Last Taxpayer Standing

You’d think that if the people are the masters and government is the servant, taxpayers could sue when their money was spent in ways that violate their rights. But that’s not how the courts see the matter.
Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, once again, that mere taxpayer status confers no standing to sue the [...]

Made Everywhere

In June I suggested that since exports and imports are defined with reference to economically irrelevant political boundaries, the very concepts are invidious: “There is only what I make and what everyone else makes.” Here’s another way to illustrate the point, compliments of economist Sudha Shenoy of the University of Newcastle, Australia. Shenoy shows that in [...]

Inequality Matters

In the controversy raging over whether income inequality in America is growing a lot or a little, some pro-market people say it doesn’t much matter. This attitude is unjustified, not to mention harmful to the cause of individual freedom because it misses the bigger picture.
How could growing economic inequality not matter? I’d understand that position [...]

Extortion in Port Chester

The least appreciated form of tyranny in the United States goes by the names “redevelopment” and “government-business partnership.” While everyone knows about the threat of development-oriented eminent domain, thanks to the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London, local tyranny goes much deeper than the “mere” taking of property in order to give [...]

Economists Against Economics

Five economists who either won the Nobel Prize in economics or who served as president of the American Economic Association—and three who did both—recently joined over 600 other economists in urging the federal government to increase the minimum wage. The signatures were gathered by the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which unsurprisingly supports substantial government [...]

Why Cut Taxes?

Judging by the popping corks at the White House, taxes are cut to increase government revenues so the budget deficit can be shrunk without reducing government spending. Tax cuts are good, but this reason leaves me cold.
President Bush announced recently that “This economy is growing, federal taxes are rising, and we’re cutting the federal deficit [...]

Cleaning Up After the Elephants

I detect a pattern in the challenges hurled at liberals on nearly every issue. The opponent of liberalism describes a problem, invariably with roots in a government infringement of freedom. In response, he prescribes more government interference with freedom, at which point the liberal interjects that the best and only just solution is the repeal [...]

Legal Plunder Mislabeled “Defense”

Arnaud de Borchgrave of United Press Interna­tional has been reporting on national intelli­gence matters for many years. In a recent dispatch he wrote that “[s]ome 15,300 earmarks in the U.S. defense budget, up 1,300 percent in the 21st centu­ry, are so many pork projects for lawmakers’ constituen­cies that have nothing to do with defense.” That [...]

Perspective ~ One Size Fits Some