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…
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.
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…
Humorous Halloween Tax Video
In what will probably become an annual tradition, here is the Halloween tax video I posted last year. The last 30 seconds of the three-minute video actually contain some very good economics, roughly akin to this classic cartoon. Yes, incentives matter. And since it is…
Was FDR Misguided or Malicious?
Here’s an absolutely horrifying video of President Franklin Roosevelt promoting a “Second Bill of Rights” based on coercive redistribution. At first, I was going to post it and contrast it with this superb Reagan video and compare how one President’s policies kept…
Mitchell’s Golden Rule
A couple of weeks ago, I proposed a “Golden Rule of Fiscal Policy” that was probably a bit too wordy. Good fiscal policy exists when the private sector grows faster than the public sector, while fiscal ruin is inevitable if government spending grows faster than the…
CBO’s Witch-Doctor Economics and Gypsy Forecasting
I’ve criticized the Congressional Budget Office for generating biased and inaccurate numbers. These are the clowns, after all, who say deficit spending stimulates the economy in the short run but they also rely on a model which seemingly predicts 100 percent tax rates…
El Salvador, Greece, and American Tax Dollars: The Destructive Impact of the IMF
The Europeans have just agreed to another bailout for Greece. That’s the bad news. The good news is…well, there is no good news. Sarkozy, Merkel, and the other statists have once again failed to do the right thing and instead have decided to throw good money after bad…
Four Reasons Why Keynesian “Stimulus” Does Not Work
Professor Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University has a must-read column in today’s Wall Street Journal, beginning with what should be an obvious statement. Those who heaped high praise on Keynesian policies have grown silent as government spending has failed to…
Did I Lose, or Are the People of New York City Unworthy?
Folks of a certain age, who watched ABC’s Wide World of Sports, will remember the phrase “the agony of defeat.” Well, that’s what Richard Epstein and I endured Tuesday night at the Intelligence Squared debate in New York City. We were battling against two Keynesians,…
Tim “Turbotax” Geithner Has a British Soulmate
The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is infamous for conveniently forgetting to pay tax on $80,000 of income and then getting kid-glove treatment from the IRS when his crime was uncovered. Not only did Geithner avoid even a slap on the wrist, he was confirmed…