by Dan Mitchell | Feb 26, 2018 | Blogs, States, Tax Competition, Taxation
In 2016, here’s some of what I wrote about the economic outlook in Illinois. There’s a somewhat famous quote from Adam Smith (“there is a great deal of ruin in a nation“) about the ability of a country to survive and withstand lots of bad public policy. I’ve tried to...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 15, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation
When companies want to boost sales, they sometimes tinker with products and then advertise them as “new and improved.” In the case of governments, though, I suspect “new” is not “improved.” The British territory of Jersey, for instance, has a very good tax system. It...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 10, 2017 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
I shared some academic research last year showing that top-level inventors are very sensitive to tax policy and that they migrate from high-tax nations to low-tax jurisdictions. Now we have some new scholarly research showing that they also migrate from high-tax...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 3, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Illinois is a mess. Taxes and spending already are too high, and huge unfunded liabilities point to an even darker future. Simply stated, politicians and government employee unions have created an unholy alliance to extract as much money as possible from the state’s...
by Dan Mitchell | May 11, 2017 | Blogs, Immigration, Society
Although I gave him a good grade for his first 100 days, it’s no secret that I’m not overly optimistic about the long-term policy implications of the Trump presidency. Simply stated, I fear he’ll wind up being a big-government Republican like Bush (either one) or...