by Dan Mitchell | May 19, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Waste, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote yesterday about the shocking case of a millionaire collecting food stamps. Today, I have an equally disgusting story of government waste. The Social Security program is actuarially bankrupt, with unfunded liabilities of several trillion dollars. Our topic...
by Dan Mitchell | May 3, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I was excited when I saw that Professor Martin Feldstein of Harvard University had a column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal entitled, “Private Accounts Can Save Social Security.” This is great, I thought, another person advocating the kind of pro-growth,...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 22, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
Under current law, Social Security is supposed to be an “earned benefit,” where taxes are akin to insurance premiums that finance retirement benefits for workers. And because there is a cap on retirement benefits, this means there also is a “wage-base cap” on the...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 4, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Yesterday was the 129th anniversary of Charles Ponzi’s birthday. Normal people don’t celebrate the birth of con artists, but a tediously left-wing columnist at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, must be a big admirer of Charles Ponzi, because he seems very happy...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 20, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
One of my presentations at CPAC addressed America’s long-term entitlement crisis. I was part of a panel organized by the National Taxpayers Union, and I discussed how to solve the long-run fiscal problems caused by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The lighting...
