by Dan Mitchell | Jan 29, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
When the Congressional Budget Office released its Budget and Economic Outlook yesterday, almost everyone in Washington foolishly fixated on the estimate of $1 trillion-plus annual deficits. What’s far more important – and much more worrisome – is that the burden of...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 25, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
Social Security is projected to consume an ever-larger share of America’s national income, mostly thanks to an aging population. Indeed, demographic change is why the program is bankrupt, with an inflation-adjusted cash-flow deficit of more than $42 trillion. Yet...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 23, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Society, Welfare and Entitlements
Every year, the Social Security Administration issues a “Trustees Report” that summarizes the program’s financing. So every year (see 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, etc) I cut through all the verbiage and focus the numbers that really matter. First, here’s the data...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 11, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
The world is in the middle of a dramatic demographic transition caused by increasing lifespans and falling birthrates. One consequence of this change is that traditional tax-and-transfer, pay-as-you-go retirement schemes (such as Social Security in the United States)...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 15, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
During the 2016 presidential campaign, I was very critical of Donald Trump’s proposal to expand the entitlement state with a new program for paid parental leave, just as I was very critical of a similar proposal from Hillary Clinton. Neither candidate offered much...
