by Dan Mitchell | Aug 27, 2021 | Blogs, Taxation
At the risk of understatement, Illinois is not a well-governed state. Greedy (and hypocritical) politicians have taxed and spent the state into a fiscal hole. It ranks in the top 10 for unemployment.It ranks in the bottom 10 for...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 24, 2021 | Blogs, States, Taxation
I’ve been asked why I periodically mock politicians. The simple answer is that they often deserve our scorn. It’s not that they’re evil or bad people, but their incentive structure generally leads them to make shallow,...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 4, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
I’ve written many times about how big businesses often climb in bed with politicians to lobby for anti-market policies such as subsidies, bailouts, and protectionism. To get these special favors, they often deploy the “baptists and...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 2, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, Uncategorized
I recently explained the evolution of taxation – and the unfortunate consequences of income taxation – to a seminar in the country of Georgia. One of my main points was that income taxes are a relatively new source of revenue. The first income tax was adopted in the...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 28, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Back in 2019, I listed “Six Principles to Guide Policy on Government Spending.” If I was required to put it all in one sentence (sort of), here’s the most important thing to understand about fiscal policy. This does not mean, by the way, that we should...
