Governor Rick Perry of Texas has announced a plan, which he outlines in today’s Wall Street Journal, to replace the corrupt and inefficient internal revenue code with a flat tax. Let’s review his proposal, using the principles of good tax policy as a benchmark. 1….
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.
The Vatican Should Try to Save Souls, not Ruin Economies
A couple of months ago, after reading an excellent column in the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, I joked that we should send Obama to Rome for an economics lesson. I now completely retract that statement. There may be some economically astute people who write…
Republicans vs. the Free Market
Over and over again, I tell people to ignore whether politicians have a D or an R after their names. That’s because Democrats sometimes do the right thing and Republicans often do the wrong thing. My latest example of Republicans doing the wrong thing come from…
The Obligatory “I Told You So, You Dumb SOBs” Post About Greece
Almost two years ago, I wrote that bailing out Greece was misguided because it would dig the debt hole deeper. More recently, I wrote an I-told-you-so post that looked at my four original predictions and patted myself on the back for being accurate (not that it took…
Debating against Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Advocating Pro-Growth Policy
I’m going to be in New York City next week to join with Richard Epstein as we participate in an Intelligence Squared debate against Mark Zandi and Cecilia Rouse. I’m looking forward to this event because Richard Epstein is a rock star for freedom. It also gave me an…
Should Washington Re-Inflate the Housing Bubble?
I have no idea whether George Santayana was a good philosopher, but he certainly was right when he wrote, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Consider the fools in the U.S. Senate. They just voted to expand Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…
More “Success Stories” from the So-Called Stimulus
Wow. Even by the low standards of government, here are a couple of remarkable stories about government waste from Obama’s failed stimulus scheme. Let’s start with an example of crony capitalism. The federal government decided to subsidize the wealthy shareholders of…
Social Security Administration Sides with “Adult Baby,” Dumps Diaper Contents on Taxpayers
I must not be very bright. Even after decades of experience in Washington, I still have this naive belief that bureaucrats and politicians will occasionally do the right thing – even if for no other reason other than to cover their rear ends after being caught doing…
In One Chart, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the European Fiscal Crisis
I would have structured this flowchart differently, for reasons I discuss in this post, but this is pretty good picture of why Europe is in trouble. They say all roads lead to Rome, and this flowchart shows all roads lead to a banking crisis (see this post to…
A “Solyndra Rule” to Guide Federal Budget Policy
Just yesterday, I proposed a “Golden Rule” for fiscal policy, based on the simple notion that the burden of government spending should grow slower than the private sector. And regular readers know about my narcissistic attempt to publicize “Mitchell’s Law” as a way of…