by Dan Mitchell | Jan 17, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
Mancur Olson (1932-1998) was a great economist who came up with a very useful analogy to help explain the behavior of many governments. He pointed out that a “roving bandit” has an incentive to maximize short-run plunder by stealing everything from victims (i.e. a 100...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 6, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Bureaucracy, Economics, Government Spending
Last year, I shared some remarkable research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development about the negative relationship between government spending and economic performance. The economists at the Paris-based bureaucracy looked at data from its...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 4, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation, VAT
I wrote yesterday to praise the Better Way tax plan put forth by House Republicans, but I added a very important caveat: The “destination-based” nature of the revised corporate income tax could be a poison pill for reform. I listed five concerns about a so-called...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 3, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation, VAT
The Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Ways & Means Chairman Kevin Brady and Speaker Paul Ryan, have proposed a “Better Way” tax plan that has many very desirable features. Death tax repeal Depreciation replaced with expensing Corporate tax rate...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 30, 2016 | Blogs, Economics
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or like Donald Sutherland in Animal House), I’m going to repeat myself for the umpteenth time and state that the United States has a big long-run problem. To be specific, the burden of government spending will inexorably...
