by Dan Mitchell | Nov 6, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT
The case against the value-added tax (VAT) is not complicated. Simply stated, this hidden type of national sales tax was a key precursor for the expansion of the European welfare state. As you can see in the chart, the burden of government spending...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 2, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
About two months ago, I wrote that the United Kingdom needed to copy Javier Milei and dramatically reduce the burden of government spending. The immediate goal should be to reverse the post-pandemic spending surge of the Johnson and...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 1, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
Let’s look today at European fiscal policy. But instead of focusing on the immediate issue (the likelihood of another fiscal crisis), we’re going to investigate whether we can learn anything by looking at what’s happened in the past. My two cents, based...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 17, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Because economists are lousy forecasters, I don’t pretend to know when a fiscal crisis will occur or which nation will be the first debt domino. But it will happen. Indeed, I suspect it will happen the next time there’s an economic downturn (though I...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 16, 2025 | Blogs, Taxation
I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies. Most of my hostility has been directed at the International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for the simple reason that they actually have some...
