by Dan Mitchell | Feb 9, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Energy, Government Spending, Taxation
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that President Obama has unveiled his final budget. The bad news is that it’s a roadmap for an ever-growing burden of government spending. Here are the relevant details. The President wants the federal budget to climb...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 6, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Whenever there’s a fight over raising the debt limit, the political establishment gets hysterical and makes apocalyptic claims about default and economic crisis. For years, I’ve been arguing that this Chicken-Little rhetoric is absurd. And earlier this week I...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 5, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation, VAT
The left is very clever about accepting “compromise,” so long as the result is a larger burden of government. This is one of the reasons why I’m so concerned about Senator Cruz’s proposal for a value-added tax. Even though he wants a VAT for good reasons (to finance...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 3, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
If pessimism was an Olympic event, I used to think I might be favored to win a medal. After all, growing levels of dependency outside of Washington and rampant corruption inside of Washington sometimes lead me to conclude that America is doomed to a Greek fiscal...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 30, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
There is some very good news to share. The income tax will disappear in April! But there’s also some bad news. The income tax is only being abolished in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, and there’s little reason to think that America’s awful internal...