by Dan Mitchell | Aug 6, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
I have a very mixed view of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is an organization representing self-styled deficit hawks in Washington. They do careful work and I always feel confident about citing their numbers. Yet I frequently get frustrated...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 7, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Every so often, I’ll assert that some statists are so consumed by envy and spite that they favor high tax rates on the “rich” even if the net effect (because of diminished economic output) is less revenue for government. In other words, they deliberately and openly...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 13, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation
What’s the Laffer Curve? It’s the simple, common-sense observation that there’s not a linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. Folks in the private sector understand this principle. No restaurant owner, for instance, would double meal prices and assume...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 8, 2015 | Blogs, States, Taxation
With tax day looming, let’s wallow in misery by contemplating the burden on America’s taxpayers. But we’ll ignore the angst caused be dealing with an indecipherable tax code and an oppressive IRS and simply focus on the amount of money that gets extracted from our...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 4, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
A few days ago, I cited some research by an economics professor at the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!), who calculated that we would have a big budget surplus today if Washington lawmakers had simply maintained Bill Clinton’s final budget, adjusting it only for...
