by Dan Mitchell | Jan 13, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
After saddling the nation with trillion-dollar boondoggles like the faux stimulus and Obamacare, I’m not sure it’s possible for Obama to reinvent himself as a budget cutter before the election. But I welcome converts, even ones that are insincere, so I’m happy he’s at...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 12, 2012 | Blogs, Free Market
The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom has just been released. This is my favorite publication from the Heritage Foundation, and second only to the Economic Freedom of the World Index as a measure of global public policy. The news scores for 2012 are not pretty. We have...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 11, 2012 | Blogs, Uncategorized
Even vicious, reprehensible, and disgusting tyrants sometimes make wise observations. Back in 2010, for instance, Cuba’s Murderer-in-Chief confessed that communism didn’t work. More recently, the thug expressed unhappiness with the current crop of presidential...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 6, 2012 | Blogs, Economics
The White House doubtlessly is happy that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.5 percent, in part because the President is much more likely to get reelected if voters think the economy is heading in the right direction. My political predictions have a mixed track...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 1, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Europe
Last January, I identified five things that worried me for 2011. Here’s what had me concerned, along with some ex post facto analysis about whether I was right to fret: 1. A back-door bailout of the states from the Federal Reserve – Thankfully, I was way off base with...