The Shutdown Fight: Can Advocates of Fiscal Responsibility Overcome the Combined Forces of Obama, Lobbyists, and the Media?

by Dan Mitchell | Oct 4, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

I’m not overly optimistic about the outcome of the government shutdown fight. In part this is because our system of government, based on separation of powers, means it is very difficult to change the status quo. This system, by the way, generally has been good for the...

What if We Had a Government Shutdown and Nobody Noticed or Cared?

by Dan Mitchell | Oct 2, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

What’s the likely outcome of the government shutdown fight? Well, in my libertarian fantasy world, we leave it closed. Or at least we never bother to reopen counterproductive bureaucracies such as the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, Department of...

Maybe the Real Lesson Is that It’s Best to Shut Down the Federal Government Before a New Fiscal Year Begins

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 30, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Bureaucracy, Government Spending, Government Waste

The politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and interest groups in Washington are hyperventilating that the federal gravy train may get sidetracked for a day or two by a shutdown fight between Republicans and Democrats. I’m not sure why they’re so agitated. After all, the...

Playing Hardball on a Government Shutdown Is the only Short-Run Way to Make Fiscal Progress

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 29, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

I haven’t written much about the budget fights over a government shutdown, Obamacare, the continuing resolution, and the debt limit for the simple reason that the battles are mostly about politics and strategy rather than policy. At the risk of oversimplifying, here’s...

Medicare: Recipients Pay for Hamburger, They Get a Hamburger, but Taxpayers Are Being Charged for a Steak

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 22, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Health Care, Welfare and Entitlements

One of the challenges of good entitlement reform (or even bad entitlement reform) is that recipients think they’ve “earned” benefits. If you tell them that programs such as Medicare are unsustainable and need to be changed, some of them suspect you’re trying to...