by Dan Mitchell | Aug 16, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Defenders of Social Security often make a point of stating that the retirement system is a form of “social insurance” because people become eligible for benefits by paying into the system. Welfare programs, by contrast, give money to people simply as a form of income...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 15, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs
What’s the greatest economic tragedy in modern history? The obvious answer is communism, which produced tens of millions of needless deaths and untold misery for ordinary people. Just compare living standards in North Korea and South Korea, or Chile and Cuba. But if...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 13, 2015 | Blogs, Taxation
If you took a poll of Washington’s richest and most powerful people, you would probably find more than 90 percent of them support tax increases. At first glance, this doesn’t make sense. Why would a group of upper-income people want tax hikes? Are they self-loathing...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 12, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I never watched That ’70s Show, but according to Wikipedia, the comedy program “addressed social issues of the 1970s.” Assuming that’s true, they need a sequel that addresses economic issues of the 1970s. And the star of the program could be the Congressional Budget...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 11, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Let’s celebrate some good news. When politicians can be convinced (or pressured) to exercise even a modest bit of spending restraint, it’s remarkably simple to get positive results. Here’s some of what I wrote earlier this year. …one of the few recent victories for...
