Regulation Policy & Welfare

Head Start, Food Stamps, and Libertarians

by Laurence M. Vance January 30, 2013

New reports were recently published about the effectiveness of two long-standing and familiar government programs: Head Start and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly and still informally known as food stamps. There is nothing unusual about that. Such reports are issued all the time by agencies in the government and organizations outside of it. Few ever read them, ...

Let Them Make Cake

by Scott McPherson January 14, 2013

In times gone by the ability of individuals to improve their lives and the lives of those around them depended on largesse, often conferred by royalty. Patents and monopolies were the product of royal favor, and there were prohibitions against anyone aside from the chosen few entering into certain trades. Improving one’s standard of living was not a matter ...

Charity, Not Welfare

by Scott McPherson December 31, 2012

As long as human beings have gathered together in society, provisions have been made for the aid of the poor. In Europe, it was the church that came to shoulder most of this burden, granting a percentage of its income to those in need. In their excellent work, Life in a Medieval Castle, Joseph and Frances Gies ...

TGIF: Intervention Begets Intervention

by Sheldon Richman December 21, 2012

Among the many valuable doctrines associated with the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is his “critique of interventionism.” Originally published in German in 1929, then published in English in 1977, Mises’s book A Critique of Interventionism summed up his position this way: In a private property order isolated intervention fails to achieve what its sponsors ...

Why Is Gambling Illegal?

by Laurence M. Vance December 11, 2012

Every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. five white balls are selected out of a drum containing 59 white balls, and one red ball is chosen out of a drum containing 35 red balls. The jackpot is won by matching all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball. Tickets cost $2. After rolling more than ...

Don’t Trust Your Safety to Fascists

by Scott McPherson December 3, 2012

The car fascists are at it again. Several technologies have been invented over the last decade that can help prevent vehicle collisions. A story in the Boston Globe reports that among these are “lane-departure warning, forward-collision warning, adaptive cruise control, automatic breaking, and electronic stability control.” Great news, right? The wonders of the market never cease. And, according to ...

The Mirage of Welfare State Freedom

by James Bovard December 1, 2012

Government dependency was one of the hottest issues in this year’s presidential race. Unfortunately, neither major-party candidate focused on the perils of “freedoms” that rely on government handouts. Instead, “welfare state freedom” has become the coin of the political realm. Lyndon Johnson declared in 1964, “For the first time in world history we have the abundance and the ability to ...

The Disparate Impact Is Nigh

by Wendy McElroy November 15, 2012

A racial agenda is about to be unleashed on America. According to Investor’s Business Daily (Nov. 8), the Obama administration intends to eliminate the “persistent gaps” between whites and minorities “in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.” Almost every organization and business in America could be held legally accountable for policies that ...

The Institutionalized Racism of Affirmative Action

by Wendy McElroy October 8, 2012

A few days ago, the Rev. Al Sharpton dramatically warned that “50 years of progress” for blacks could be “erased with one ruling” by the United States Supreme Court. The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which the Court will hear on October 10. At issue is whether the Equal Protection Clause of ...

Government Impossible

by Laurence M. Vance October 2, 2012

Restaurant: Impossible is a popular show on the Food Network. I don’t watch much television. Not only do I have more writing projects in the works than I have time for, but the political shows on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox that I should be watching because I write about politics make me either mad or nauseated, and sometimes both. ...

The Federal Wetlands War, Part 3

by James Bovard September 1, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 As the first two parts of this series revealed, federal bureaucrats have been using environmental pretexts to rampage against property owners since the late 1980s. Unfortunately, even after the Republicans took over Congress in 1994 and promised sweeping reforms, the outrages continued. A recent Supreme Court decision vivified that, despite ...

The Federal Wetlands War, Part 2

by James Bovard August 1, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In August 1993, the Clinton administration announced a new policy that tightened the federal noose over private lands. The White House Office on Environmental Policy (echoing a 1988 George H.W. Bush campaign promise) proclaimed a national goal of no net loss of wetlands, creating a presumption ...