by Dan Mitchell | Dec 31, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Health Care, Tax Competition, Taxation
Exactly one year ago, we looked at the best and worst policy developments of 2013. Now it’s time for a look back at 2014 to see what’s worth celebrating and what are reasons for despair. Here’s the good news for 2014. 1. Gridlock – I’ve been arguing for nearly...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 30, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Keynesian
I’m tempted to feel a certain degree of sympathy for Paul Krugman. As a leading proponent of the notion that bigger government stimulates growth (a.k.a., Keynesian economics), he’s in the rather difficult position of rationalizing why the economy was stagnant when...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 29, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Many people fantasize about supermodels, but not me. I’m a bit of an oddball. In my fantasy world, I want to shrink the federal government back to the size envisioned by the Founding Fathers. I can’t stop myself from wistfully dreaming about the expanded freedom and...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 26, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Regulations
It’s time to correct a sin of omission. In five-plus years of blogging, I haven’t given nearly enough attention to the wisdom of the late (and great) Milton Friedman. Yes, I did say he was at the top of my list of great economists in a 2010 interview, and I’ve cited...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 22, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Keynesian
I wrote earlier this year about the “perplexing durability” of Keynesian economics. And I didn’t mince words. Keynesian economics is a failure. It didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1990s. And it didn’t work for Bush...