Daily Articles

More Federal Lies on Guns

by James Bovard October 1, 1998

The Clinton administration is continuing to portray the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 as the key to national salvation. However, once again, the administration's claims are as bogus as a $3 bill. The Justice Department announced on June 21, 1998, that presale handgun background checks ...

Inequality of Wealth and Incomes

by Ludwig von Mises October 1, 1998

The market economy — capitalism — is based on private ownership of the material means of production and private entrepreneurship. The consumers by their buying or abstention from buying ultimately determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. They render profitable the affairs of those businessmen ...

Waging Tax War Against Ourselves

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

It's easy to see that it's election time in America. Vice President Gore recently made a campaign swing around California where he handed out $185.4 million in federal grants while, at the same time, raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates. A Gore political aid described it ...

Tax Cutting, Washington-Style

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1998

The House Republicans' proposed tax cut, which looks doomed in the Senate, is an outrage. It's so small it would barely show up on the budget radar screen. This makes absolutely no sense. If President Clinton is determined to veto a tax cut, as he says he is, at least make ...

Tear Down the Wall and Open the Borders

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

Perhaps we ought to lament the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. It might have been less costly and more efficient to simply move it to the southern border of the United States. Four years ago, the federal government initiated Operation Gatekeeper, a massive crackdown on illegal immigration into California. ...

What Republican Revolution?

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1998

The dictionary defines "revolution" as a complete change in something. Thus, when Republicans called the 1994 election results a Republican revolution, everyone naturally assumed that there was going to be a complete change in the nature of government in America. In the euphoria of the '94 election results, Republicans said ...

Book Review: In Praise of Commercial Capital

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1998

In Praise of Commercial Culture by Tyler Cowen (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); 278 pages; $29.95. One of the most persistent views in many intellectual circles is that capitalism and the market economy are antagonistic to refined culture and artistic appreciation. On the one hand, the general public, it is claimed, is too uneducated and narrow-minded to understand either ...

President’s Perilous Foreign Affairs

by Sheldon Richman September 15, 1998

When President Clinton ordered air strikes against alleged terrorist facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan last August, nearly everyone wondered if he had done it to take our attention off his sex scandal. But perhaps he's using the scandal to distract us from his foreign adventurism. Many criticisms can be made about the president's White ...

Politics Won’t Produce Moral Heroes

by Sheldon Richman September 2, 1998

Much of the reaction about President Clinton's difficulties can be summed up thus: Our leader let us down. The premise is that the president is not just a chief executive officer, but much more: a moral and spiritual leader of the nation. I submit this is an unfortunate attitude for free people. Americans have long had ...

Fight Socialism with Freedom in North Korea

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1998

For the last three years, up to 2 million people have died of starvation in North Korea. The U.S. government has been the biggest provider of aid, contributing 220,000 tons of food. The Clinton administration is now considering sending an additional 300,000 tons of food. American officials refer to this ...

The Conservative Commitment to Educational Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1998

It would be difficult to find a better model of socialistic central planning than public (government) schooling. Public schooling entails a central board of elected or appointed government planners, either at a national, state, or local level. Attendance is mandated by compulsory-attendance laws. Government-approved schoolteachers, using government-approved textbooks, ...

Why Not Simply Repeal Social Security?

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1998

As the November congressional elections approach, Social Security is certain to become a topic of political conversation. With a budget surplus in mind, Republicans are seeking an $80 billion tax cut for the American people. President Clinton is threatening a veto. He says that taxes can't be cut because ...