Ayn Rand’s famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, tells the story of what happens when society’s most productive people go on strike because they don’t want to subsidize the looters and moochers. I won’t give away the plot, but one interesting twist in the story is when…
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.
An Invaluable Economic History Lesson from Thomas Sowell: Politicians Should Only “Do Something” If that Means Doing Less
The great Ronald Reagan famously said (and I am paraphrasing, since I do not remember the exact phrase) that the most dangerous words in the English language were “I am from Washington and I am here to help you.” Those are very wise words, especially when we think of…
Jurisdictional Competition Is Why the West Became Rich While Asia Languished
During the dark ages, nations like China were relatively advanced while Europeans were living in squalid huts. But that began to change several hundred years ago. Europe experienced the enlightenment and industrial revolution while the empires of Asia languished. What…
Majoritarianism Is Not Compatible with Individual Rights
Thomas Sowell, George Will, and Walter Williams have all explained that the Constitution imposes strict limits on the powers of the federal government. This means, for all intents and purposes, that it is a somewhat anti-democratic document. And by anti-democratic, I…
Based on What’s Happening in the Czech Republic, Perhaps the Lesson to Learn Is that All Right-Wing Parties Are Controlled by Morons
I periodically mock Republicans for being the stupid party. Yes, some of them probably mean well, but they have this lemming-like instinct to throw themselves on hand grenades. But I noted back in April that the supposedly right-wing Christian Democrat party in…
A Picture Says a Thousand Words: President Obama’s Dismal Failure on Jobs
If it wasn’t for the fact that so many people are suffering and being seduced into empty lives of government dependency (symbolized by Julia, the world’s most disappointing daughter), I might feel sorry for President Obama. He promised unemployment would never climb…
Does the $16 Trillion Debt Matter? A Remedial Lesson in Public Finance Economics for the GOP
Everyone has a cross to bear in life, some sort of burden or obligation, often self-imposed. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve decided that one of my responsibilities is to educate a backwards and primitive people who seem impervious to common sense, simple logic,…
Will American Exceptionalism Be Destroyed by the Entitlement Society?
I wrote a celebratory post last November about the dramatic difference between Americans and Europeans. There truly is American exceptionalism in that Europeans are much more likely to think it is government’s responsibility to provide the basics of life. Another poll…
Another Dismal Assessment of Obamanomics: United States Drops to 7th in WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index
Every year, I look forward to the annual releases of both Economic Freedom of the World and the Index of Economic Freedom. With their comprehensive rankings, these two publications enable interested parties to compare nations and see which countries are moving in the…
Study from German Economists Shows that Tax Competition and Fiscal Decentralization Limit Income Redistribution
If we want to avoid the kind of Greek-style fiscal collapse implied by this BIS and OECD data, we need some external force to limit the tendency of politicians to over-tax and over-spend. That’s why I’m a big advocate of tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and…