by Dan Mitchell | Nov 25, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Every so often, when the temptation is too great, I’ll comment on something written by Paul Krugman. When he botched his analysis of Estonia, for instance, I joined that nation’s President in correcting some egregious errors. And I periodically remind people that...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 21, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Tax Competition, Taxation
There’s a tendency in public life to exaggerate the positive or negative implications of any particular policy. This is why I try to be careful not to overstate the potential benefits of reforms I like, such as the flat tax. Yes, we would get better growth and there...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 18, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
We have an amazing man-bites-dog story today. Let’s begin with some background information. A member of the European Commission recently warned that: “Tax increases imposed by the Socialist-led government in France have reached a “fatal level”…[and] that a series of...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 27, 2013 | Blogs, Europe, Taxation
I’m not a big fan of the European Commission. For those not familiar with this entity, it’s sort of the European version of the executive-branch bureaucracy we have in Washington. And like their counterparts in Washington, the Brussels-based bureaucracy enjoys a very...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 29, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
The late, great Margaret Thatcher famously said that “Socialist governments…always run out of other people’s money” and “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” is an iconic line from Apocalypse Now. Thinking about the fiscal mess in Europe, I’m going to combine...