by Dan Mitchell | Aug 25, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Regulations
This century has not been good news for economic liberty in the United States. According to Economic Freedom of the World, America has dropped from being the 3rd-freest economy of the world in 2001 to the 12th-freest economy in themost recent rankings. Perhaps more...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 21, 2015 | Blogs, Europe
Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s pseudo-socialist senator, thinks that America can learn from Europe. He’s right. But he’s also wrong. That’s because he thinks that Europe is a role model to emulate rather than a warning signal of mistakes to avoid. Needless to say, that’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 23, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m very fond of Estonia, and not just because of the scenery. Back in the early 1990s, it was the first post-communist nation to adopt a flat tax. More recently, it showed that genuine spending cuts were the right way to respond to the 2008 crisis (notwithstanding...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 30, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
Folks on the left sometimes act as if the Nordic nations somehow prove that big government isn’t an impediment to prosperity. As I’ve pointed out before, they obviously don’t spend much time looking at the data. So let’s give them a reminder. Here are the rankings...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 1, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, States, Taxation
Every so often, I get asked why I’m so rigidly opposed to tax hikes in general and so vociferously against the imposition of new taxes in particular. In part, my hostility is an ideological reflex. When pressed, though, I’ll confess that there are situations – in...
