by Dan Mitchell | Sep 26, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Regulations
Moral panics in Washington are not a recipe for good policy. That’s why the current attack on vaping (the use of e-cigarettes) is so misguided. Policy makers want to ban and/or restrict e-cigarettes (especially flavored varieties) for two reasons. Consuming...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 25, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
Social Security is projected to consume an ever-larger share of America’s national income, mostly thanks to an aging population. Indeed, demographic change is why the program is bankrupt, with an inflation-adjusted cash-flow deficit of more than $42 trillion. Yet...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 24, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Trade
According to the most-recent edition of Economic Freedom of the World, Brazil is only ranked #120, which is lower than nations such as Greece, Haiti, and China. Brazil gets a horrible grade on regulation, and it’s also in the bottom half of all nations when looking...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 23, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
When “basic income” became an issue a few years ago, I was instinctively opposed because I don’t want Uncle Sam sending big checks to everyone in the country. But I admitted that there were a few reasonable arguments for the idea. Most notably, plans for a basic...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 22, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
The International Monetary Fund is infamous for its advocacy of higher taxes. Heck, it’s not merely advocacy. The international bureaucracy uses bailout money as a tool to coerce politicians into approving higher tax burdens. This is so reprehensible that I’ve...
