by Dan Mitchell | Jan 24, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Constitution, Government Spending
Regardless of what one thinks about abortion, it is preposterous for the federal government to be subsidizing the procedure. Yet that is what happens thanks to annual subsidies of as much as $363 million for Planned Parenthood. Defenders of Planned Parenthood...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 21, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
I’m not a big fan of central banks, and I definitely don’t like multilateral bureaucracies, so I almost feel guilty about publicizing two recent studies published by the European Central Bank. But when such an institution puts out research that unambiguously makes the...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 11, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
There is a very bizarre race happening in Illinois. The Governor and the leaders of the State Senate and General Assembly are trying to figure out how to ram through a massive tax increase, but they’re trying to make it happen before new state lawmakers take office...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 11, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Thanks to decades of reckless spending by European welfare states, the newspapers are filled with headlines about debt, default, contagion, and bankruptcy. We know that Greece and Ireland already have received direct bailouts, and other European welfare states are...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 7, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Health Care, Taxation
Grousing about the GOP’s timidity in the battle against big government will probably become an ongoing theme over the next few months, and let’s start with two items that don’t bode well for fiscal discipline. First, it appears that Republicans didn’t really mean it...