Congressional appropriations for 2019 include 282 earmarks, up from 232 last year. The cost comes to $15.3 billion, up from $14.7 billion. That sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But not nearly as much as one might think, in the scheme of things.
Tag: order
In Sync: How Business Responds to Gratis Government
Whenever people criticize government provision of a product, clever analysts often demur that private suppliers who compete with government have exactly the same problems.
Trade, Tariffs, and some Basic Economics
Economics can be a complicated subject and many people don’t really understand why the economy works the way it does. That’s okay, but learning about economics and economic principles can also be very rewarding because it helps to explain so much about our world and about human behavior.
100 Reasons to Homeschool Your Kids
This is my 100th article for FEE.org, so here are 100 reasons to homeschool your kids!
The Universal Basic Income: Newly Contentious
The main reason why classical liberals smile upon the UBI, I fear, is its elegant simplicity. If we adopt one straightforward poverty program, we can rid ourselves of all the rest. Unfortunately, as my presentation explains, the UBI’s cost is exorbitant, the side effects are awful, and the moral justification is ultimately flimsy.
Don’t Advocate Against Property Rights
Libertarians who support the Big Government “border security” welfare program don’t understand property rights. Property rights are the foundation of all rights, so if you don’t understand and support property rights, how can you credibly claim to be libertarian… or to value liberty at all?
Keeping Score
Remember when POTUS took credit for the commercial airline safety record? POTUS is an instinctive storyteller. The process is called controlling the narrative. It consists of cherry picking the factoids, and to a lesser degree, the facts — or re-arranging the frame.
“For Medicinal Purposes Only”
Borderism– big government welfare statism by another name– is apparently a very seductive cult, leading a lot of liberty supporters down into its depths, from which there seems to be no escape.
Trump’s Trade War Has Probably Permanently Damaged America’s Tech Leadership Position
On May 15, US president Donald Trump issued an “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain.” Pursuant to that order, a number of firms in the US (including Google, Qualcomm, and Intel) and abroad (including Panasonic and Arm) have reduced or even entirely cut their ties with Chinese firm Huawei.
Scott Adams Defends Socialism
On a recent podcast, I noticed a bit of pro-socialism dishonesty from Scott Adams. I wasn’t really surprised, because he is a government supremacist, after all. And you can’t really have a state without embracing socialism.