Politics

Government as Parasite

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001

The Republicans still don’t get it. They say they want a tax cut because “the surplus is the people’s money,” but their heart isn’t in it. If they truly believed that, they wouldn’t quickly add that we need a tax cut to avert a recession. They supported the tax cut before ...

A Republic, Not an Empire

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001

Predictably, the key lesson of the recent China incident has not been learned. That lesson is this: America was designed as a republic and should not act like an empire. When it does act that way, the American people, not to mention the people in other countries, suffer. Why does the U.S. government need to send spy ...

The Free-Soil Movement, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy May 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 In 1837, in order to encourage a westward migration of the poor and unemployed from the industrial East, the journalist Horace Greeley proclaimed, “Go West, young man, go forth into the Country.” The vast public lands in the West were seen as a safety valve for the increasing labor unrest of Eastern cities. Twenty-five years ...

Cause of Corrupt Government

by Clarence Manion May 1, 2001

A PRECISION TOOL designed for one purpose will be entirely ineffective — nay, it may even be destroyed — in an attempt to use it for another purpose. Every housewife knows that you cannot use an electric dishwasher as a garbage disposal unit. Yet the same American people who know so ...

Powell Praises Castro

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2001

The Associated Press reported that in response to questioning at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Fidel Castro has "done some good things for his people." Powell was referring to Castro's two proudest socialist accomplishments -- public schooling and national health care. With Powell's boss, President George W. ...

Welfare State Morality

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2001

AS A COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE, President Bush wants to give federal aid to faith-based organizations. His plan has drawn attacks from both leaders on the religious Right and civil libertarians on the Left. Religious leaders object to Bush’s plan on the ground that it will lead to governmental interference with religious organizations. The point they make ...

The Clinton Regime’s Final Bosh

by James Bovard April 1, 2001

“WE HAVE A NEW SENSE OF optimism in America.... America has come back under his regime,” declared White House press spokesman Jake Siewert at the final White House briefing of Clinton’s presidency. Siewert recognized his gaffe and quickly repeated himself, substituting the word “administration” for “regime.” But actually, the word “regime” is far more accurate, at least insofar as ...

Campaign Donations are Not the Problem

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 2, 2001

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to raise the amount that individuals can donate to federal candidates from $1,000 to $2,000. (The old limit was imposed in the post-Watergate period and has never been increased.) As is usually the case with the members of Congress, they're not really addressing the root of the problem. First ...

No Compromise on Campaign Finance Reform

by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2001

President Bush’s tone of bipartisan cooperation has its perils. It could lead him to compromise on the uncompromisable. That danger is looming already on so-called campaign finance reform. Sen. John McCain, Bush’s rival in the primaries, is intent on pushing his bill to interfere further with the right of ...

A Libertarian’s Platform

by James Bovard March 1, 2001

THE PLATFORM of the libertarian candidate is simple. It has only one plank in it: No special privilege for anyone. He conceives himself with only two methods of achieving this worthy objective: 1. The free market. 2. Government limited to the defense of life and property. There is no way known to man to determine prices of goods or rates of wages or where ...

The Brookings Loony List

by James Bovard March 1, 2001

FANS OF LEVIATHAN received a gift a few days before last Christmas from the Brookings Institution, Washington’s most respected liberal think tank. Brookings’s Paul Light polled 450 political scientists and historians to come up with a list of “Government’s Greatest Achievements of the Past Half Century.” Light has done some excellent work in the past but succumbed to his enthusiasm ...

Election Nonsense

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2001

NO ONE WHO SPENT HOURS watching the coverage of the presidential election could have failed to notice the constant, almost desperate, invocation of two ideas: “Every vote counts” and “The will of the people must be respected.” It was almost as if the speakers were trying to convince themselves. I followed the presidential election ...