by Dan Mitchell | Jan 30, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Flat Tax, Government Spending, Taxation
Leftists want higher tax rates and they want greater tax compliance. But they have a hard time understanding that those goals are inconsistent. Simply stated, people respond to incentives. When tax rates are punitive, folks earn and report less taxable income, and...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 27, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
President Obama’s two biggest “achievements” since taking office are the so-called stimulus and government-run healthcare. But neither one of those policies are popular, so the President largely ignored them during his state-of-the-union address and instead focused on...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 16, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation
Last year, I debunked the silly claim that Obama is a conservative. I almost didn’t write that post. Some things, after all, presumably don’t require a response. Would I waste my time, for instance, responding to someone who claimed that Milton Friedman was a...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 15, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
In the past 20-plus years, I’ve seen all sorts of arguments for class-warfare taxation. These include: President Obama says he wants higher tax rates for fairness, even if the government doesn’t collect any revenue. Rich leftists say they want higher taxes because...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 5, 2012 | Blogs, Health Care
I did a debate on income inequality for PBS, but haven’t written much about the issue because I think it is a misguided diversion. One frustrating aspect of this debate is that folks on the left genuinely seem to think the economy is a fixed pie and that rich people...
