by Dan Mitchell | Mar 1, 2014 | Blogs, Uncategorized
Ukraine is in the news and that’s not a good thing. I’m not a foreign policy expert, to be sure, but it can’t be a positive sign when nations with nuclear weapons start squabbling with each other. And that’s what’s happening now that Russia is supposedly occupying...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 6, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Taxation
Some things in life are very dependable. Every year, for instance, the swallows return to Capistrano. And you can also count on Dan Mitchell to wax poetic about the looming collapse of French statism. Back in 2011, I said France was engaged in economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 5, 2014 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Tax Harmonization, Taxation
Over the years, I’ve shared some ridiculous arguments from our leftist friends. Paul Krugman, for instance, actually wrote that “scare stories” about government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom “are false.” Which means I get to recycle that absurd quote every time...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 20, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
The welfare state is a nightmare. Programs such as Medicaid are fiscal catastrophes. The food stamp program is riddled with waste. The EITC is easily defrauded, even sending checks to prisoners. And housing subsidies are a recipe for the worst forms of social...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 21, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Tax Competition, Taxation
There’s a tendency in public life to exaggerate the positive or negative implications of any particular policy. This is why I try to be careful not to overstate the potential benefits of reforms I like, such as the flat tax. Yes, we would get better growth and there...