by Dan Mitchell | Apr 20, 2015 | Blogs, Taxation
Who benefits most from the death tax? There are two obvious answers. First, politicians presumably benefit since they get more money to spend. Yes, it’s true that the tax discourages capital formation and may actuallylose revenue in the long run, but politicians...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 19, 2015 | Blogs, Taxation
I’ve sometimes asserted, only half-jokingly, that statists believe all of our income belongs to the government and that we should be grateful if we’re allowed to keep any slice of what we earn. This is, at least in part, the mentality behind the “tax...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 12, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs
When writing about the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international bureaucracy based in Paris, my life would be simpler if I created some sort of automatic fill-in-the-blanks system. Something like this. The OECD, subsidized by $____...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 12, 2015 | Blogs, Economics
In 1729, Jonathan Swift authored a satirical essay with the unwieldy title of A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. He suggested that the destitute...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 9, 2015 | Blogs, Crime, Justice, Society
One of the most important bulwarks of a just society is equal justice under law. That principle is even etched in stone above the entrance to the Supreme Court. My belief in equal treatment is one of the reasons I support the flat tax. As an economist, I like the...