Daniel Mitchell: The Real Victims of Class-Warfare Taxation

Remember John Kerry, the former Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator, the guy who routinely advocated higher taxes but then made sure to protect his own wealth? Not only did he protect much of his fortune in so-called tax havens, he even went through the trouble of domiciling his yacht outside of his home state to minimize his tax burden.

I did not object to Kerry’s tax avoidance, but I was irked by his hypocrisy. If taxes are supposed to be so wonderful, should not he have led by example?

Daniel Mitchell: The Real Victims of Class-Warfare Taxation

Remember John Kerry, the former Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator, the guy who routinely advocated higher taxes but then made sure to protect his own wealth? Not only did he protect much of his fortune in so-called tax havens, he even went through the trouble of domiciling his yacht outside of his home state to minimize his tax burden.

I did not object to Kerry’s tax avoidance, but I was irked by his hypocrisy. If taxes are supposed to be so wonderful, should not he have led by example?

Dan Mitchell: New Zealand’s Road Map for Sweeping Pro-Market Reform

I wrote last September that New Zealand is the unsung success story of the world.

No, it doesn’t rank above Hong Kong and Singapore, which routinely rank as the two jurisdictions with the most economic liberty.

But it deserves praise for rising so far and fast considering how the country was mired in statist misery just three decades ago. That’s the story of this great video, narrated by Johan Norberg, from Free to Choose Media. It’s runs 56 minutes, but it’s very much worth your time.

Daniel Mitchell: OECD Economic Research Finds That Government Spending Harms Growth

At the risk of understatement, I’m not a fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Perhaps reflecting the mindset of the European governments that dominate its membership, the Paris-based international bureaucracy has morphed into a cheerleader for statist policies.

All of which was just fine from the perspective of the Obama Administration, which doubtlessly appreciated the OECD’s partisan work to promote class warfare and pimp for wasteful Keynesian spending.

Daniel Mitchell: The “Progressive” Threat to Baltic Exceptionalism

I’m a big fan of the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

These three countries emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Empire and they have taken advantage of their independence to become successful market-driven economies.

One key to their relative success is tax policy. All three nations have flat taxes. Estonia’s system is so good (particularly its approach to business taxation) that the Tax Foundation ranks it as the best in the OECD.

Daniel Mitchell: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Sweden

I’m in Sweden today, where I just spoke before Timbro (a prominent classical liberal think tank) about the US elections and the implications for public policy.

My main message was pessimism since neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton support genuine entitlement reform.

Daniel Mitchell from the Cato Institute: Sweden - big government and the welfare state

Sweden punches way above its weight in debates about economic policy. Leftists all over the world (most recently, Bernie Sanders) say the Nordic nation is an example that proves a big welfare state can exist in a rich nation. And since various data sources (such as the IMF’s huge database) show that Sweden is relatively prosperous and also that there’s an onerous fiscal burden of government, this argument is somewhat plausible.

A few folks on the left sometimes even imply that Sweden is a relatively prosperous nation because it has a large public sector. Though the people who make this assertion never bother to provide any data or evidence.

Daniel Michell: Higher Taxes and Bigger Government Is Not a Recipe for Growth

I must be perversely masochistic because I have the strange habit of reading reports issued by international bureaucracies such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank,United Nations, and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But one tiny silver lining to this dark cloud is that it’s given me an opportunity to notice how these groups have settled on a common strategy of urging higher taxes for the ostensible purpose of promoting growth and development.

Daniel Mitchell from Cato: Employment Protection Legislation Is Bad News for Workers

Frederic Bastiat, the great French economist (yes, such creatures used to exist) from the 1800s, famously observed that a good economist always considers both the “seen” and “unseen” consequences of any action.

A sloppy economist looks at the recipients of government programs and declares that the economy will be stimulated by this additional money that is easily seen, whereas a good economist recognizes that the government can’t redistribute money without doing unseen damage by first taxing or borrowing it from the private sector.

Daniel Mitchell: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Donald Trump’s Economic Plan

With a big speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Donald Trump has tried to establish his bona fides as a “growth” candidate. There are many desirable features of his new plan, but some of the provisions should be junked, and others can’t be properly assessed given a lack of details.

Here’s what’s good in the plan:

Reducing the overall tax burden: Trump’s original tax plan reduced the tax burden by about $12 trillion over 10 years ($10 trillion after factoring in the impact of faster growth).

Daniel Mitchell: Economic Lesson from Europe - Higher Tax Rates Are a Recipe for More Red Ink

We can learn a lot of economic lessons from Europe.

- Never adopt a VAT unless you want much bigger government. 

- Bigger government means lower living standards.
- Don’t believe Bernie Sanders about the Nordic nations.