Excessive Government Spending in Western Nations

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 15, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

I’m not a fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Paris-based bureaucracy is dominated by Europe’s left-leaning welfare states, so it unsurprisingly has a statist policy agenda (especially on fiscal...

The Sensible Swiss Strike Again, Overwhelmingly Rejecting Class Warfare

by Dan Mitchell | Dec 1, 2025 | Blogs, Taxation

Congratulations to Switzerland, the “improbable success” that is home to the world’s most sensible voters. The left put a referendum on the ballot to impose a national death tax and the people of Switzerland overwhelmingly voted...

Japan’s Growing Burden of Government Means an Inevitable Fiscal Crisis

by Dan Mitchell | Nov 28, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements

I often get asked when the United States will suffer a Greek-style fiscal crisis. My answer is always “I don’t know,” though I freely admit we are heading in that direction. My lack of specificity isn’t merely because economists are lousy...

IMF Bureaucrats (Who Get Tax-Free Salaries) Recommend Big Tax Increases for Bulgaria

by Dan Mitchell | Nov 27, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Flat Tax, Government Spending, Taxation

I normally have a Thanksgiving-themed column every year (2024, 2023, 2022, etc, etc), but I just saw something so irritating from the pro-tax crowd at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that I’m going to break with tradition....

Belgium, the Pack-a-Day Spending Habit, and the 20th Theorem of Government

by Dan Mitchell | Nov 25, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

Two months ago, I wrote a column about Italy’s fiscal deterioration and included a chart showing the country moving in the wrong direction, both in the past few years as well as since the turn of the century. Let’s now do the same thing, based on IMF...