by Dan Mitchell | Jun 7, 2019 | Blogs, Economics
The folks at USA Today invited me to opine on fiscal policy, specifically whether the 2017 tax cut was a mistake because of rising levels of red ink. Here’s some of what I wrote on the topic, including the all-important point that deficits and debt are best understood...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 3, 2019 | Blogs, Taxation, Trade
What’s worse, a politician who knowingly supports bad policy or a politician who actually thinks that bad policy is good policy? I was very critical of the Bush Administration (I’m referring to George W. Bush, but the same analysis applies to George H.W. Bush) because...
by Dan Mitchell | May 31, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Trade
I periodically deal with people who generally sympathize with capitalism but nonetheless are supportive of protectionism. In part, they incorrectly think that a “trade deficit” is a problem that must be fixed. In other cases, they don’t understand the economic...
by Dan Mitchell | May 26, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Earlier today at the Friedman Conference in Australia, I spoke on the proper design of a tax system. My goal was to explain the problem of double taxation. I’ve repeatedly shared a flowchart to illustrate the pervasive double taxation in the current system (my example...
by Dan Mitchell | May 25, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
As part of today’s sessions at the Friedman conference in Australia, I got to listen to Professor Tony Makin talk about the burden of government spending in Australia. I want to share several of his slides since he made some very cogent points. First, he pointed out...
