Even vicious, reprehensible, and disgusting tyrants sometimes make wise observations. Back in 2010, for instance, Cuba’s Murderer-in-Chief confessed that communism didn’t work. More recently, the thug expressed unhappiness with the current crop of presidential…
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.
Supposedly Bankrupt Greek Government to Reward Pedophiles with Disability Payments
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I write about insanely stupid government policies. But I know I get more motivated to fight big government. How can anyone want to give more money and power to politicians, for instance, after reading these comparisons of dumb…
If You Liked Bush’s Big-Government Policies, You’ll Love Santorum’s Statism
I’m a big believer in fairness. And since I’ve written about the shortcomings of Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Mitt Romney, I need to say something about Rick Santorum. Actually, I don’t need to say anything, because other…
Mitt Romney and Bain Capital Were Right to Utilize So-Called Tax Havens
I’m not a big fan of Mitt Romney. I hammered him the day before Christmas for being open to a value-added tax, and criticized him in previous posts for his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed…
Austan Goolsbee’s Budget Math Is Wrong – More than 100 Percent of Long-Term Fiscal Challenge Is Government Spending
Austan Goolsbee, the former Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has a column in the Wall Street Journal that argues government spending isn’t too high. That’s obviously a silly assertion, as I explain here, here, and here, but I want to focus…
Illinois Politicians Meet the Challenge in the U.S. vs. U.K. Government Stupidity Contest
When I read the story from England about needing photo ID to buy teaspoons, I thought British bureaucrats built an insurmountable lead in the U.S. vs. U.K. contest for stupidest government action. But I should have had more faith in the hare-brained politicians of…
The Complete Failure of Bush’s No-Bureaucrat-Left-Behind Education Scheme
The education people at Cato do remarkable work. They put together one of the best charts I’ve ever seen, and they are leading the fight for school choice and against any federal government role in education. This new video, showing the failure of Bush’s main…
A Video on the Cradle-to-Grave Welfare State from the folks at Government Gone Wild
As I explained in this set of videos, we desperately need to reform entitlement programs. But not in the wrong way, with price fixing and means testing. Good reform means personal retirement accounts for Social Security. It means vouchers for Medicare. And it…
New Unemployment Numbers Are Good News for the White House, but the Silver Cloud Has a Dark Lining
The White House doubtlessly is happy that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.5 percent, in part because the President is much more likely to get reelected if voters think the economy is heading in the right direction. My political predictions have a mixed track…
New Studies Show the Middle Class Is Held Back by Government-Distorted Healthcare, not Income Inequality
I did a debate on income inequality for PBS, but haven’t written much about the issue because I think it is a misguided diversion. One frustrating aspect of this debate is that folks on the left genuinely seem to think the economy is a fixed pie and that rich people…