by Dan Mitchell | May 17, 2013 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
I have to start this post with a big caveat. I’m not a fan of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The international bureaucracy is infamous for using American tax dollars to promote a statist economic agenda. Most recently, it...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 23, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I greatly admire Switzerland’s “debt brake” because it’s really a spending cap. Politicians are not allowed to increase spending faster than average revenue growth over a multi-year period, which basically means spending can only grow at the rate of inflation plus...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 21, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending, Taxation
There aren’t many fiscal policy role models in Europe. Switzerland surely is at the top of the list. The burden of government spending is modest by European standards, in part because of a very good spending cap that prevents politicians from overspending when...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 27, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
I’ve argued, ad nauseam, that the single most important goal of fiscal policy is (or should be) to make sure the private sector grows faster than the government. This “golden rule” is the best way of enabling growth and avoiding fiscal crises, and I’ve cited nations...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 19, 2012 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
I fight to preserve tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy for the simple reason that politicians are less likely to impose destructive tax policy if they know that labor and capital can escape to jurisdictions with more responsible fiscal...