Read it and weep. Or maybe I should say look at it and weep. I suppose this is a good time to recycle my flat tax video. I don’t mention this in the video, but Hong Kong’s flat tax system, which has been around for more than 60 years, requires less than 200 pages….
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 TSA Hokey-Pokey
Here’s a classic video from Reason TV mocking our intimate friends at the TSA. Enjoy…and share.
Monitoring the OECD’s Campaign Against Tax Competition, Fiscal Sovereignty, and Financial Privacy: Strategies for Low-Tax Jurisdictions
The tide is now turning against high-tax nations – particularly as more people understand that ever-increasing fiscal burdens inevitably lead to Greek-style fiscal collapse. Political changes in the United States further complicate the OECD’s ability to impose bad p…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Nation Has the Most Debt of All?
Last night, I spoke at the closing dinner of the European Resource Bank. My message was simple and straightforward: Entitlement programs are killing the developed world. That’s not exactly a surprise, but what may be shocking is America’s relative position. In my…
Greetings from Ukraine, and Dismal News from Europe
I’m on the Crimean Peninsula for a meeting of the European Resource Bank. It’s my first trip to Ukraine, and the conference is being held at a hotel on the Black Sea, so I can’t complain about the scenery. But the news from the various European think tanks is…
The Joys of Government-Run Healthcare: More Spending, Longer Waiting Lines, Fewer Patients Treated
I’m a glass-half-full guy, so I’m always looking for the silver lining to any dark cloud. For example, the unfortunate people of the United Kingdom are saddled with a government-run healthcare system that is deficient in some important categories yet still costs a lot…
Is Portugal an “Adult Baby” Nation?
Yesterday, I took aim at a truly pathetic human being who lives as an “adult baby.” But what got me upset was not his lifestyle, but rather the fact that he was mooching off the taxpayers thanks to the dumb bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration, who…
It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…No, It’s Super-Bureaucrat
I’ve had dozens of posts about overpaid bureaucrats. Indeed, I’ve largely stopped blogging about the topic because it is so depressing to constantly be reminded about how a privileged class of people is manipulating the system to coercively obtain undeserved…
I Don’t Care if You Wear Diapers as a 30-Year Old, but Don’t Ask Me to Subsidize Your Lifestyle
I wrote yesterday about the shocking case of a millionaire collecting food stamps. Today, I have an equally disgusting story of government waste. The Social Security program is actuarially bankrupt, with unfunded liabilities of several trillion dollars. Our topic…
Gee, I’m Glad I Pay Taxes to Give Food Stamps to a Millionaire
Not that we needed any additional evidence that the government wastes money in truly spectacular fashion, but this story from the Detroit Free Press is especially disgusting and outrageous. A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that…