by Dan Mitchell | Jan 5, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
As part of yesterday’s column about potential “offsets” for Trump’s tax agenda, I wrote “Don’t hold your breath” next to the line that stated taxpayers could save more than $500 billion if Congress refuses to spend any money on unauthorized programs. My...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 4, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Donald Trump played Santa Claus in his first term, with both tax cuts and big spending increases. Unsurprisingly, he wants to play Santa Claus in his second term as well. But he faces a couple of big challenges. First, as I wrote about two...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 3, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
The goal of fiscal policy should be limited government and that means complying with the Golden Rule of spending restraint. When countries control the disease of excessive spending, that also seems to be the only effective way of reducing...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 2, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Many people mistakenly think that America’s main fiscal problem is annual budget deficits that are now approaching $2 trillion. It is not good to have so much red ink, to be sure, but the real problem is that the federal government is spending...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 23, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Part I of this series looked at unfunded pension debt of states and Part II examined the unfunded pension debt of cities. In Part III, let’s look at the degree to which state taxpayers are exposed to big unfunded liabilities for “Other Post-Employment Benefits” such...
