by Dan Mitchell | Jan 1, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Health Care, Welfare and Entitlements
Let’s look at three very important things that may happen this year and what they might mean. 1. Will the Republican Senate support genuine entitlement reform? One of the best things to happen in recent years is that House Republicans embraced genuine entitlement...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 1, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
At the beginning of the year, I was asked whether Europe’s fiscal crisis was over. Showing deep thought and characteristic maturity, my response was “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, are you ;@($&^#’% kidding me?” But I then shared specific reasons for pessimism, including the...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 26, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Tax Harmonization, Taxation
Like Sweden and Denmark, Germany is a semi-rational welfare state. It generally relies on a market-oriented approach in areas other than fiscal policy, and it avoided the Keynesian excesses that caused additional misery and red ink in America (though it is far from...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 20, 2012 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending
The mess in Europe has been rather frustrating, largely because almost everybody is on the wrong side. Some folks say they want “austerity,” but that’s largely a code word for higher taxes. They’re fighting against the people who say they want “growth,” but that’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 8, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe
For quite some time, I’ve thought of Herman van Rompuy as the poster child of Europe’s incompetent political elite. Virtually unknown to people in the real world (his sole claim to fame is that a British MEP, in a speech that went viral on YouTube, said he resembled a...