Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute gives overview of economic policy and he praises Clinton and Reagan

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President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Tom Selleck, Dudley Moore, Lucille Ball at a Tribute to Bob Hope’s 80th birthday at the Kennedy Center. 5/20/83.

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Dan Mitchell is very good at giving speeches and making it very simple to understand economic policy and how it affects a nation. Mitchell also talks about slowing the growth of government and he gives credit to Clinton and Reagan.

Probably my favorite subject that Dan has covered is the Laffer Curve. I got a chance to hear Arthur Laffer speak at Memphis St University in 1981 and Laffer actually predicted what would happen in the next 7 years because of the Reagan Tax Cuts and all of his predictions came true. What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980′s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!! The funny thing is that the world saw what we did and followed along. The drop of the industrialized countries during this same time was 26% (from 68% to 42% on average). It reminded me of Milton Friedman 1980 book “Free to Choose” and his answer to the 11% inflation that President Carter was dealing with in 1980. Reagan put Friedman’s solution into action and 5 years later inflation was under control.

Below is a fine article and video from Dan Mitchell.

(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic advisers.
(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic

 

I’ve narrated a video that cites Economic Freedom of the World data to explain the five major factors that determine economic performance.

But that video is only six minutes long, so I only skim the surface. For those of you who feel that you’re missing out, you can listen to me pontificate on public policy and growth for more than sixty minutes in this video of a class I taught at the Citadel in South Carolina (and if you’re a glutton for punishment, there’s also nearly an hour of Q&A).

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell

Published on Apr 2, 2012

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell speaks to cadets economics and conservatism. This is the 10th lecture in the seminar series titled “The Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America.”

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There are two points that are worth some additional attention.

1. In my discussion of regulation, I mention that health and safety rules can actually cause needless deaths by undermining economic performance. I elaborated on this topic when I waded into the election-season debateabout whether Obama supporters were right to accuse Romney of causing a worker’s premature death.

2. In my discussion of deficits and debt, I criticize the Congressional Budget Office for assuming that government fiscal balance is the key determinant of economic growth. And since CBO assumes you maximize growth by somehow having large surpluses, the bureaucrats actually argue that higher taxes are good for growth and their analysis implies that the growth-maximizing tax rate is 100 percent.

P.S. If you prefer much shorter doses of Dan Mitchell, you can watch my one-minute videos on tax reform that were produced by the Heartland Institute.

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