Daily Articles

The Failure of the Republican Revolution

by James Bovard February 1, 1999

In a 1996 presidential debate, Republican nominee Bob Dole declared, "The president wants to increase spending 20 percent over the next six years. I want to increase spending 14 percent. That's how simple it is.... We're talking about six points over six years." This was the pathetic choice the Republicans ...

Putting the Taxpayers at Risk, Part 2

by Doug Bandow February 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The World Bank has also long promoted development at any cost. Bank loans underwrote Julius Nyerere's coercive "ujamaa" program and Indonesia's forced transmigration project. Millions of farmers have been forced off their land without compensation by Bank-backed dams. Bank lending long subsidized the destruction of Brazil's rain forest. To blunt such criticisms, ...

Book Review: Say’s Law and the Keynesian Revolution

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1999

Say's Law and the Keynesian Revolution: How Macroeconomic Theory Lost Its Way by Steven Kates (Northhampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 1998); 252 pages; $85. John Maynard Keynes ended his famous 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by pointing out, "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, ...

A Better State of the Union Address

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 2, 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 its citizens. Welfare. Social ...

The Hot Air Emanates from Washington

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 1999

The billions of new tax dollars President Clinton wishes to spend in the new fiscal year include $4 billion to stem global warming. The Associated Press reports that Mr. Clinton wants an "aggressive, common-sense" strategy to save the planet from the man-made "greenhouse effect." The strategy calls for big ...

Patriotism along the Southern Border, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In February 1846, the independent nation of Texas was annexed as a state in the United States of America. The citizens of Texas were now American citizens. However, there was one major glitch. Mexico still considered the Texas territory to be part of Mexico. It threatened war over the annexation ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 25: Milton Friedman and the Demand for Money

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Euro Is a No-Go

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 1999

Everyone is excited about the new, unified European currency, the euro, but it's a terrible mistake. To understand this, it is necessary to grasp what made freedom and prosperity possible in the West. For centuries, Europe, unlike Asia, consisted of multiple countries and legal authorities. On top of this was a ...

The Economic Ignorance of Our ‘Leaders’

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 1999

Vice President Gore may think President Clinton is the "one of the greatest economic stewards in the history of the United States," but that just shows you how little both of them know about matters economic. A free-market economy needs no economic steward, and to the extent it has one, it is ...

Don’t Blame the Thermometer for the Fever

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 1999

When communism collapsed a few years ago, people thought that the last grand ideological debate over political economy had finally ended. Supposedly, we were all capitalists now. But this is clearly not the case. The world's political leaders show no signs of a commitment to capitalism, if by that term we mean truly free markets and individual liberty. On the ...

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 ...

Putting the Taxpayers at Risk, Part 1

by Doug Bandow January 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 President Clinton has not let a little scandal stand in the way of his ongoing attempt to scam the American people. As talk of impeachment enveloped him in Washington, he flew to New York City to give what his staff termed an "important" speech. Which meant a proposal for yet more taxpayer ...