by Dan Mitchell | Jun 13, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
Changing demographics is one of the most powerful arguments for genuine entitlement reform. When programs such as Social Security and Medicare (and equivalent systems in other nations) were first created, there were lots of young people and comparatively few old...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 5, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
Like America’s Founders, I like constitutional constraints on government and dislike untrammeled majoritarianism. So my gut instinct is to reject Swiss-style direct democracy as a governing system. Yet I have to give credit to the Swiss people for being very sensible...
by Dan Mitchell | May 15, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Socialism
Incentives matter. Sometimes that can be explained with wonky discussions of marginal tax rates orwelfare traps. But that may not be the best approach when trying to convince someone with no aptitude for economics. So what’s the best way of introducing such concepts...
by Dan Mitchell | May 5, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
One of the more interesting policy debates, both in America and around the world, is whether convoluted and counterproductive welfare states should be scrapped and replaced with a “basic income” payment from the government. Finland is experimenting with the concept....
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 10, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
Remember when I wrote about a week ago that I was somewhat optimistic about entitlement reform? Well, given what just happened in New Hampshire, I must have been smoking crack. It would now be more accurate to say something will happen with entitlements, but it will...
