I am seeing all these annoying signs, “Buckle Up,” around town. Also, television and radio carry an unrelenting flurry of “public service” announcements telling us how to care for ourselves. I guess the government really cares about our health. It’s not about raising revenue by issuing traffic tickets, or controlling people’s lives in intrusive
As the war on terror drags on and on, saecula saeculorum , many people calling themselves libertarians have decided that it’s not such a bad thing after all. (The pundits calling themselves conservatives were among the first enlistees, and the left, as might be expected , is all for it too.) What, some libertarians ask, is the point of government
The Bush administration’s $1.5 billion bailout of Uruguay ‘s banking system cries out for explanation. If there has been one issue that the administration has been pretty good on, it is international bailouts. There are many on-record comments from the likes of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill that these bailouts are wasteful, destructive, and
As sure as grey winters follow green summers, the Republicans are working to lower expectations following their election sweep. The Washington Post delivers the pathetic if predictable news in its headline “GOP Revises Agenda of Extensive Tax Cuts”—and you just know that the revision is not to the benefit of taxpayers. Rather than pursue extensive
The Free Market 20, no. 1 (January 2002) And you thought the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was only for fat cats! The hired help on the Potomac, many of whom reluctantly approved a piddly little tax cut this summer, are going to give a new meaning, over the next few years, to that wonderful principle of fiscal skullduggery and political
Before the Christmas break, Washington labored mightily and gave birth to the 2001-2002 federal budget. Therefore, it was pork barrel time, with taxpayers made unwilling Santas for politicians’ favored constituents. But the billions of dollars devoted to the several thousand earmarked projects that could not survive the regular budget process also
Politicians and bureaucrats seem to get their hands into everything, including a vast array of things they have no logical or constitutional reason to be involved in. If that wasn’t bad enough, despite their constantly proclaimed commitment to stretching taxpayer dollars as far as possible, they often do such things very inefficiently, giving
We are approaching April 15, when people’s checkbooks remind them that even if “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society,” it doesn’t follow that the civilization we get is worth the taxes we are forced to pay. But this issue is hardly new. In fact, more than two centuries before our federal budget sped past the $2 trillion mark, those
Every Labor Day, the U.S. is carpet-bombed with politicians’ rhetoric extolling working Americans’ very real and substantial contributions to our society, followed by words of devotion to their interests. From their speeches, you would think that the government was doing wonderful things to help workers. But, in fact, with the average American
1. The Plunge in the Stock Market The plunge in the stock market has resulted in the wiping out of pension funds and many people’s life’s savings. It has also been accompanied and reinforced by the allegation of accounting scandals at several major firms, in which key executives were apparently able to reap substantial personal gains despite the
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.