by Dan Mitchell | Mar 21, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
I’ve looked at some of the grim fiscal implications of demographic changes the United States and Europe. Now let’s look at what’s happening in Asia. The International Monetary Fund has a recent study that looks at shortfalls in government-run pension schemes and...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 15, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Health Care, Taxation
As I wrote yesterday (and have pontificated about on many occasions), the main problem with America’s healthcare system is that various government interventions (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, tax code’s healthcare exclusion, etc) have created a system where people –...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 10, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation
The centerpiece of President Trump’s tax plan is a 15 percent corporate tax rate. Republicans in Congress aren’t quite as aggressive. The House GOP plan envisions a 20 percent corporate tax rate, while Senate Republicans have yet to coalesce around a specific plan....
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
Once of the reasons that tax increases in Washington are such a bad idea (and one of the reasons why a value-added tax is an especially bad idea) is that the prospect of additional tax revenue kills any possibility of genuine entitlement reform. Simply stated,...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 28, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Supply Side, Taxation
I shared yesterday an example of how a big tax increase on expensive homes led to fewer sales. Indeed, the drop was so pronounced that the government didn’t just collect less money than projected, which is a very common consequence when fiscal burdens increase, but it...