by Dan Mitchell | Apr 16, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, States
Politicians have a giant incentive to provide lavish benefits to interest groups that then recycle some of the loot back to elected officials in the form of campaign contributions. But the real key to the scam is that the bill gets imposed on future generations. The...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 11, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I’m in Brussels, where I’m participating in an “Economic Freedom Summit” on the unfriendly turf of the European Parliament. My role was to chair a panel earlier today about whether Venezuela can recover from socialism. I obviously have an opinion on that topic, but I...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 6, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, States, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m a big fan of federalism because states have the flexibility to choose good policy or bad policy. And that’s good news for me since I get to write about the consequences. One of the main lessons we learn (see here, here, here, here, and here) is that high-earning...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 1, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs
As far as I’m concerned, everything you need to know about capitalism vs. statism is captured in this chart comparing per-capita economic output in Chile and Venezuela. Ask yourself which country offers more opportunity, especially for the poor? The obvious answer is...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 24, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Ever since there was a deal to bust the budget caps back in February, I knew it was just a matter of time before Congress and the White House responded with an odious orgy of new spending. Some people told me I was being too pessimistic. After all, the President’s...
