by Dan Mitchell | Oct 14, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation
I’m not a fan of the International Monetary Fund. Like many other international bureaucracies, it pushes a statist agenda. The IMF’s support for bad policy gets me so agitated that I’ve sometimes referred to it as the “dumpster fire” or “Dr. Kevorkian” of the global...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 30, 2017 | Blogs, Taxation
I’m currently in Iceland for a conference organized by the European Students for Liberty. I spoke earlier today on the case for lower taxes and I made six basic points. Taxes undermine prosperity. Taxes reduce competitiveness. Taxes are self-destructive. Taxes are...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 20, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
I argued last year that leftists should be nice to rich people because upper-income taxpayers finance the vast majority of the American welfare state according to government data. Needless to say, my comment about being “nice” was somewhat sarcastic. But I was making...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 8, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
According to leftists like Bernie Sanders, European nations have wonderfully generous welfare states financed by high tax rates on the rich. They’re partly right. There are very large welfare states in Europe (though I wouldn’t use “wonderfully” and “generous” to...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 4, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market, Taxation
The great thing about the Economic Freedom of the World is that it’s like the Swiss Army Knife of global policy. No matter where you are or what issue you’re dealing with, EFW will offer insight about how to generate more prosperity. Since today’s focus is Central...