Regulation Policy & Welfare

Parity: Bureaucratic Tyranny by Moral Fraud

by James Bovard September 1, 1999

The word "fairness" sometimes has the same mesmerizing effect upon people's critical faculties that the phrase "divine right" had a few centuries ago. Modern morality is based on "push-button fairness": the government announces a new regulation, enforcers twist arms, and — voilà! — fairness triumphs. The vast expansion of ...

Watering Down the Separation of Powers

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1999

Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening is exercising political power that would be the envy of dictators all over the world. Declaring an emergency due to the current drought, Glendening has issued orders criminalizing the usage of water in Maryland. The governor's decrees prohibited watering lawns; topping swimming pools; washing ...

Bad Verdicts

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1999

People who care about justice should be concerned by the recent spate of jury verdicts holding manufacturers responsible for the harmful consequences of their products. In recent months a jury returned a civil verdict against the firearms industry after someone used a gun to commit a crime. Four ...

The Mirage of Administrative Justice

by James Bovard July 1, 1999

The trademark of modern political thinking is faith in discretionary power wielded by benevolent politicians and administrators and in letting government employees treat private citizens as they think best. We have far more federal agencies than we used to have, and they are under less restraint than what they ...

Why Are They Poor?

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1999

President Clinton has been visiting what he calls "pockets of poverty" in America. He still thinks government can make people prosperous. You'd think after the government has spent tens of trillions of dollars on poverty programs since the 1960s he'd have gotten the point. But he wants to spend more ...

Order by Agreements or by Iron Fists

by James Bovard May 1, 1999

In his 1651 classic, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes warned: "To obey the King who is God's lieutenant, is the same as to obey God. We shall have no peace till we have absolute obedience." Many contemporary statists share Hobbes's assumption that near-total control is the only way to avoid near-certain destruction ...

There’s No Third Way

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1999

If a gunman approaches you on a dark street and demands your money, you naturally prefer not to give it to him. Apparently our political leaders would consider this an unreasonable clash of extremes. The gunman wants your property. You want to keep it. Surely there's a compromise, ...

Cutthroat Competition and Dead Chickens

by James Bovard April 1, 1999

President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal created much of the moral framework of contemporary political thought. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), a hallmark of Roosevelt's first hundred days in office, symbolizes blind faith in government as moral savior. In a May 17, 1933, message, Roosevelt called for Congress to "provide for the machinery necessary for a great cooperative movement throughout ...

Freedom to Farm Washington

by James Bovard January 1, 1999

Nothing better symbolizes the collapse of Republican principles than the multiple farm bailouts that Congress enacted late last year. Agricultural subsidies are skyrocketing, and the 1996 "Freedom to Farm Act" - ritually invoked as a triumph of the Republican Revolution - is as much in ruins as a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. The 1996 act, which supposedly set the following seven ...

A Better State of the Union Address

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 1999

"My fellow Americans, I, William Jefferson Clinton, am pleased to report on the state of the union on the eve of the millennium and to propose a different direction for our country. "For most of the 20th century, the primary role of the federal government has been to take care of ...

Toying with the Free Market

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1998

Here's a noteworthy story from the Washington Post last September: "Toys 'R' Us Inc., the world's largest toy retailer, announced a major restructuring yesterday in an effort to shore up the chain's sales and profits, which have flagged as a result of growing competition from discounters and changes in the way children play." The article goes on to explain that ...

The Minimum Wage: Enemy of the Poor

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 1998

Whenever politicians wish to score political points, they recommend raising the minimum wage. Parading as champions of the poor and downtrodden, they cry out against all those selfish and greedy employers who are paying less-than-subsistence wages to their employees. The truth is that whenever public officials enact or raise a ...