by Dan Mitchell | May 21, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Excessive government spending is America’s top fiscal problem. To be more specific, poorly designed entitlement programs are leading to an ever-growing spending burden that ultimately will either lead to massive tax increases or a debt crisis. To...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 12, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, States, Taxation
As illustrated by the changes in my state tax rankings between 2018 and 2023, there’s been a lot of progress. Several red states have shifted to flat taxes and lowered tax rates, putting the class-warfare blue states at an even bigger...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 10, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, States, Taxation
I often cite the 20th Theorem of Government (France, Brazil, Colombia, Maryland) to emphasize the danger of spending profligacy. Today, let’s add the state of Washington to that list. We’ll start with a chart from Americans for Tax Reform...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 24, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, States
In Part XIII of my series comparing Texas and California (previous seven editions can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), I shared data showing that the burden of state spending was growing much faster...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 16, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, States, Taxation
California’s top fiscal problem is an ever-growing burden of government spending. In case anyone thinks that is just empty rhetoric, the state budget over the past three decades has risen at twice the rate of inflation. One consequences of ever-expanding...