by Dan Mitchell | May 31, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Financial Privacy, Tax Competition, Taxation
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) arguably is the worst feature of the internal revenue code. It’s an odious example of fiscal imperialism that is based on a very bad policy agenda. But there is something even worse, a Multilateral Convention on Mutual...
by Dan Mitchell | May 29, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
The International Monetary Fund is a left-leaning bureaucracy that was set up to monitor the fixed-exchange-rate monetary system created after World War II. Unsurprisingly, when that system broke down and the world shifted to floating exchange rates, the IMF didn’t go...
by Dan Mitchell | May 25, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I wrote last year about why Puerto Rico got into fiscal trouble. Like Greece and so many other governments, it did the opposite of Mitchell’s Golden Rule. Instead of a multi-year period of spending restraint, it allowed the budget to expand faster than the private...
by Dan Mitchell | May 24, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Much of my work on fiscal policy is focused on educating audiences about the long-run benefits of small government and modest taxation. But what about the short-run issue of how to deal with a fiscal crisis? I have periodically weighed in on this topic, citing...
by Dan Mitchell | May 14, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
I have no idea whether Donald Trump believes in bigger government or smaller government. Higher taxes or lower taxes. More intervention or less. Sometimes he says things I like. Sometimes he says things that irk me. Politicians are infamous for being cagey, but “The...
