by Dan Mitchell | Mar 16, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Bureaucracy
It’s not quite the “Chart of the Century,” which captures the perverse impact of government intervention, but Andrew Coulson’s chart on government schools is one of the most powerful visuals I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, he passed away about 10...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 23, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Part I of this series looked at unfunded pension debt of states and Part II examined the unfunded pension debt of cities. In Part III, let’s look at the degree to which state taxpayers are exposed to big unfunded liabilities for “Other Post-Employment Benefits” such...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 22, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Yesterday’s column looked at which states had the biggest unfunded liabilities for bureaucrat pensions, with Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Kentucky being the worst of the worst. Today, courtesy of the good work of Geoffrey Lawrence, Jordan Campbell...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 21, 2024 | Blogs, States
The ideal pension system for workers is defined-contribution accounts – such as IRAs or 401(k)s – which is why it is so encouraging that many nations have moved in that direction. One advantage of that approach is that, by definition, there are no...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 20, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, States
During Trump’s first term, he was a big spender. He even wound up increasing domestic spending at a faster rate than Barack Obama. What can we expect in a second term? A week after the election, as part of my “Second Edition of Trump” series, I speculated...
