by Dan Mitchell | Feb 11, 2016 | Blogs, Economics
The quality of economic analysis from politicians is never good, but it becomes even worse during election season. The class-warfare rhetoric being spewed by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is profoundly anti-empirical. Our leftist friends genuinely seem to think...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 7, 2016 | Blogs, Taxation
When I give speeches in favor of tax reform, I argue for policies such as the flat tax on the basis of both ethics and economics. The ethical argument is about the desire for a fair system that neither punishes people for being productive nor rewards them for being...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 20, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
When I wrote back in 2012 that France was committing fiscal suicide, I should have guessed that President Hollande would get impatient and push for even more statism. Sure enough, the BBC reports that France’s President has a new plan. The ostensible goal is to reduce...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 16, 2015 | Blogs, Economics
Whenever I pontificate about the health of the American economy, I feel like Goldilocks. Instead of arguing that the economic porridge is too hot or too cold, or that the economic bed is too hard or too soft, I conclude that we’re stuck in the middle. We generally...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 12, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
I don’t like the inequality debate because it’s a distraction from the far more important issue of how to generate more growth. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to once again address the topic. Let’s start with a moral observation: There’s nothing wrong with the kind of...
