Think Tank West

In an exchange I had with Charles Murray earlier this month, he complained that there was no bulletproof scientific research documenting miraculous improvement in student achievement attributable to great schools like those of Ben Chavis. At the time, that objection was beside my point, which is that there is copious evidence that competitive market education [...]

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Bastien François, a professor of political science at the Sorbonne, writes that “The French political system is incomprehensible to the rest of the world… In France we call it a republican monarchy. That phrase says it all.” Indeed, according to the press, a £250,000 ($413,000) shower with air conditioning and radio surround sound that was [...]

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George Will’s latest column takes a look a drug policy and the views of the new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowski.  Notably, Will mentions Portugal’s experience with decriminalization of all drugs since 2001 and says Kerlikowski is aware of the Portuguese policy as well.  Cato published a report on Portugal’s drug policy in April and the author, Glenn [...]

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Speaker Pelosi is set to unveil a health care bill today including yet another version of the so-called public option. This one would let providers “negotiate” reimbursement rates with the government-run program. That’s the health care equivalent of negotiating with Tony Soprano. But regardless of how much lipstick they put on this pig, it still [...]

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One of the perennial tropes of the network neutrality debate has been the tendency of the pro-regulation side to paint it as a David-and-Goliath struggle between big, evil corporations and the little guy. Way back in 2006, James Gattuso pointed out how silly this is: in fact, the push for network neutrality is backed by [...]

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I have always regarded standard-setting organizations as serious players who take care to keep slightly boring the work of establishing uniformity in products and protocols. But a press release from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) may cause me to reassess. “IDSP Issues Report Calling for National Identity Verification Standard” is the release, and it’s [...]

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Last night I spoke at “The Little Idea,” a mini-lecture series launched in New York by Ari Melber of The Nation and now starting up here in D.C., on the incredibly civilized premise that, instead of some interminable panel that culminates in a series of audience monologues-disguised-as-questions, it’s much more appealing to have a speaker [...]

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How Washington’s plans may result in even higher executive pay. “In 1993, Congress intervened in corporate compensation and messed things up. Now it’s the White House’s turn.” The case for allowing insider trading: “Want to keep companies honest, make the markets work more efficiently and encourage investors to diversify? Let insiders buy and sell.” Cato [...]

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Yesterday, I offered the Fordham Foundation’s Andy Smarick an answer to a burning question: What is the proper federal role in education? It was a question prompted by repeatedly mixed signals coming from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about whether Washington will be a tough guy, coddler, or something in between when it comes to dealing with [...]

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Let’s simplify things and say there are essentially two parts to the health care bills moving through Congress: an individual mandate that would effectively nationalize health care, and a government-run program that would explicitly nationalize it slowly, over time. One explanation for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) including the government-run program — supporters call it [...]

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