Think Tank West

Yes, you read that right. The story is more complicated than a short headline can covey, but that is the gist of an article of mine in the just-out December issue of Commentary magazine. [Subscription needed.] The past 15 years have witnessed two undeniable trends: dramatically rising levels of immigration, both low-skilled and high-skilled, and [...]

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I’ve just started reading a new article by economists at the World Bank and the Peterson Insititute. The gist of the paper is that greenhouse gas emission targets will have little effect on “carbon leakage”, the apparently-largely-theoretical phenomenon whereby carbon-intensive industries move to less regulated jurisdictions in response to stringent emissions regulations in their original [...]

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The New York Times has a good article about how lawyers on both the right and left are working together to try and roll back state power in the criminal justice system. Here is an excerpt: “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The left [...]

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House Democrats introduced the first complete draft of President Obama’s health plan on June 19. Since then, Congress has spent 158 days considering the Obama health plan without ever laying eyes on a complete cost estimate. The House passed its version without one. And the Senate has begun floor consideration without one.  (Shouldn’t these eight [...]

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In federal eminent domain cases, the “scope of the project” rule requires that in determining “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, any increase or decrease in property value caused by the federal project be disregarded.  As it turns out, the federal government had discussed the idea of expanding Everglades National Park for over 30 years, [...]

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USA Today reports that “the Justice Department gave more than $77 million in stimulus funds this year to 200 police agencies because of their locations rather than economic or crime-fighting needs, department records show.” Why? Because a 1994 congressional provision requires that every state gets a slice of the local law enforcement funding, regardless of [...]

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Three decades of politics and failed policies at HUD. Michael D. Tanner on the Senate Sell-Outs: “At a time of 10.2 percent unemployment, they voted to make it more expensive to hire workers, especially low-wage workers. With the economy struggling, they voted for $485 billion in tax hikes. They voted to raise the payroll tax, [...]

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Imagine if the government got to pick your pocket every time you engaged in a financial transaction? That nightmare scenario is a distinct possibility now that senior Democrats have joined with European politicians and urged that such a tax be applied on a worldwide based. Reuters has the disturbing details: Any tax imposed on financial [...]

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I’ve written here before about how the National Governors Association is seeking to peddle state power over driver licensing and identification to the federal government in order to cement its role as a supplicant for states in Washington, D.C. NGA is currently seeking to drum up a false, end-of-year driver license crisis to convince Congress [...]

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Sunday marked the third anniversary of the signing of a free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia. It is an embarrassment to our great nation that this agreement with an important Latin American ally still sits on the shelf three years later, a victim of congressional trade politics. As my Cato colleague Juan [...]

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