Even though the unwashed masses decided that I didn’t win my stimulus debate in New York City, I continue my fight for the hearts and minds of the American people. I’m now taking part in a debate for U.S. News & World Report on “Who Is Handling Its Debt Crisis…
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.
A Supercommittee Tax-Hike Surrender Means Republicans Would Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Commenting on Supercommittee deliberations last month, I asked whether Republicans will choose the real budgetary savings of a sequester or surrender to a tax hike. Well, it appears that the GOP likes being known as the Stupid Party and is seriously considering a plan…
A Lesson on the Laffer Curve for Barack Obama
One of my frustrating missions in life is to educate policy makers on the Laffer Curve. This means teaching folks on the left that tax policy affects incentives to earn and report taxable income. As such, I try to explain, this means it is wrong to assume a simplistic…
Compulsive Spendaholics: The Unfortunate Similarity of Bush/Obama and Hoover/Roosevelt
I’ve pointed out on several occasions that Herbert Hoover was a big-spending Keynesian. Heck, Hoover was pursuing failed Keynesian policies several years before Keynes produced his most well-known book, The General Theory. Hoover’s big spending was so pronounced that…
Helping to Explain Greece’s Collapse in a Single Picture
Politicians in Europe have spent decades creating a fiscal crisis by violating Mitchell’s Golden Rule and letting the government grow faster than the private sector. As a result, government is far too big today, and nations such as Greece are in the process of fiscal…
Forget the Moochers on Wall Street, Shareholders Should Occupy Washington
Most of us are aware that America has a punitive corporate tax system, but here’s a sobering bit of analysis. Corporations pay more money to governments than they do to their shareholders. Here’s a chart from a recent Tax Foundation analysis. Now here’s something even…
If Obama Wants to Create More Jobs, He Should Get Rid of Regulatory Bureaucrats
Last year, I reported on a study from the Small Business Administration that estimated that federal regulation costs the economy a staggering $1.75 trillion every year. But that number is so large that it’s hard to understand what it actually means, so let’s look at…
Germany’s Not a Good Role Model…Except When Compared to the Profligate U.S.
Last week in New York City, during my Intelligence Squared debate about stimulus, I pointed out that Germany is doing better than the United States and explained that they largely avoided any Bush/Obama Keynesian spending binges. One of my opponents disagreed and…
A Food Stamp Horror Story – and Taxpayers Are the Victims
I am automatically suspicious of the veracity of anything I see online, so I don’t necessarily believe this is a real receipt. But it could be, and that’s what’s disturbing. There are very few restrictions on the use of food stamps, so there’s nothing to stop a…
Sequestration Is a Small Step in Right Direction, not Something to Be Feared
I have sometimes wondered whether it is accurate to say that Republicans are the “Stupid Party.” We’ll soon know the answer to that question. As part of the debt limit agreement, the politicians agreed to set up a “Supercommittee” comprised of six Republicans and six…