by Dan Mitchell | May 19, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Waste, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote yesterday about the shocking case of a millionaire collecting food stamps. Today, I have an equally disgusting story of government waste. The Social Security program is actuarially bankrupt, with unfunded liabilities of several trillion dollars. Our topic...
by Dan Mitchell | May 14, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
There’s a lot of buzz about a Wall Street Journal interview with Stanley Druckenmiller, in which he argues that a temporary delay in making payments on U.S. government debt (which technically would be a default) would be a small price to pay if it resulted in the...
by Dan Mitchell | May 13, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I got a few cranky emails after my post suggesting the United States should copy the Baltic nations and implement genuine spending cuts. These less-than-friendly pen pals were upset that I favorably commented on the fiscal discipline of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia...
by Dan Mitchell | May 11, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I’m often torn between optimism and pessimism about the future. In my cheerful moments, I marvel at the American system and cheer the private sector’s ability to adapt and survive even the stupidest government interventions. But at other times, I fret that those...
by Dan Mitchell | May 8, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Let’s start in Washington, where USA Today reports that there are “at least 17,828 federal employees whose annualized salaries totaled $180,000 or more in September 2010.” That’s rather distressing news for taxpayers, but these excerpts from the story provide...