The Department of Labor has issued its monthly employment report and the item that will attract the most attention is that the unemployment rate marginally increased to 7.3 percent. That number is worthy of some attention, but I think it distracts attention from a far…
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.
New York City Is About to Become New France
We know that countries suffer when taxes get too high, in part because investors, entrepreneurs, and other successful taxpayers escape to jurisdiction with less oppressive fiscal regimes. France is a glaring example. On steroids. We know that states also suffer when…
Obama Advocates Higher Unemployment for Lower-Skilled Workers (and Some Great Election News from Colorado)
Perhaps because he wants to divert attention from the slow-motion train wreck of Obamacare, the President is signaling that he will renew his efforts to throw more people into the unemployment line. Needless to say, that’s not how the White House would describe the…
The Most Important Election of 2013
There’s an off-year election today in the United States. There are no contests for the White House or Congress, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any important choices being made. I say that notwithstanding the fact that the big races between politicians at the state…
Iceland, Switzerland, and the Golden Rule of Fiscal Policy
Being a glass-half-full kind of guy, I look for kernels of good news when examining economic policy around the world. I once even managed to find something to praise about French tax policy. And I can assure you that’s not a very easy task. I particularly try to find…
Mocking Obama
It’s been a touch month for President Obama. His beloved healthcare scheme is a slow-motion train wreck and he wasn’t able to trick Republicans into a tax hike as part of budget fights. So let’s pile on with some humor. We’ll start with some NSA-related material….
What America Can Learn from the Faroe Islands about Social Security Reform
I’m currently in the Faroe Islands, a relatively unknown and semi-autonomous part of Denmark located in the North Atlantic. Sort of like Greenland, but too small to appear on most maps. I’m in this chilly archipelago for a speech to the annual meeting of the Faroese…
Easy Money Is Creating the Conditions for a Bigger European Economic Crisis
At the beginning of the year, I was asked whether Europe’s fiscal crisis was over. Showing deep thought and characteristic maturity, my response was “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, are you ;@($&^#’% kidding me?” But I then shared specific reasons for pessimism, including the…
Keynesian Economics, Government Shutdowns, and Economic Growth
Keynesian economics is the perpetual motion machine of the left. You build a model that assumes government spending is good for the economy and you assume that there are zero costs when the government diverts money from the private sector. With that type of model, you…
If There’s a Grand Bargain, Taxpayers Should Get a Tax Cut rather than a Tax Hike
The Washington metropolitan area has become America’s wealthiest region because trillions of dollars are taken every year from the productive sector of the economy and then divvied up by the politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and interest groups that benefit from…