by Dan Mitchell | Dec 23, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
The Trump tax plan, which was signed into law right before Christmas in 2017, had two very good features. Restricting the deduction for state and local taxes. A reduction of the corporate tax rate to 21 percent. The former was important because the federal tax code...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 20, 2019 | Blogs, Economics
When I was in London last week for Boris Johnson’s landslide victory, many people asked me whether Trump would win again in 2020. Since I was wrong about 2016, I told them I wasn’t the right person to ask. That being said, Trump has some positive economic tailwinds....
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 8, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
I’ve written many columns about Sweden and Denmark over the past 10-plus years, and I’ve also written several times about Norway and Iceland. But I’ve mostly neglected Finland, other than some analysis of the country’s experiment with “basic income” in 2017 and 2018....
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 6, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
Arthur Okun was a well-known left-of-center economist last century. He taught at Yale, was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Lyndon Johnson, and also did a stint at Brookings. In today’s column, I’m not going to blame him for any of LBJ’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 2, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Whenever I review a tax proposal, I automatically check whether it is consistent with the “Holy Trinity” of good policy. Low marginal tax rates on productive activity such as work and entrepreneurship. No tax bias (i.e., extra layers of tax) penalizing saving and...