by Dan Mitchell | Sep 17, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
As a libertarian, I sometimes make the moral argument for small government. If it’s wrong to steal other people’s income or property, then shouldn’t it also be wrong to use the coercive power of government to take their income or property? Defenders of the welfare...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 8, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Back in 2013, my colleagues at the Cato Institute, Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes, released a study looking at the value of welfare programs in various states. The most shocking finding was that the overall package of welfare benefits was greater than the median...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 3, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Like Sisyphus pushing the rock up a hill, I keep trying to convince my leftist friends that growth is the best way to help the poor. I routinely share new evidence and provide real-world data in hopes that they will realize that good results are more important than...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 22, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
At the risk of oversimplifying, there are two types of statists. The first type is generally insincere and simply views bigger government and increased dependency as a strategy to obtain and preserve political power. Most inside-the-beltway leftists in Washington are...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 6, 2015 | Blogs, Economics
I’ve written over and over again that the federal government’s so-called War on Poverty has been a disaster. It’s been bad news for taxpayers, of course, but it’s also been bad news for poor people since they get trapped in dependency. So what’s the alternative? Well,...
