by Dan Mitchell | May 4, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Which nation is richer, Belarus or Luxembourg? If you look at total economic output, you might be tempted to say Belarus. The GDP of Belarus, after all, is almost $72 billion while Luxembourg’s GDP is less than $60 billion. But that would be a preposterous answer...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 7, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
My tireless (and probably annoying) campaign to promote my Golden Rule of spending restraint is bearing fruit. The good folks at the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal allowed me to explain the fiscal and economic benefits that accrue when nations limit the...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 12, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, States, Taxation
When I first started working on fiscal policy in the 1980s, I never thought I would consider Sweden any sort of role model. It was the quintessential cradle-to-grave welfare state, much loved on the left as an example for America to follow. But Sweden suffered a...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 6, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Germany isn’t exactly a fiscal role model. Tax rates are too onerous and government spending consumes about 44 percent of economic output. That’s even higher than it is in the United States, where politicians at the federal, state, and local levels divert about...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 25, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Jay Leno had the all-time best Christmas joke and the school bureaucrats in Haymarket, VA, win the prize for the all-time worst example of anti-Christmas lunacy. But I must win the prize for being the biggest Christmas policy dork. I make this confession freely...
