by Dan Mitchell | May 20, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
As a general rule, we worry too much about deficits and debt. Yes, red ink matters, but we should pay more attention to variables such as the overall burden of government spending and the structure of the tax system. That being said, Greece shows that a nation can...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 10, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
The Congressional Budget Office just released its annual Economic and Budget Outlook, and almost everyone in Washington is agitated (or pretending to be agitated) about annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion starting in the 2020 fiscal year. All that red ink isn’t good...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 9, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Five former Democratic appointees to the Council of Economic Advisers have a column in today’s Washington Post asserting that we should not blame entitlements for America’s future fiscal problems. The good news is that they at least recognize that there’s a future...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 5, 2018 | Blogs, Economics, Keynesian
When I give speeches on Keynesian economics, I usually begin with a theoretical discussion on why consumer spending is a consequence of growth rather than the cause of growth. I then focus on two reasons to be skeptical about borrow-and-spend schemes to artificially...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 14, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Way back in 2009, I narrated a video explaining that people worry too much about deficits and debt. Red ink isn’t desirable, to be sure, but I pointed out that the real problem is government spending. And the bottom line is that most types of government...
