Think Tank West

Cato author Tim Sandefur has a video on YouTube about a truly awful business regulation in Oregon, one that prevents anyone from starting a moving company without in effect the permission of the existing moving companies. As you can probably imagine, they aren’t eager to give it. Sandefur and his employer, the Pacific Legal Foundation, [...]

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Reminder: Next Wednesday, February 4th, the Cato Institute will host a book forum on David Post’s new book, In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace. Comments will come from Clive Crook, chief Washington commentator of the Financial Times and senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly; and Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law [...]

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That’s what Steve Horwitz says here.  Like the PATRIOT Act, it’s a preexisting wishlist of initiatives being rammed through in an atmosphere of hysteria. Where the Obama administration has, to its credit, backed away from the language of war and crisis when it comes to international affairs and homeland security, the Obama team seems all [...]

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In its lead editorial today, the New York Times dismisses criticism of the stimulus bill that passed the House last night as “mostly ideological.” Similarly, a McClatchy News story about the economists who signed Cato’s newspaper advertisement opposing the stimulus bill, dismissed signers as “ideologically opposed” to government spending. This is part of a trend [...]

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Leaving aside the many other disastrous implications of the pork-laden “stimulus” bill, here are some thoughts about its impact on international trade. For all practical purposes there is no difference between the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of 1930 and the “Buy American” provisions in the $819 billion spending bill that passed the House Wednesday. Smoot-Hawley was [...]

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Honestly, a 900-word Politico article on “the Power of Obama’s Hand”?  It’s going to be a long four-to-eight years.  (Hat tip: Dave Weigel).

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Tom Daschle has joined Timothy Geithner in the not-so-exclusive club of Obama Cabinet appointees who evaded tens of thousands of dollars in federal taxes until they were vetted for their Cabinet nominations. It’s too bad Leona Helmsley can’t be nominated as Commerce Secretary. I sympathize with anybody trying to hold down his tax bill. Government [...]

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Last month, Cato released a paper titled, “Does the Doctor Need a Boss?“ Our friend Greg Scandlen called it “one of the most offensive papers I’ve ever read.” Scandlen is one of the leading lights of the consumer-directed health care movement. He is a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, founder and director of Consumers for Health Care Choices, a [...]

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I was asked by a radio host more than once this week what I thought of the fact that some big business leaders were standing by President Obama in his pursuit of the gargantuan “stimulus” package. There is an unfortunate public perception that supporters of free markets are knee-jerk supporters of anything that could be perceived [...]

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After his first major interview with an Arab TV network, it is clear President Obama is striking a decidedly different tone in talking about terrorism. In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, legal policy analyst David H. Rittgers discusses the new direction Obama will take in the fight against terrorism. “This is a serious departure from some [...]

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