by Dan Mitchell | Jul 2, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
As I’ve pointed out before, the big difference between the United States and Europe is not taxes on the rich. We both impose similar tax burden on high-income taxpayers, though Europeans are more likely to collect revenue from the rich with higher income tax rates and...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 5, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Like America’s Founders, I like constitutional constraints on government and dislike untrammeled majoritarianism. So my gut instinct is to reject Swiss-style direct democracy as a governing system. Yet I have to give credit to the Swiss people for being very sensible...
by Dan Mitchell | May 15, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Socialism
Incentives matter. Sometimes that can be explained with wonky discussions of marginal tax rates orwelfare traps. But that may not be the best approach when trying to convince someone with no aptitude for economics. So what’s the best way of introducing such concepts...
by Dan Mitchell | May 5, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
One of the more interesting policy debates, both in America and around the world, is whether convoluted and counterproductive welfare states should be scrapped and replaced with a “basic income” payment from the government. Finland is experimenting with the concept....
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 20, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Laffer Curve, Welfare and Entitlements
The welfare state is bad news. It’s bad for taxpayers and it’s bad for recipients. It’s also bad for the economy since prosperity is in part a function of the quantity of labor that is productively employed. As such, government programs that lure people into...
