by Dan Mitchell | Sep 6, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote a celebratory post last November about the dramatic difference between Americans and Europeans. There truly is American exceptionalism in that Europeans are much more likely to think it is government’s responsibility to provide the basics of life. Another poll...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 25, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
It’s not often that I read something by Paul Krugman and think, “Good point, I hope he’s correct.” After all, I had to correct Krugman’s inaccurate analysis of Estonia, and also point out the errors in what he wrote about the United Kingdom. And I also noted mistakes...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 14, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
I wrote last year about the way in which welfare programs lead to very high implicit marginal tax rates on low-income people. More specifically, they lose handouts when they earn income. As such, it is not very advantageous for them to climb the economic ladder...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 7, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Regular readers know about Mitchell’s Golden Rule, which is the simple – but essential – notion that the burden of government spending shouldn’t grow faster than the private sector. Well, after reading this utterly depressing news about how the number of people riding...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 30, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
In their never-ending efforts to buy votes with other people’s money (see the first cartoon in this post), politicians have been expanding the welfare state and creating more dependency. This is bad for the overall economy because it means a larger burden of...
