by Dan Mitchell | May 26, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
Venezuela is falling apart. Decades of bad policy have produced economic stagnation and misery. On the other side of South America, Chile has enjoyed comparatively strong growth since reforms began in the 1980s. Can we learn lessons by comparing these two nations?...
by Dan Mitchell | May 25, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I wrote last year about why Puerto Rico got into fiscal trouble. Like Greece and so many other governments, it did the opposite of Mitchell’s Golden Rule. Instead of a multi-year period of spending restraint, it allowed the budget to expand faster than the private...
by Dan Mitchell | May 24, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Much of my work on fiscal policy is focused on educating audiences about the long-run benefits of small government and modest taxation. But what about the short-run issue of how to deal with a fiscal crisis? I have periodically weighed in on this topic, citing...
by Dan Mitchell | May 23, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs
Having become interested in public policy because of Ronald Reagan’s message of limited government and individual liberty, I’m understandably depressed by the 2016 election. But we can at least learn something from the process. Robert Kagan of the Brookings...
by Dan Mitchell | May 22, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Keynesian
Back in 2010, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually claimed that paying people not to work would be good for the economy. Wow, that’s almost as bizarre as Paul Krugman’s assertion that war is good for growth. Professor Dorfman of the University of Georgia remembers...
