by Dan Mitchell | Nov 6, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT
The case against the value-added tax (VAT) is not complicated. Simply stated, this hidden type of national sales tax was a key precursor for the expansion of the European welfare state. As you can see in the chart, the burden of government spending...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 1, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
Let’s look today at European fiscal policy. But instead of focusing on the immediate issue (the likelihood of another fiscal crisis), we’re going to investigate whether we can learn anything by looking at what’s happened in the past. My two cents, based...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 7, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I have a three-part series (here, here, and here) about a likely fiscal crisis hitting Europe. As a matter of fact, I don’t actually think it is “likely.” It’s a given at this point. The only mystery is which domino falls first. My pessimism is based on...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 25, 2025 | Blogs, Europe
To highlight preposterous examples of waste and malfeasance, I have three ongoing series: Great moments in state government Great moments in local government Great moments in foreign government Today, I have to create a new category. Because we’re going to cite an...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 9, 2025 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
I put a lot of focus on “convergence” and “divergence” because economic theory says rich countries should not grow faster than poor countries. So when there are examples of divergence, especially when looking at decades of data, we can learn very important...
