Tag Archives : Ireland
If Poor Nations Want Economic Convergence and Capital Accumulation, They Need Good Policy
If poor nation’s want to catch up, they need to liberalize their economies.
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The Irish Tax Policy Debate: Bono 1 – Irish Union Bosses 0
In the Irish tax policy debate, Bono knows better than bosses from the leading Irish labor union. Moreover, the U.S. could learn a lot from Ireland’s success with a pro-growth corporate tax policy.
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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Nation Has Increased Welfare Spending the Fastest of All?
There’s an old joke about two guys camping in the woods, when suddenly they see a hungry bear charging over a hill in their direction. One of the guys starts lacing up his sneakers and his friend says, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear.” The other guys says, I don’t have to […]
read more...The Laffer Curve Bites Ireland in the Butt
Cigarette butt, to be more specific. All over the world, governments impose draconian taxes on tobacco, and then they wind up surprised that projected revenues don’t materialize. We’ve seen this in Bulgaria and Romania, and we’ve seen this Laffer Curve effect in Washington, DC, and Michigan. Even the Government Accountability Office has found big Laffer […]
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Miracles Do Happen: Someone in Brussels Accurately Analyzes Europe’s Fiscal Crisis!
With the exception of a few top-notch thinkers such as Pierre Bessard and Allister Heath, there are very few people in Europe who can intelligently analyze public policy, particularly with regard to fiscal issues. I don’t know if Fredrik Erixon of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy is even close to being in […]
read more...Revolt of the Irish Tax Slaves
I wrote last year about a backlash from long-suffering Greek taxpayers. These people – the ones pulling the wagon rather than riding in the wagon – are being raped and pillaged by a political class that is trying to protect the greedy interest groups that benefit from Greece’s bloated public sector. We now have another […]
read more...Is Ireland’s Michael Higgins an Economic Illiterate or a Cynical Hack
I’ve always been proud of my Irish heritage, but now I’m having to reconsider. As is so often the case when something goes awry, the blame belongs to a politician (this Craig Ferguson joke is right on the mark). Michael Higgins, the President-Elect of Ireland, has lived a very comfortable life sucking on the government […]
read more...New CBO Numbers Confirm – Once Again – that Modest Spending Restraint Can Balance the Budget
The Congressional Budget Office has just released the update to its Economic and Budget Outlook. There are several things from this new report that probably deserve commentary, including a new estimate that unemployment will “remain above 8 percent until 2014.” This certainly doesn’t reflect well on the Obama White House, which claimed that flushing $800 […]
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Ireland Is Considering a Lower Corporate Tax Rate, so How Come I’m not Happy?
It’s not often that I am unenthusiastic about the possibility of a nation reducing its corporate tax rate. But when the country is doing the right thing for the wrong reason, I hope that feelings of ambivalence are understandable. In this case, some Irish politicians are talking about using a lower corporate tax rate as […]
read more...CF&P Video Uses International Examples to Show that Limiting the Growth of Government Spending Is the Best Fiscal Policy
A new video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P) examines how foreign countries have successfully solved fiscal problems by restraining the growth of government spending. Entitled, “Spending Restraint, Part II: Lessons from Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand,” the mini-documentary is a follow-up to CF&P’s last video, which demonstrated how Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton successfully curtailed the burden of government.
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