Regulation Policy & Welfare

Think Globally, Act Absurdly

by Scott McPherson December 17, 2004

“We didn’t run for office just to rake the leaves and tend to tree trimming. We’ve got ideas.” — George L. Leventhal, vice president, Montgomery County (Maryland) Council That statement sums up the essence of so-called progressivism. If you’ve got ideas about the way things are supposed to be, ...

Licensure: A Lawyer Protection Racket

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 8, 2004

One of the most popularly held beliefs in American society is that state licensing of attorneys is necessary to ensure that they are competent. But you’d have a hard time convincing people accused of crimes in Virginia of that. In an editorial entitled “A System Still in Crisis”, the ...

A Good Way to Spend Thanksgiving?

by Sheldon Richman November 24, 2004

U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona has a swell idea for how we should spend the Thanksgiving holiday. He’s declared Thanksgiving the first annual National Family History Day. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “Americans are encouraged to use their family gatherings as a time ...

Are HOAs Anti-Freedom?

by Scott McPherson November 1, 2004

A large number of people, including some libertarians, dislike the concept of homeowners’ associations (HOAs). HOAs are private agencies that administer new housing developments, requiring a monthly fee to maintain common areas and regulating everything from grass height to house colors to where you can park your car — and their rules are enforceable by contract law. In the ...

Field of (Bad) Dreams

by Samuel Bostaph October 20, 2004

Washington, D.C., will soon begin construction of a new taxpayer-funded baseball stadium at an estimated cost of $400 million, give or take $50 million. Thirty-three years after the Washington Senators left town to become the Texas Rangers, a majority vote of the D.C. city council will fill the vacancy by ...

The Welfare State Rewards Liars

by Sheldon Richman October 18, 2004

Many bad things can be said about the welfare state the political arrangement, as the 19th-century French liberal Frdric Bastiat wrote, by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. But one largely unnoticed feature is that it rewards people for suspending their moral sense. Frankly, it makes winners out of liars. How so? If it is ...

When Force Masquerades as Social Science

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2004

Maybe desperation has me grasping at straws, but I am encouraged that people usually try to camouflage their advocacy of physical force against innocent people. It means they must be at least slightly embarrassed at favoring the threat of violence against those who have remained peaceful. That can signify only their at-least-dim awareness that the initiation of force is ...

Kerry’s Energy Socialism

by Sheldon Richman August 18, 2004

If the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates were forbidden to offer proposals based on collectivist economic thinking, they would have to keep mum the entire campaign. We are in for three months of unrelenting nonsense from President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry. That ...

The Free Market Is the High Road

by Bart Frazier August 2, 2004

Nothing could raise our standard of living more than freeing the economy from our meddling government. When people are able to live free of government regulation, they prosper — goods become cheaper, standards of living go up, and individual liberty is expanded. Today, government regulates almost ...

Free Martha! Free Bobby!

by Sheldon Richman July 21, 2004

The U.S. government has moved closer to nabbing two prized catches. Martha Stewart has been sentenced to five months in prison, five months under house arrest, and a $30,000 fine for lying about noncriminal activity. She will remain free while appealing her convictions. Former world chess champion Bobby ...

Government by Euphemism

by Sheldon Richman July 2, 2004

People live by political euphemisms. Sometimes they die by them, as when civilians are bombed in the name of liberating them. There are less lethal euphemisms, but since all of them embody dishonesty (the word euphemism itself is a euphemism), they all have bad consequences. Those that do not kill may merely make us poorer and less free. Most politicians ...

Farm Subsidies Must Go

by Sheldon Richman June 30, 2004

In Washington, hypocrisy knows no bounds. The latest example is the U.S. government’s response to the World Trade Organization’s preliminary ruling that subsidies to American cotton farmers distort international trade and violate WTO rules. The first response from U.S. officials was that Brazil, which brought the complaint, should ...