Daniel Mitchell
Articles
Taxes and State Competitiveness
“Politicians in New York must be upset that there’s no way for them to drop lower than #50. But at least they can take comfort in the fact that they are worse than California.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
The IMF Should Be Eliminated, Not Expanded
“There are many good economists who work for the IMF and they often produce high-quality research. Sadly, their sensible analysis doesn’t seem to have any impact on the decisions of the organization’s top bureaucrats.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
Baptists, Bootleggers, and (Pretend-) Meat
“There are plenty of things in life that are unhealthy and/or dangerous. Maybe I’m just a knee-jerk libertarian, but I think adults should be free to make their own choices about the levels of risk they’re willing to incur.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
The Adverse Economic Consequences of “Basic Income”
“Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum for basic income back in 2016. Further, Joe Biden expressed skepticism about the idea back in 2017, but he obviously has had a change of heart, given his current support for big, per-child handouts.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
Pandemic Emergency Spending Riddled With Fraud
“We already knew that the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a bigger burden of government, and none of us should be surprised that we also wound up with record levels of waste. Remember, ‘more government’ is not the answer to any sensible question. At some point, we will run out of ‘other people’s money.'” ~ Daniel…
New Leak of Taxpayer Info Is (More) Evidence of IRS Corruption
“What’s especially disgusting is that the Biden Administration wants to reward IRS corruption with giant budget increases, bolstered by utterly fraudulent numbers. Needless to say, that would be a terrible idea, and sadly, Republicans in the past have been sympathetic to expanding the size of the tax bureaucracy.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
Are Tax Increases Popular?
“Voters seem to be on the right side on the big-picture question of ‘Should taxes be higher?’, but if they think tax increases are going to happen, it’s quite likely that they will support the most economically damaging types of class-warfare levies.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
Arthur Okun, Class Warfare, Redistribution, and Income Growth
“The low-income worker is a net beneficiary of bigger government for about 10 years. But as time goes on, the worker would be far better off with smaller government and faster growth. Different assumptions will lead to different results, of course. My goal is simply to help readers understand two things: bigger government leads to…
Biden’s Infrastructure Boondoggle
“The immediate lesson from all of this is that Biden’s plan is a boondoggle waiting to happen (just as would have been the case with Trump). The longer-term lesson is that we should get the federal government out of the business of infrastructure.” ~ Daniel J. Mitchell
New York’s Fiscal Suicide
“If the tax increases are enacted, expect to see a significant drop in taxable income as upper-income taxpayers either leave the state or figure out other ways of protecting their income. I don’t know if the state will be on the downward-sloping portion of the Laffer Curve, but it’s safe to assume that revenues over…
