by Dan Mitchell | Dec 10, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
There was a book last decade by Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, that asked why lower-income voters in the state didn’t vote for greater levels of redistribution. The author claimed these voters were sidetracked by cultural issues, which may very well be...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 5, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I don’t like writing about deficits and debt because I don’t want to deflect attention from the more important underlying problem of excessive government spending. Indeed, I constantly explain that spending is what diverts resources from the productive sector of the...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 21, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Waste
When asked to pick the worst international bureaucracy, I generally respond as follows. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should be at the top of the list. Both of those bureaucracies aggressively...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 7, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I explained last year that there is an inverse relationship between government efficiency and the size of government. And Mark Steyn made the same point, using humor, back in 2012. Interestingly, we have some unexpected allies. In a recently released study, two...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 16, 2018 | Blogs, Economics
I periodically explain that pro-market policies are the best way of helping poor people. The reason rich countries are rich is because they had lengthy periods of limited government, free markets, and the rule of law. And the convergence literature shows that the same...
