by Dan Mitchell | Jan 27, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
The Congressional Budget Office has just released its new 10-year fiscal forecast and the numbers are getting worse. Most people are focusing on the fact that the deficit is rising rather than falling and that annual government borrowing will again climb above $1...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 21, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
This isn’t intentional, but there’s been a European theme to this week’s posts. I wrote yesterday about economic chaos in France, and the previous day I wrote about the grim consequences of Italian statism. Today, we’re going to look at Greece. In the past, I’ve...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 17, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT, Welfare and Entitlements
My views on the value-added tax are very simple and straightforward. If we completely eliminated all income-based taxes, I would be willing to accept a VAT (or even a national sales tax) as a revenue source for government. But unless that happens, I’m unalterably...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 16, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
In recent years, I’ve argued that America’s corporate tax system must be very bad if companies are not only redomiciling in places like Cayman and Bermuda, but also inverting to countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom. Well, the same thing happens at the state...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 15, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT
It’s not my role to pick sides in political fights, but I am very interested in trying to make bad ideas radioactive so that politicians won’t be tempted to do the wrong thing. This is why I’m a big fan of the no-tax-hike pledge. The folks in Washington salivate at...