by Dan Mitchell | Jan 23, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Just like in the United States, politicians in the United Kingdom use the deceptive practice of “baseline budgeting” as part of fiscal policy. This means the politicians can increase spending, but simultaneously claim they are cutting spending because the budget could...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 26, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Back in 2011, I linked to a simple chart that illustrated how handouts and subsidies create very high implicit marginal tax rates for low-income people and explained how “generosity” from the government leads to a tar-paper effect that limits upward mobility. Earlier...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 4, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Europe, Laffer Curve, Taxation
Obama’s main goal in the fiscal cliff negotiations is to impose a class-warfare tax hike. He presumably thinks this will give the government more money to spend, but recent evidence from the United Kingdom suggests that he won’t get nearly as much money as he thinks....
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 2, 2012 | Blogs, Health Care
I’m not easily grossed out or nauseated. Heck, I’m on email lists for a half-dozen softball teams and you can only imagine the strange/filthy/nasty things that guys send to each other. But I read a story about the death panels in the United Kingdom that left me...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 10, 2012 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m in Jersey, where I gave a speech last night. But not New Jersey, the state where you shouldn’t die. That’s the state that many people have been fleeing because they don’t like paying confiscatory taxes to finance bureaucrats who make as much as $320,000 per year....