Mitt Romney is being criticized for supporting “territorial taxation,” which is the common-sense notion that each nation gets to control the taxation of economic activity inside its borders. While promoting his own class-warfare agenda, President Obama recently…
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.
Europe’s Crisis Is Because of Too Much Government, Not the Euro Currency
The mess in Europe has been rather frustrating, largely because almost everybody is on the wrong side. Some folks say they want “austerity,” but that’s largely a code word for higher taxes. They’re fighting against the people who say they want “growth,” but that’s…
Thanks to Pro-Free Market Reforms, Chile Is the Latin Tiger
One of the reasons why this blog is called International Liberty is that the world is a laboratory, with some nations (such as France) showing why statism is a mistake, other jurisdictions (such as Hong Kong) showing that freedom is a key to prosperity, and other…
The Turbo-Charged Italian Version of the Laffer Curve
Thanks largely to the Laffer Curve, there are some impressive examples of failed tax increases in countries such as the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. But if there was a prize for the people who most vociferously resist turning over more of their…
A Cartoon Showing the Logic (or lack thereof) of Keynesian Economics
I’ve run across very few good cartoons about Keynesian economics. If my aging memory is correct, I’ve only posted two of them. But at least they’re both very good. We have one involving Obama, sharks, and a lifeboat, and another one involving an overburdened jockey….
No More Subsidies to the OECD from American Taxpayers
I realize it’s a bold assertion, but the $100 million that American taxpayers send to Paris every year to subsidize the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is – on a per-dollar basis – the most destructively wasteful part in the federal budget. This…
Why Western Europe Became Rich in the Past…and How It Can Regain Prosperity Today
I’m in Vilnius, Lithuania, where I just finished speaking to a regional conference of the European Students for Liberty. I subjected the kids to more than 90 minutes of pontificating and 73 PowerPoint slides, but I could have saved them a lot of time if I simply…
A Picture of How Redistribution Programs Trap the Less Fortunate in Lives of Dependency
I wrote last year about the way in which welfare programs lead to very high implicit marginal tax rates on low-income people. More specifically, they lose handouts when they earn income. As such, it is not very advantageous for them to climb the economic ladder…
In Tallinn, Helping to Protect the People of Estonia from Krugmanomics
Last month, I exposed some major errors that Paul Krugman committed when he criticized Estonia for restraining the burden of government spending. My analysis will be helpful since I am now in Estonia for a speech about economic reform, and I wrote a column that was…
The Moral Case for Free Enterprise
A couple of months ago, I discussed a column by Arthur Brooks, in which he explained that libertarians and conservatives need to make a moral argument for capitalism and not just rely on statistics and economic analysis. This is correct, I believe, and I cited myself…