by Dan Mitchell | Oct 6, 2024 | Blogs, Taxation
Part I of my three-part video series on the Laffer Curve is a good introduction to today’s column. It’s a common-sense primer on why there is not a linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. This is not a controversial view. Even Paul Krugman...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 5, 2024 | Blogs, Economics
Industrial policy is when politicians and bureaucrats use various combinations of tax, spending, and regulatory policies to steer the economy. In other words, they are putting their thumbs on the scale to pick winners and losers. It means replacing the...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 3, 2024 | Blogs, Economics
I frequently cite a column I wrote in 2017 about how 1980-2010 was a reasonably good era for China, thanks to a bit of economic liberalization. My leftist friends will say that can’t be true because inequality increased during those decades. I respond...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 2, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
One of Margaret Thatcher’s famous observations was that socialist governments fail because they inevitably run out of other people’s money. If I’m in a pedantic mood, I will nit-pick that statement by pointing out that she should have...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 1, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs
When people (correctly) complain about Washington’s inefficiency and incompetence, I tell them that one of the problems is that the federal government is simply too big. Indeed, this is the core message of my 7th Theorem of Government. Simply...
