Kill the Death Tax by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001 ARE WE SUPPOSED to be impressed that some of the country’s richest men want the government to continue taxing estates? I don’t see why their opinion on this matter is worth more than anyone else’s. After all, just because someone is good at making money, that doesn’t make him an authority ...
Space Tourism by Ken Sturzenacker May 1, 2001 As the American tourist who paid $20 million to the Russians to ride along with their cosmonauts for a week-long visit to the international space station, American multimillionaire Dennis Tito is having the time of his life The U.S. space agency, NASA, which shares ...
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 ...
Dictatorship out of Thin Air by James Bovard May 1, 2001 FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS turn bureaucrats into dictators who need not care a whit about public health. Instead, federal agencies blindly pursue both power and publicity. The result is one absurdity after another — and scant attention for the real health threats that Americans face. On July 12, 1999, the Justice Department announced that it was suing Toyota for $58 billion ...
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 ...
Book Review: Government: Whose Obedient Servant? by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2001 Government: Whose Obedient Servant? A Primer in Public Choice by Gordon Tullock, Arthur Seldon, and Gordon L. Brady (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000); 184 pages; $15. IN SPITE OF THE COLOSSAL DISASTER of socialism throughout the world and the corrupt inefficiencies and distortions caused by the interventionist-welfare state, virtually every country in the world clings to various elements of these ...
America’s Imperialism by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2001 Perhaps the release of the U.S. pilots who were spying on China will cause the American people to reevaluate the U.S. government's foreign policy. For decades, the U.S. government has stood for empire, extending its military domain and supervision over much of the globe, much as the Roman empire did in its day. The empire ...
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. ...
Parent Power: Why National Standards Won’t Improve Education by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2001 Parent Power: Why National Standards Won’t Improve Education
Sell the Schools by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2001 In the state of Arkansas, it’s 1925 again. That was the year of the famous Scopes “monkey” trial in Tennessee. Now a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives has introduced a bill in essence prohibiting the public schools from using textbooks that say Darwin’s theory of evolution is ...