Topic: columns
Mitchell: Defend the market economy, defund the OECD
I’m in no mood for diplomatic niceties when dealing with an organization that is pervasively hostile to economic liberty.
Bershidsky: All tariffs must go
Abolishing tariffs would be a good start, if only because it would help take trade out of the populist realm of simple solutions and back into negotiating rooms filled with detail-oriented professionals.
Krauthammer: A note to readers
I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.
Bloomberg: Maybe the Fed did not guy Volcker rule
There are better ways than the Volcker Rule to limit the scope of taxpayer subsidies – but they aren’t happening any time soon.
Rahn: Watergate redux
The current election scandal is motivated by many of the same impulses that drove the Watergate lawbreakers.
Rooney: Facing the realities of a changing world
As an economist and – yes, as a globalist – I have a lot of confidence in the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. I think we will find a new path to growth, upgrade our workforce’s skills, and ultimately the wage-productivity gap will close.
Rahn: Toward a better cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, can serve as a unit of account and a medium of exchange, but not as a store of value – as long as there is nothing more than an algorithm to anchor them.
Will: Prohibition has been lifted at last on sports wagering
Illegal sports betting was estimated to involve only $25 billion annually when PASPA was passed. Its subsequent burgeoning is redundant evidence that restraining a popular appetite with a statute is akin to lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb, which should chasten busybody governments.
Will: Battling campus oppression of freedom of expression
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says bias response teams produce “a surveillance state on campus where students and faculty must guard their every utterance for fear of being reported to and investigated” by bureaucrats.
Thiessen: Where’s the outrage over Kerry’s secret meetings?
Kerry has no one to blame but himself for Trump’s decision to withdraw. And he certainly has no business colluding with America’s enemies against America’s president.
Mitchell: The difference between Libertarians and statists
The bottom line is that federalism is good because it means people can easily move when a government imposes bad policy. This is also a recipe for tolerance and tranquility, though only one side sees it that way.
Will: After nixing the Iran nuclear deal, is containment our only option?
It is a law of arms control: Significant agreements are impossible until they are unimportant, which means until they are not significant.
Rahn: Allocating global capital
Ironically, international institutions which have been established to promote more productive investment in poorer nations are having in many cases the opposite effect.
Will: Is the US trapped in a debt spiral?
The Congressional Budget Office projects that new federal borrowing over the next 10 years will total $12.4 trillion and that at the end of 2028, the debt will be $28.7 trillion – 96 percent of GDP, up from 39 percent in 2008.
Bush: An obligation to protect the people of the Cayman Islands
In the event that the matter cannot be sorted out through negotiation, the Premier, Mr. Alden McLaughlin, and the Cabinet have my full support to determine the legitimacy of the proposals through the legal system as the same appear to be a clear violation of the Cayman Islands Constitution, an individual’s legitimate right to privacy.
Byles: When politics trump respect
The Cayman Islands has demonstrated consistently that it will go very far in cooperating with overseas authorities to help in the fight against tax evasion, as well as to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.
Rahn: Abolishing campaign contribution limits
Any determined person can legally get around the campaign finance restrictions with the aid of a smart lawyer.
Will: Gowdy is closing the circle of South Carolina’s history
As a member of three key committees (Oversight and Government Reform, Judiciary, and Intelligence), Gowdy has been at the – sometimes he has been the – epicenter of controversies.
Morici: Apprenticeships offer an alternative to college
Redirecting federal and state funding from higher education is sorely needed to encourage more of these innovative programs.
Will: A showcase of the vilest and noblest manifestations of humanity
Nothing is unthinkable, and political institutions by themselves provide no permanent safety from barbarism, which permanently lurks beneath civilization’s thin, brittle crust.
A deeper understanding of global debt
The scary-sounding global debt numbers were a bit of a publicity stunt; they got our attention, even if they were intellectually misleading.
End of Cuba’s Castro era is an opportunity for Trump
The Castro family will probably continue to play a big role behind the scenes. But the packaging matters, because it provides the cover for Trump to change course.
Morici: The optimists may be right
Economists mostly sort into two camps – those who believe the post-World War II period was exceptional and those at the White House and a few others (count me in) who believe the best is yet to come.
Will: South Dakota asks Supreme Court to circumvent Congress, and the market
South Dakota’s impertinent law reflects this fact: Governments often are reflexively reactionary when new technologies discomfort established interests with which the political class has comfortable relations of mutual support.
Rahn: Protecting capital gains from inflation
A capital gains tax, in effect, raises the risk and price of the investment, resulting in lower investment and slower growth and job creation.
