by Dan Mitchell | Dec 18, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
The United States faces a huge long-run fiscal problem because government is growing too fast. Entitlement programs are the main problem. For example, a rising burden of Social Security spending means that outlays will exceed revenues by $65.8...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 16, 2025 | Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
In Part I of this series, I explained that modern welfare states are in deep trouble because of falling birth rates. The core of the problem is that entitlement programs generally tax young people to subsidize old people. And fewer babies today means fewer workers...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 31, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Here’s a video I narrated nearly 15 years ago explaining why personal retirement accounts are superior to a government pay-as-you-go regime. Given the passage of time, it’s worth revisiting the issue to see what’s changed. Some information needs to be updated. The...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 15, 2025 | Blogs, Economics
Back in 2011, I shared two cartoons to illustrate why the welfare state might theoretically collapse. Today, I’m going to examine what I fear will be a real-world example. I’ve written a four-part series about France’s dire fiscal status...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 12, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote last December to share the results of a study Robert O’Quinn and I wrote for Canada’s Fraser Institute on pension systems in OECD nations. Our main goal was to show that personal retirement accounts are now surprisingly common,...
