by Dan Mitchell | Jan 9, 2026 | Blogs, Economics
In 2016, here’s some of what I wrote about the economic outlook in Illinois. And I shared the same observation when writing about California in 2018. There’s a somewhat famous quote from Adam Smith (“there is a great deal of ruin in a nation“)...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 21, 2025 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Honest leftists (the “Okunites“) generally acknowledge that laissez-faire policies deliver more growth, but they nonetheless favor high taxes and redistribution because they argue that social equality matters a lot. However, according to this chart, there’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 23, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Yesterday’s column was about a new report from Olivier De Schutter, a bureaucrat at the United Nations who has the grandiose title of being the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Mr. De Schutter claims that the welfare state (he calls it “social...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 22, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
In 2018, I shared a visual that I referred to as the western world’s “most depressing chart.” It showed how the welfare state exploded in size after World War II and is now an enormous fiscal burden. This has been bad news for taxpayers, of course, but...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 26, 2025 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
The newest edition of Economic Freedom of the World has been released by the Fraser Institute and I will continue my tradition (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, etc) of putting a spotlight on major developments. We’ll...