Will: What interest is served by disenfranchising felons?
What compelling government interest is served by felon disenfranchisement? Enhanced public safety? How? Is it to fine-tune the quality of the electorate?
Teaching entrepreneurship
In short, the liberal education system is skewed against entrepreneurship, particularly against small startups where sweat equity is the principal financing and where a single skill can be the foundation of a healthy enterprise.
Will: Making government less larcenous
Law enforcement agencies get to keep the profits from forfeited property, which gives them an incentive to do what too many of them do – abuse the process.
Morici: Donald Trump’s long game with China
Beijing and local governments, with the collaboration of its technology giants, are funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into startups and big company projects that enjoy notably more freedom than Western companies.
Will: Bolton’s beliefs are a recipe for diplomatic delusions
Bolton’s belief in the U.S. power to make the world behave and eat its broccoli reflects what has been called “narcissistic policy disorder” – the belief that whatever happens in the world happens because of something the United States did or did not do.
Morici: Tariffs are Trump’s first test of China and the WTO
China has targeted one U.S. industry after another – metals, solar panels, computer chips, artificial intelligence and supercomputers – many having significant economic and national security consequences.
Rahn: Who is corrupt?
H.L. Mencken wrote, “every election is sort of an advance auction on stolen goods.”
Mitchell: Debt, deficits and public finance
The threat is not the red ink. The real danger is an ever-increasing burden of government spending, driven by entitlements.
Morici: Don’t muzzle social media sites to prevent abuse
Rob Goldman, Twitter’s head of advertising, was roundly criticized for stating the easiest way to fight a Russian campaign is a “well educated citizenry,” but he is right.
Noriega: Castro’s survival plan may be crumbling
Today, only a few U.S. diplomats remain in Havana after suspicious “health attacks” did physical damage to two-dozen Americans – likely with the complicity of the regime.
Morici: Why America’s youth are losing faith with democracy
More alarming than the Middle Kingdom’s breakneck growth, challenges to Western leadership in electric cars, artificial intelligence and other emerging industries, our youth is losing confidence in the American way.
Mitchell: Globalism, good and bad
Globalism (or globalization, or internationalism, or the policies of “Davos Man,,” or whatever you want to call it) increasingly is perceived to be about more than free trade and comity between nations. In the minds of market-oriented people, it is getting linked with other policies that cause considerable angst.
Rahn: More meanness from government
Given how few people are actually convicted of money-laundering, the overwhelming evidence is that 99 percent of the people being forced to submit to these costly and time-consuming proposed regulations will not be guilty of money-laundering, terrorism or whatever, and thus should not be harassed by government.
Will: A war without an objective, 6,000 days in
It is conceivable, and conceivably desirable, that U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan, lending intelligence, logistical and even lethal support to that nation’s military and security forces for another 1,000, perhaps 6,000, days.
Will: Keystone State race could set template for Democrats
If Lamb wins, Democrats will have found a template for many districts in 2018: candidates who seem ideologically unlike the national party and temperamentally unlike the president.
Morici: The next fiscal crisis
Uncle Sam’s incessant borrowing – just like irresponsible home mortgages in the 2000s – could again send financial institutions barreling over a cliff.
Rahn: With his tariff proposals, Trump misses the trade basics
Why does Virginia import oranges from Florida rather than grow its own? Why does the U.S. import almost all of its coffee and cocoa beans from countries in tropical climates rather than grow its own? Why does the U.S. import most of its primary aluminum rather than produce its own?
Thiessen: Protect public workers from unions’ coercion
Liberals say conservatives are trying to use the court to break the power of public sector unions. But if the only way they can maintain their political power is through coercion, then they do not deserve that power in the first place.
Mitchell: Cheer the motorist who destroyed a DC speed trap
By the way, I have no objection to cameras that nail jerks who blow through an intersection three seconds after a light has turned red. Those are people who risk innocent lives.
Morici: Why muzzling social media is no answer
Requiring social media organizations to work with federal authorities to ferret out Russian operatives and similar malefactors and cancel fictitious accounts is fine, but personalities should not be banned because they upset our biases.
Will: Don’t tread on this US voter’s T-shirt
Today more than ever, with freedom of expression increasingly threatened, an American’s default position regarding restrictions should be: Don’t tread on me.
Thiessen: The GOP tax reform used to be extremely unpopular. Not anymore.
Many voters are going to be pleasantly surprised when they discover their taxes are being reduced thanks to President Trump and Republican lawmakers.
