by Dan Mitchell | Jul 12, 2014 | Blogs, Economics
Why do statists make so many mistakes with data? Paul Krugman, for instance, has butchered numbers when writing about fiscal policy in nations such as France, Estonia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. But Krugman isn’t alone. We also have Thomas Piketty, who was...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 10, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Back in 2012, I shared a sadly amusing image about how the modern political process has degenerated into two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for lunch. I was making an argument in that column against majoritarianism (and that is a critical issue, as explained...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 2, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Free Market, Welfare and Entitlements
I haven’t spent much time writing about Thomas Piketty’s inequality book for the simple reason that my goal is economic liberty, not equality. That being said, I think that Piketty is fundamentally misguided even if the goal is helping the poor. Simply stated,...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 18, 2014 | Blogs, Economics
The political left obviously hopes that it can score political points by pitching some Americans against others with a campaign based on income inequality and class warfare taxation. Is there any merit to this approach? Are the less fortunate suffering because some...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 4, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Government Waste
The President’s new budget has been unveiled. There are lots of provisions that deserve detailed attention, but I always look first at the overall trends. Most specifically, I want to see what’s happening with the burden of government spending. And you probably won’t...