by Dan Mitchell | Feb 21, 2019 | Blogs, States, Tax Competition, Taxation
I shared data a couple of weeks ago showing that Florida is the freest state in America (for both overall freedom and economic freedom) while New York is in last place (in both categories). Well, it seems that freedom has consequences when people can “vote with their...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 20, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Trade
One of the interesting games in Washington is deciding who on the right (however defined) is a “Trumpie” and who is a “Reaganite.” Here are a few indicators. If you claim to be for small government, but cheer Trump’s support of greater federal involvement in child...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 19, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
I’m not an optimist about the future of Europe, mostly because welfare states are unaffordable in nations suffering from demographic decline. Given the grim trends on the continent, I expect many other nations (probably led by Italy) will experience the fiscal and...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 18, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
When I wrote about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s so-called Green New Deal, I mostly focused on the very expensive fiscal implications. I also noted that AOC’s proposed 70 percent tax rate on the rich wouldn’t even pay for a tiny fraction of the multi-trillion dollar cost...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 17, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Socialism
Over the past four days, I’ve looked at the supposed socialism of Venezuela, the Nordic nations, Greece, and France. And I chose those nations deliberately because I used them as examples in this clip from a recent interview. All of them are sometimes labeled as...