by Dan Mitchell | Aug 1, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
One of the reasons I repeatedly compare market-oriented countries with statist nations is to show that even minor differences in growth, if sustained over time, can have enormous impact on living standards for ordinary people. And that’s why we should be very worried...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 30, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Not all birthdays are a cause for untrammeled joy. Most of us baby boomers, for instance, don’t like being reminded that we’re getting older. And for folks who follow fiscal policy, the fact that Medicare is now 50 years old is hardly a cause for celebration.That’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 29, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Remember the big debt limit fight of 2013? The political establishment at the time went overboard with hysterical rhetoric about potential instability in financial markets. They warned that a failure to increase the federal government’s borrowing authority would mean...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 24, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
The conventional wisdom, pushed by the IMF and others, is that Greece’s economy will never recover unless there is substantial debt relief. Translated into English, that means the Greek government should be allowed to break the contracts it made with the people and...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 23, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m very fond of Estonia, and not just because of the scenery. Back in the early 1990s, it was the first post-communist nation to adopt a flat tax. More recently, it showed that genuine spending cuts were the right way to respond to the 2008 crisis (notwithstanding...
