Just because something is free, that doesn’t mean there is no cost. This is the core message of Walter Williams’ column, which uses the example of “employer-paid” Social Security taxes to explain how politicians specialize in giving us very expensive things for…
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.
Will Entitlements, Handouts, and other Government Programs Turn America into a Nation of Sheep?
If you saw the Wall-E movie, you may remember how people morphed into helpless blobs because all their needs were being fulfilled by something called BNL. I realize I’m a quirky libertarian, but the movie made me think about how excessive government is doing something…
Get the Government Out of the Business of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
As is so often the case, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe hits the nail on the head, asking why taxpayers should be forced to fund embryonic stem-cell research. The moral issues in this debate are very important, to be sure, but Jacoby’s column takes a different…
Crocodile Dundee vs Australia’s Tax Police
Here’s a Reuters story about the Australian Tax Office harassing Paul Hogan, better known to Americans as Crocodile Dundee, because of a tax dispute. The grinches at the tax office took advantage of Hogan’s return for his mother’s funeral to hold him hostage, refusing…
Why Can’t America Copy Europe’s Welfare States and Have a Low Corporate Tax Rate?
I tangle with my old nemesis Christian Weller, one of the statists at the Center against American Progress, in a debate on whether the corporate tax rate should be reduced. I was somewhat amused that Christian defended the current system because companies currently…
More Arguments Against a Value-Added Tax
The biggest long-term threat to fiscal responsibility is a value-added tax, as I’ve explained here, here, here, here, and here. So I’m delighted to see a growing amount of research showing that a VAT is bad news. Jim Powell has an excellent column at Investor’s…
Should America Pay Mexico to Reduce Illegal Immigration?
I’ve never focused much on immigration issues, but this EU Observer story caught my eye. Libya’s dictator is asking the European Union to give his country €5 billion (more than $6 billion) each year as a price for stopping illegal migration across the Mediterranean….
A Wide-Ranging Interview Covering Everything from the Gold Standard to the Value-Added Tax
The Free Market Mojo site asked me a number of interesting questions about public policy. I’m not sure all of my answers were interesting, but here are some snippets that capture my curmudgeonly outlook. I think it’s important to divide the topic into two issues, the…
Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless
The gilded nobility otherwise known as politicians get lavish compensation packages, particularly when fringe benefits are part of the equation. But that doesn’t include their first class travel to exotic overseas locations. And even that doesn’t count the…
Record Levels of Dependency Are Nothing to Celebrate
One of the big problems with statists is that they define compassion incorrectly. They think they are being compassionate when they take other people’s money and give it to somebody that they define as being less fortunate. But genuine compassion occurs when you spend…