by Dan Mitchell | Apr 18, 2018 | Blogs, Flat Tax, Taxation
The best policy for a state (assuming it wants growth and competitiveness) is to have no income tax. Along with a modest burden of government spending, of course. The next-best approach is for a state to have a flat tax. If nothing else, a flat tax inevitably will...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 16, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, States
Politicians have a giant incentive to provide lavish benefits to interest groups that then recycle some of the loot back to elected officials in the form of campaign contributions. But the real key to the scam is that the bill gets imposed on future generations. The...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 15, 2018 | Blogs, Taxation
I’ve been in Prague the past few days for a meeting of the European Resource Bank. I spoke today about a relatively unknown international bureaucracy called the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and I warned that it is going through a process of...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 14, 2018 | Blogs, Economics
When trying to convince someone about the downsides of socialism, I generally make a practical argument. I point out that socialism has universally failed, whether looking at totalitarian versions in places such as North Korea and Cuba or democratic versions in places...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 13, 2018 | Blogs, Taxation
Politicians routinely assert that they want more economic growth. That’s a laudable sentiment, although I doubt their sincerity for the simple reason that these are the same people who frequently impose policies that discourage productive economic activity. Growth...