by Dan Mitchell | Sep 28, 2012 | Blogs, Economics
I despise protectionism. Mostly because it is bad economic policy, but also because politicians often use protectionism as a way of diverting attention from their own failures. So when I appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show to comment on President Obama’s criticism of...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 23, 2012 | Blogs, Capital Gains, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation
One of the principles of good tax policy and fundamental tax reform is that there should be no double taxation of income that is saved and invested. Such a policy promotes current consumption at the expense of future consumption, which is simply an econo-geek way of...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 14, 2012 | Economics
In my travels through Europe, I often wind up debating whether policy is better in the United States or Europe. I generally try to explain that this is the wrong comparison, both because Europe is not a monolithic bloc and also because most individual nations have...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 5, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Government Waste, Regulations
Every year, I look forward to the annual releases of both Economic Freedom of the World and the Index of Economic Freedom. With their comprehensive rankings, these two publications enable interested parties to compare nations and see which countries are moving in the...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 4, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Tax Harmonization, Taxation
If we want to avoid the kind of Greek-style fiscal collapse implied by this BIS and OECD data, we need some external force to limit the tendency of politicians to over-tax and over-spend. That’s why I’m a big advocate of tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and...