by Dan Mitchell | Sep 12, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Bureaucracy, Government Waste
As a public finance economist, I normally focus on big-picture issues such as the economically debilitating effect of excessive government spending and punitive taxation. But as a human being, what irks me most about big government is the way that insiders use the...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 11, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
The burden of government spending is already excessive. But the numbers will get worse with the passage of time if policy is left on autopilot. The main culprits are the so-called mandatory programs. Entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps,...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 20, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs
Back in 2009, I shared some academic research showing the unsavory link between lobbying expenditures and bailout cash from TARP. Just in case anybody naively thinks that such distasteful favor-swapping no longer occurs, here’s some more evidence. A column in the...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 13, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I need combat pay. Or maybe some kind of bonus for pain and suffering. First, I had to watch Donald Trump’s incoherent speech on the economy and try to decipher his mish-mash economic plan. And then, without the benefit of a lengthy vacation or counseling for...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 6, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs
When I was young and innocent, I thought that giving welfare handouts to advocates of terrorism was the most perverse and disgusting way to abuse taxpayers. Now that I’m old and jaded, I’ve learned that governments are so masochistically stupid that they routinely...
