by Dan Mitchell | Dec 17, 2014 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Genuine tax reform would be the second-best fiscal policy reform to boost economic growth.* With a simple and fair tax system, we could get rid of high tax rates that penalize productive behavior. We could eliminate the double taxation that discourages saving and...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 9, 2014 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Many statists are worried that Republicans may install new leadership at the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This is a big issue because these two score-keeping bureaucracies on Capitol Hill tilt to the left and have a lot of...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 16, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Laffer Curve, Taxation
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) are congressional bureaucracies that wield tremendous power on Capitol Hill because of their role as fiscal scorekeepers and referees. Unfortunately, these bureaucracies lean to the left. When...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 8, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Every so often, I see a cartoon or image that provides a teachable moment about economics. This Wizard-of-Id parody, for instance, contains a lot of insight about labor economics. As does this Chuck Asay cartoon and this Robert Gorrell cartoon. And if you want to...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 21, 2014 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation
I’m a big advocate of the Laffer Curve. Simply stated, it’s absurdly inaccurate to think that taxpayers and the economy are insensitive to changes in tax policy. Yet bureaucracies such as the Joint Committee on Taxation basically assume that the economy will be...