by Dan Mitchell | Jan 11, 2021 | Blogs, Economics
I have repeatedly warned that nations get in fiscal trouble when government is too big and growing too fast. In such countries, it’s very common to find high levels of government debt as one of the symptoms of excessive spending. This can create the conditions for a...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 9, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
At the risk of oversimplification and exaggeration, these six principles tell you everything you need to know about fiscal policy. For purposes of today’s column, let’s focus on Principle #3, which is that “Deficits and debt are symptoms of the underlying problem” of...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 19, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
For a land-locked nation without many natural resources, Switzerland is remarkably successful. One reason for the country’s success is pro-market policy. Switzerland routinely scores in the top 5 according to both Economic Freedom of the World and Index of Economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 22, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
The Congressional Budget Office released it’s 2020 Long-Term Budget Outlook yesterday. Almost everybody has focused on CBO’s projections for record levels of red ink. And it is worrisome that debt is heading to Greek/Japanese levels (especially if the folks who buy...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 4, 2020 | Blogs, Taxation
There are two reasons why I generally don’t write much about government debt. First, red ink is not desirable, but it’s mostly just the symptom of the far more important problem of excessive government spending. Second, our friends on the left periodically try to push...
