by Dan Mitchell | Jul 25, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Back in 2010, I put together a “Moocher Index” as a rough measure of which states had the highest levels of welfare dependency after adjusting for poverty rates. My goal was to answer this question. Is there a greater willingness to sign up for income redistribution...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 21, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Laffer Curve, Taxation
The budget deficit this year is projected to be significantly smaller than it has been in recent years and some of our statist friends claim that this shows the desirability and effectiveness of higher taxes. I’m not persuaded, mostly because our big long-run fiscal...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 16, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I sometimes make fun of Republicans for being the “Stupid Party,” but I get genuinely agitated when they’re the “Statist Party.” You can forgive someone for not being intelligent, after all, but it’s much harder to look the other way when they deliberately and...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 15, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I damned Obama with faint praise last year by asserting that he would never be able to make America as statist as France. My main point was to explain that the French people, notwithstanding their many positive attributes, seem hopelessly statist. At least that’s how...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 12, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m thinking of inventing a game, sort of a fiscal version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Only the way it will work is that there will be a map of the world and the winner will be the blindfolded person who puts their pin closest to a nation such as Australia or...
