Topic: Policy

Adam Smith Provided a Moral Foundation for Workers’ Freedoms

– August 20, 2023

“The moral proposition is that it is good for individuals to be free to work and contract as they choose. The economic proposition is that such freedom generates spectacular wealth.” ~ David McGarry

Crisis, History, Policy

What Kind Of Judicial Restraint Are We Talking About?

– August 16, 2023

“Those who have effectively remade the Constitution, while bypassing the process established to do so legitimately, are determined to defend those precedents.” ~ Gary Galles

Economic Growth, Free Markets, Policy, Taxation

State Development Incentives: The Only Solution is Not to Play

– August 15, 2023

“The incentives of politicians and the goals of citizens can diverge, and nowhere is that divergence more obvious than in the case of targeted, private benefits to specific corporations paid for at public expense.” ~ Michael Munger

Economic Growth, International, Policy, War and Peace

How Will America’s Borrow and Spend Politicians Pay for an Imperial Foreign Policy?

– August 11, 2023

“Serious efforts to control deficits and debt will require a series of politically painful decisions. The only way to make such unpalatable fiscal sacrifices possible is to kill all the sacred cows, including the Pentagon.” ~ Doug Bandow

Government, Policy, Regulation

The (Egg)noble Lie of Regulatory Paternalism

– August 4, 2023

“As long as you don’t have serious comorbidities, you are over 4.5 times more likely to win the million-dollar Powerball prize than die from the consumption of a raw unpasteurized egg.” ~ Alec Stamm

Art and Culture, Economic Education, Entrepreneurship, Policy

Supply and Demand: As Straightforward as it Seems?

– August 2, 2023

“It’s the entrepreneur’s dilemma—a kind of chicken-and-egg quandary that complicates the basic law of supply and demand. Consumers are in the driver seat, to be sure, helping steer resources to their most valued alternative uses.” ~ Paul Schwennesen

Central Banking, Economic Trends, Policy, Property Rights

No Place to Lay Your Head: How Economic Policy Makes Housing Unaffordable for Young Working Families

– July 24, 2023

“There’s artificial scarcity in housing markets, but in that case it’s the planners themselves who put housing in such short supply – and at consequent high prices.” ~ H. Shelton Weeks and Victor Claar

Education, Government, Policy

If You Had to Choose Between Affirmative Action and School Choice, Which Would You Choose?

– July 17, 2023

“The opposition to school choice is mostly coming from those who already have more socio-economic success than the kids school choice is intended to help.’ ~ James E. Hanley

Art and Culture, Economic Trends, Policy

Cash, Crime, Minimum Wage, and Unintended Consequences

– July 13, 2023

“When a government policy is enacted, it often seeks to change individual behavior. But human beings are clever and will often respond to policy initiatives in ways that either counteract the initial policy’s goals or create new problems in other spheres.” ~ Anthony Gill

Art and Culture, Education, Policy

The Affirmative Action Game

– July 11, 2023

“The Equal Protection clause is inarguably textually neutral. To interpret equal protection for all as meaning extra protection for some requires some political heavy lifting that a strictly textual argument does not.” ~ James E. Hanley

International, Policy, Regulation, Taxation

Canary in a Cigarette Smuggling Coal Mine

– July 9, 2023

“Banning menthol cigarettes would only exacerbate America’s substantial trade in cigarette tax evasion and avoidance, this time with an assist from transnational crime syndicates.” ~ Michael LaFaive and Todd Nesbit

Education, Policy, Taxation

Is There Any Such Thing as Legislation Anymore?

– July 9, 2023

“With congressional opposition to a legislative approach clear, the Administration decided to work through the Department of Education to use the HEROES Act to accomplish administratively what they had been unable to do legislatively.” ~ Ryan Yonk and Laura Arce