Big Government

Excerpts from the 2025 Memorial Lectures presented at the Austrian Economics Research Conference in Auburn, Alabama.

The covid-19 pandemic gave rise to widespread lockdowns and some of the greatest peacetime infringements on personal liberties in history.

President Trump‘s threat to withhold $9 billion from Harvard University is being framed in the legacy media and academia as a threat to Harvard‘s academic freedom. But there is a pertinent question no pundits are even asking: Why are taxpayers being forced to give Harvard $9 billion?

While establishment historians claim that the British government had no intentions of depriving American colonists of their liberties, actual history tells a different story. Things came to a head April 19, 1775, touching off the American Revolution.

The bond market is sending a message to the US government that its spending is out of control.

Western Europe has been at peace for the past 80 years. Unfortunately, EU leaders have not appreciated the benefits of peace and look to promoting war. The memories of World War II have faded, but the EU seems determined to create new bad memories.

Donald Trump says he plans for a big 12% jump in military spending, he has threatened war with Iran, and has escalated the war with the Houthis. None of this has anything to do with defending the United States. 

Economist Robert Higgs described the “ratchet effect” in which government either creates a crisis or responds to one, leading to a permanent expansion of government power. After the crisis ends, government retreats—but not to the point where is was pre-crisis.

By trying to deport foreign student Rumeysa Ozturk for simply writing an op-ed in a student paper critical of Israel, the Trump administration and its supporters quickly forget that their actions are part of a slippery slope that imperils free speech in this country. It doesn‘t end here.

Our taxes are due today. It‘s a reminder that we must get past the tax reformers’ favorite ploy of revenue neutrality.