Regulation Policy & Welfare

Government Is Already an Income-Transfer Machine

by Sheldon Richman October 24, 2008

Isn’t it a little late for John McCain and the Republicans to start worrying about government redistribution of wealth? McCain claims to be alarmed by Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would tax upper-income people in order to provide tax cuts to lower- and middle-income people, many of whom don’t pay income ...

The Nanny State

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2008

Whenever some new perceived crisis comes along, Americans typically look to the state as a problem solver. Are we running out of oil? The government should increase CAFE standards so that cars are more fuel-efficient. Is gas too expensive? The government should limit the profits of oil companies. Is the planet getting warmer? The government should mandate reductions in ...

Who Are You Calling Selfish?

by Michael Tennant October 1, 2008

In an early episode of the television series Bewitched, Harold Harold (Paul Lynde), a highly nervous driving instructor, tries to teach Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery) how to drive a car. At one point in the lesson he instructs her to go the wrong way in a traffic circle. Samantha, however, ...

The Authoritarianism of American Labor Law

by George Leef October 1, 2008

American labor law is a dank miasma of special-interest legislation that tramples on the rights of some citizens in order to advance the interests of others. The main beneficiaries are labor-union officials who lobbied for and received extraordinary and unique powers from compliant politicians. The victims are business owners and workers who prefer to have ...

Milk Protectionism

by Gary D. Barnett September 22, 2008

The headline recently in Missoula, Montana’s, daily newspaper, the Missoulian, was “Cheaper milk from Washington pulled from Missoula shelves.” Angry customers know this is obvious protectionism, but Montana milk producers say they only want a “safe” product for Montanans. Yeah, right! Certain stores in Missoula on Friday ...

Government Failure

by Sheldon Richman September 19, 2008

To hear the media pundits and presidential candidates tell it, you’d think Adam Smith has been president for the last eight years and, with a Congress full of free-market advocates, had enacted an agenda of full-blown laissez-faire. Had that been the case, we would not be in the mess we are in economically. Alas, it has not been the case. Politicians ...

Threatened by the Census Bureau

by Gary D. Barnett September 15, 2008

I just received an official letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce threatening me with prosecution and fines if I do not comply with its Economic Census. The letter came from the Office of the General Counsel/Office of the Chief Counsel for Economic Affairs in Washington, D.C., and was sent to ...

The Government’s War on Money Laundering

by Gary D. Barnett September 3, 2008

As a provider of financial services, once again I am required to attest (i.e., declare to be correct and true or genuine), by using the Compliance Attestation System, that I have read and understand and agree to the third-quarter anti–money-laundering training information. I have no effective choice. I can’t disagree. I ...

Foreword to Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State

by Ron Paul March 26, 2008

Sheldon Richman’s Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State is precisely the type of scholarly work needed to wake up the American people to the dangers posed by the welfare state. Richman demolishes the popular myth that the welfare state was a natural outgrowth of the Founding ...

Naiveté at Business Week

by Tibor R. Machan February 15, 2008

Why do some reporters never manage to become educated in the areas they cover? Consider, for example, a recent piece in Business Week, “A Food Fight over Calorie Counts” (2/11/08). The fight is supposed to be between public health officials and the restaurant industry. As to the latter, the report, ...

Energy Fascists

by Sheldon Richman January 11, 2008

One of the great unnoticed curiosities of the presidential campaign is that the party which claims devotion to free enterprise is full-out socialist — or, more precisely, fascist — when it comes to energy. Listening to the presidential forum the other night, I was struck by how anti–free market all ...

The Soviet-Style Attack on NORFED

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 21, 2007

It would be difficult to find a better example of federal heavy-handedness than the recent six-hour federal raid on NORFED, the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to distinguish the NORFED raid from similar raids ...