by Dan Mitchell | Dec 9, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Waste
Here’s a simple rule. When a politicians says a new program will cost X, hide your wallet because it actually will cost three or four times as much. Or even more. Obamacare is a particularly painful example from recent history. Simply stated, politicians and...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 21, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation, VAT
In early 2013, a reader asked me the best place to go if America suffered a Greek-style economic collapse. I suggested Australia might be the best option, even if I would be too stubborn to take my own advice. Perhaps because of an irrational form of patriotism, I’m...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 16, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Supply Side, Taxation
Since I’m a big fan of the Laffer Curve, I’m always interested in real-world examples showing good results when governments reduce marginal tax rates on productive activity. Heck, I’m equally interested in real-world results when governments do the wrong thing and...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 11, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
I’m not a big fan of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That international bureaucracy is controlled by high-tax nations that want to export bad policy to the rest of the world. As such, the OECD frequently advocates policies that...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 6, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Three years ago, I shared a chart about the fiscal burden of the welfare state, calling it the picture that says a thousand word. It’s astounding, after all, that taxpayers spend so much money on means-tested programs and get such miserable results. Indeed, if we took...