Dreyfuss: Oxfam scandal just the latest in a string of insults
Large charitable organizations, such as Oxfam, and UN military missions operate in a bubble of private security, sense of immunity and deference from their grateful hosts.
Rahn: Tax and financial sharing among governments
Rather than criminalize the financial activities of foreigners who are obeying their own countries laws, and try to enact more self-defeating rules in the increasingly elusive quest to define “income,” government fiscal agents should concentrate on only attempting to tax part of consumption.
Will: Play ball, with informed intelligence
What fans most dislike, and what constitutes baseball malpractice, is consistent mediocrity – teams not talented enough to play in October but not bad enough to receive the right to draft the best young talent.
Will: Snakes on a plane for emotional support?
But the proliferation of emotional-support animals suggests that a cult of personal fragility is becoming an aspect of the quest for the coveted status of victim.
Rahn: A tale of two countries and their economic freedom
The tragedy is that the people of Venezuela should be enjoying a very high per capita income, as are the Norwegians, if they had made better political choices.
The FBI’s scandalous attempt to block the Nunes memo
The only way to restore that trust is full transparency.
Will: Why good economic news is bad
All news is economic news, because everything affects the economy, or reveals attitudes or behaviors that soon will affect it. And all economic news is bad – especially good economic news, because it gives rise to bad behavior.
Will: Frederick Douglass, a champion of American individualism
Douglass opposed radical Republicans’ proposals to confiscate plantations and distribute the land to former slaves. Sandefur surmises that “Douglass was too well versed in the history and theory of freedom not to know” the importance of property rights.
Will: Protectionism ensures no bad deed goes unrewarded
Fomenting spurious anxieties about national security is the first refuge of rent-seeking scoundrels who tart up their protectionism as patriotism when they inveigle government into lining their pockets with money extracted from their fellow citizens.
Morici: Why smartphone hysteria is misplaced
In all ages, parents come up against reckless childhood behavior and its ingenious methods of escape. Smartphones make these times no different or more challenging.
Will: Some policy dentistry could combat truth decay
The volume and velocity of the information flow, combined with the new ability to curate a la carte information menus, erode society’s assumption of a shared set of facts.
Morici: When politicians abuse inequality
Overall, the Trump administration and Republican Congress – much like President Bush and his Republican Congress before them – are hardly addressing the genuine concerns of the great mass of voters who put them in power. Yet, the clients and executive class of the liberal state see the GOP as an existential threat to their systems of privileges and persecution so carefully erected during the Clinton and Obama years.
Will: A new paean to progressivism overlooks why Americans lost trust in government
Has no liberal noticed that no government is ever neutral in society’s allocation of wealth and opportunity?
Rahn: Immigration and ‘rathole’ countries
Without some reasonable controls on the nation’s borders, the US will always be overrun with more people than can be easily absorbed.
Mitchell: A Libertarian paradise in Mexico
In an ideal world, the central government would allow towns to formally secede, and those towns could then contract to have private management. But that will never happen since politicians would not want real-world examples showing the superiority of markets over government.
Will: In Oregon, progressivism spills over at the pump
Still, 2018 will be the year of living dangerously in the state that was settled by people who trekked there on the Oregon Trail, through the territory of Native Americans hostile to Manifest Destiny.
Will: How merit-based college admissions became so unfair
A meritocratic assignment of opportunity by impersonal processes and measurements might seem democratic but it can feel ruthless, and can be embittering.
Rahn: Better facts, more humor
The next time someone says something you find offensive, realize that we are all insensitive at times, take a deep breath, assume that they meant no harm, and let it be.
Morici: Infrastructure gives Trump an opportunity to shine
If the president is the dealmaker he offers himself to be, infrastructure offers his time to shine.
Will: US needs balanced-budget amendment more than ever
No one knows at what percentage the debt’s deleterious effect on economic growth becomes severe; no sensible person doubts that there is such a point.
Mitchell: Hopes and fears for policy in 2018
Let’s speculate about potential victories and defeats in 2018.
Morici: A grand experiment in supply side economics
Sadly the regulatory state and high taxes have caused too many American firms to focus on lobbying instead of the next wave.
Will: We do not need government to remind us that smoking kills
The strange, meandering path of tobacco – a legal commodity that is harmful when used as intended – to the present began in contradictions.
Bloomberg: The U.S. should back new elections in Honduras
Even before last month’s flawed vote, Honduras was notable for the lack of popular confidence in its electoral mechanisms. And if it’s stability that Washington seeks, these disputed results do not promise to achieve it.
Will: The survival of the shrillest
The many Americans who are happiest when unhappy seem as addicted to indignation as the fewer Americans are to cocaine
