Dan Mitchell

Back in September, I posted a flowchart showing how the current tax system is biased against saving and investment. Simply stated, the federal government largely leaves you unmolested if you consume your after-tax income, but there are as many as

Since I’ve written before about Canada’s remarkable period of fiscal restraint during the 1990s, I am very pleased to see that the establishment press is finally giving some attention to what our northern neighbors did to reduce the burden of

Some people have asked why I’m so agitated about the possibility that Republicans may acquiesce to tax increases as part of the Supercommittee negotiations. Rather than get into a lengthy discourse about the proper role of the federal government or

I’ve written about the fiscal implosion in Europe and warned that America faces the same fate if we don’t reform poorly designed entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. But this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity,

Alan Blinder has a distinguished resume. He’s a professor at Princeton and he served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. So I was interested to see he authored an attack on the flat tax – and I was happy

I’m not a fan of international bureaucracies. I’ve criticized the United Nations for wanting global taxes. I’ve condemned the International Monetary Fund for promoting bigger government. I’ve even excoriated the largely unknown Basel Committee on Banking Supervision for misguided regulations

I’m baffled by stupid Republicans (sorry to be redundant). Some GOPers have agreed to put taxes on the table. Not surprisingly, Democrats are praising them for this preemptive surrender, patting these Republicans on the head for being good little lapdogs.

Commenting on Supercommittee deliberations last month, I asked whether Republicans will choose the real budgetary savings of a sequester or surrender to a tax hike. Well, it appears that the GOP likes being known as the Stupid Party and is

One of my frustrating missions in life is to educate policy makers on the Laffer Curve. This means teaching folks on the left that tax policy affects incentives to earn and report taxable income. As such, I try to explain,

Politicians in Europe have spent decades creating a fiscal crisis by violating Mitchell’s Golden Rule and letting the government grow faster than the private sector. As a result, government is far too big today, and nations such as Greece are

Last week in New York City, during my Intelligence Squared debate about stimulus, I pointed out that Germany is doing better than the United States and explained that they largely avoided any Bush/Obama Keynesian spending binges. One of my opponents

I have sometimes wondered whether it is accurate to say that Republicans are the “Stupid Party.” We’ll soon know the answer to that question. As part of the debt limit agreement, the politicians agreed to set up a “Super Committee”

I’ve criticized the Congressional Budget Office for generating biased and inaccurate numbers. These are the clowns, after all, who say deficit spending stimulates the economy in the short run but they also rely on a model which seemingly predicts 100

Governor Rick Perry of Texas has announced a plan, which he outlines in today’s Wall Street Journal, to replace the corrupt and inefficient internal revenue code with a flat tax. Let’s review his proposal, using the principles of good tax

The Laffer Curve is the simple notion that higher tax rates don’t necessarily generate as much loot as politicians expect because taxpayers have less incentive to earn and/or report income. And it works in both directions. Lower tax rates don’t

The folks from the Koch Institute put together a great video a couple of months ago looking at why some nations are rich and others are poor. That video looked at the relationship between economic freedom and various indices that

I like the overall approach of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan. As I recently wrote, it focuses on lower tax rates, elimination of double taxation, and repeal of corrupt and inefficient loopholes. But I included a very important caveat. The

The budget fights this year began with the “shutdown” battle, followed by the Ryan budget and then the debt limit. These fights have mostly led to uninspiring kiss-your-sister outcomes, which is hardly surprising given divided government. Now the crowd in

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has released another “Economics 101” video, and this one has a very powerful message about the federal government’s so-called War on Poverty. As explained by Hadley Heath of the Independent Women’s Forum, the various

Today, October 1, is the first day of the 2012 fiscal year. And if you’re wondering why America’s economy seems to have a hangover (this cartoon is a perfect illustration), it’s because politicians had a huge party with our money

One almost feels sorry for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He’s a punchline in his own country because he oversees the IRS even though he conveniently forgot to declare $80,000 of income (and managed to get away with punishment that wouldn’t

Earlier this year, President Obama’s IRS proposed a regulation that would force banks in America to report any interest they pay to accounts owned by non-resident aliens (that’s the technical term for foreigners who don’t live in the U.S.). What

Whether I’m criticizing Warren Buffett’s innumeracy or explaining how to identify illegitimate loopholes, I frequently write about the perverse impact of double taxation. By this, I mean the tendency of politicians to impose multiple layers of taxation on income that

When asked to pick my most frustrating issue, I could list things from my policy field such as class warfare or income redistribution. But based on all the speeches and media interviews I do, which periodically venture into other areas,