by Dan Mitchell | Apr 29, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
We can learn a lot of economic lessons from Europe. Never adopt a VAT unless you want much bigger government. Bigger government means lower living standards. Don’t believe Bernie Sanders about the Nordic nations. Today, we’re going to focus on another lesson, which is...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 10, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
I’m hoping the “Panama Papers” issue will quickly fade from the news (as happened after a similar data theft from BVI in 2013) for the simple reason that even left-leaning reporters will get bored when they discover it is mostly a story about internationally active...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 7, 2016 | Blogs, Taxation
When I give speeches in favor of tax reform, I argue for policies such as the flat tax on the basis of both ethics and economics. The ethical argument is about the desire for a fair system that neither punishes people for being productive nor rewards them for being...
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 15, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
During last night’s Democratic debate, Senator Bernie Sanders said he would not raise tax rates as high as they were in the 1950s. And if Twitter data is accurate, his comment about being “not that much of a socialist compared to [President] Eisenhower” was one of the...