European Fiscal Agreements Show that Balanced Budget Rules Mean Higher Taxes, not Smaller Government

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 21, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending, Taxation

I have many frustrations in my life, and near the top of the list is the conservative fixation about balancing the budget. This view is very misguided. Red ink isn’t good, but the fiscal problem in America (as well as Europe, Japan, etc) is that the public sector is...

Economics Reporter from New York Times Has Accidental Encounter with Reality, Learns Nothing

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 15, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

Earlier this year, I wrote about how the person Obama put in charge of Medicare made some very interesting observations about prices, competition, and markets, but then drew exactly the wrong conclusion about what was needed to solve the third-party payer problem in...

European Central Bank Research Shows that Government Spending Undermines Economic Performance

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 11, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending

Europe is in the midst of a fiscal crisis caused by too much government spending, yet many of the continent’s politicians want the European Central Bank to purchase the dodgy debt of reckless welfare states such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal in order to prop...

Europe’s Clueless Politicians Are So Incompetent that They Can’t Even Figure Out How to Do the Wrong Thing

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 10, 2011 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending

There’s always been a simple and desirable solution to Europe’s fiscal crisis, but nobody in Europe wants to do the right thing because it means admitting the failure of big government and it would result in less power for the political elite. So we get the spectacle...

European Economic Crisis Highlights an Increasingly Important Reason to Oppose Gun Control

by Dan Mitchell | Nov 27, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending

bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though...