by Dan Mitchell | Aug 31, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
I’m in Slovenia where I just finished indoctrinating educating a bunch of students on the importance of Mitchell’s Golden Rule as a means of restraining the burden of government spending. And I emphasized that the fiscal problem in Europe is the size of government,...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 20, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe
Back in 2010, I posted a fascinating map from the Economist website, showing debt burdens (as a share of GDP) for nations around the world. This data showed lots of red ink, with Western Europe generally being more indebted than the United States. In 2011, I posted...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 18, 2012 | Blogs, Taxation
I feel like a pendulum this election season. Something will happen that makes me want to eviscerate Obama’s statist policies and I’ll write a foaming-at-the-mouth post warning that the President is turning America into Greece. But then Romney will do something odious...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 20, 2012 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending
The mess in Europe has been rather frustrating, largely because almost everybody is on the wrong side. Some folks say they want “austerity,” but that’s largely a code word for higher taxes. They’re fighting against the people who say they want “growth,” but that’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 5, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
With all the fiscal troubles in Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, there’s not much attention being paid to Cyprus. But the Mediterranean island nation is a good case study illustrating the economic dangers of big government. For all intents and purposes,...