Has Italy Passed the Point of No Return for Statism and Big Government?

by Dan Mitchell | Oct 27, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics

The world is a laboratory, with lots of experiments to see if a nation can prosper with big government and pervasive intervention. The results are not encouraging. I’ve written about France being a basket case, over and over again. And I am equally pessimistic...

The Radical Environmental Agenda Should Be Rejected, even if Global Warming Is Real

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 26, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs

I believe that protecting the environment is both a good thing and a legitimate function of government. But I’m rational. So while I want limits on pollution, such policies should be determined by cost-benefit analysis. Banning automobiles doubtlessly would reduce...

Statist Policy and the Great Depression

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 17, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending

It’s difficult to promote good economic policy when some policy makers have a deeply flawed grasp of history. This is why I’ve tried to educate people, for instance, that government intervention bears the blame for the 2008 financial crisis, not capitalism or...

Corporate Welfare: Can Republicans Kick the Habit?

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 10, 2014 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs

I periodically try to explain that there’s a big difference between being pro-market and pro-business. Simply stated, policy makers shouldn’t try to penalize businesses with taxes,mandates, and regulations. But neither should politicians seek to subsidize...

Financed by American Tax Dollars, the OECD Endorses Obama’s Statist Agenda for the U.S. Economy

by Dan Mitchell | Sep 3, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is once again pushing for bigger and more intrusive in the United States. The international bureaucracy’s “Economic Survey” of the United States reads like it...