowledge that I have an unusual fixation on the size of government. I don’t lose a wink of sleep thinking about deficits, but I toss and turn all night fretting about the overall burden of…