Think Tank West

By David Boaz Paul Krugman writes today, “Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you’re still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea.” I can’t speak for the particular textbooks Krugman reads, but Cato Policy Report just looked at the most significant example of slashing spending in American history — [...]

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By Jim Harper In April, I inquired aloud whether Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) supported a national ID. It’s clear now that he does—and he’s told us how he wants to use it. On “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, he said: I’ve got a driver’s license. It has my photo on it. I have a passport. When [...]

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By David Boaz Benjamin Franklin said, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” Given Franklin’s leadership in the struggle for American independence, we can infer that he did not think that there never was a war that was necessary, or a war that was worth its cost. But he reminds us that [...]

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By David Boaz George Will goes after President Obama’s proposed Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act. Will focuses primarily on the dubious constitutionality of allowing the president to delete items from a spending bill after he’s signed it, a form of line-item veto. But he also notes that it wouldn’t do much to actually reduce federal spending, [...]

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By Daniel J. Mitchell Hillary Clinton recently opined that Brazil was a great role model for the idea of soaking the rich with higher tax rates. She didn’t really offer evidence for that specific assertion, but Politico reports that she did say that “Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what [...]

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By Neal McCluskey As the Obama administration continues to send mixed signals about the proposed $23 billion public-school bailout, rescue advocates are offering some very wimpy defenses of their cause. That is, except for the National Education Association, which has launched a PR blitz for the bailout in its grandest — and most shameless — tradition of using cute kids to get [...]

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By Gene Healy Amid the din of James Carville’s screeching, you may have missed a couple of reasonable voices taking issue with the “do something, Superpresident!” approach that’s dominating the discussion of the Gulf Spill. (They both mention Cato work, which is a bonus). In the Daily Beast, Tunku Varadarajan writes that this isn’t “Obama’s [...]

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By Jim Harper In my recent testimony before the House Commerce Committee on a proposal to require event data recorders in all new cars sold in the United States, I pointed out that the mandate would go far beyond what is needed to ensure safety. Indeed, the cost of EDRs raises the prices of new [...]

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By Daniel J. Mitchell The Taxpayers Alliance has a brief but compelling video, entitled “How long do you work for the tax man?,” which shows how an ordinary worker in the United Kingdom spends more than one-half his day laboring for government. “What will they tax next?” is still the best policy video to come [...]

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By Tim Lynch Kirk Adams, speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, has an article in today’s Washington Post on the controversial Arizona immigration law.  Here’s an excerpt: Under the law, officers can only attempt to determine a person’s immigration status during “lawful contact,” which is defined as a lawful stop, detention or arrest. Any [...]

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