Mar 19
Why are taxpayers made to own or pay for government colleges and universities they do not attend? The only plausible explanation is that government-owned colleges somehow meet the needs of people in ways that private colleges do not. There is scant support for such a proposition. In fact, governmental support for higher education has actually …
Mar 18
From Roger I. Roots, “When Laws Backfire: Unintended Consequences of Public Policy,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47 No. 11, July 2004, page 1382: The unintended costs of welfare spending have rarely been compiled by academics. But research has shown that a substantial number of welfare recipients simply live in poverty by choice because of the …
Mar 18
In the words of the immortal Harry Browne, “Each government program carries within it the seeds of future programs that will be ‘needed’ to clean up the mess the first program creates.” (Why Government Doesn’t Work, 1995, p 17). Herbert Spencer remarked in 1850 that there was scarcely a bill introduced in the British Parliament …
Mar 18
The town of New Carlisle, Ohio–just outside Dayton–has eliminated its police force and cut its funding for county sheriffs deputies substantially. Just as with other towns who have done the same, crime has dropped.
Mar 17
The U.S. Social Security program taxes most heavily on persons with low incomes, does not provide a fair return, and causes a massive transfer from the less well off to the better off. According to Milton and Rose Friedman, “the poor tend to pay [Social Security] taxes for more years and receive benefits for fewer …
Mar 17
Herbert Spencer, one of the founders of sociology, pointed out in 1850 that the British Minimum Wage Act of 1773—passed due to pressure from English weavers who believed the law would help lift textile workers out of poverty—decimated the British textile industry only 20 years later. By 1793, “some four thousand looms would be brought …
Mar 17
It was recently reported that MSNBC’s government-cheerleading show “The Rachel Maddow Show” is now down to fewer than 100,000 worldwide viewers in the coveted 25-54 age range. This news comes on the heels of disclosures by former NBC Senior Reporter Lisa Myers that NBC “news” producers worked hard to scuttle and suppress news stories showing …
Mar 16
We all know government agencies are in the habit of scaring people into giving government more power. Now we read in Newsweek that NASA is now claiming that Californians will be out of water within one year. Even if true, this NASA claim should be seen as an opportunity to private-sector entrepreneurs. Instead it will …
Mar 16
Former vice president Al Gore spoke to a crowd at Austin’s “South-By-Southwest” Convention (“SXSW”) and told an audience on March 13, 2015 that the federal government should “punish climate-change deniers,” and that “politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science.’” No doubt Galileo is looking down on America from above and shaking his head.
Mar 15
In the past 50 years, policymakers have saddled car drivers with an immense array of rules and regulations designed to turn drivers into virtual slaves. Licenses, taxes, fees, government inspections, registrations of all kinds, traffic cops pulling drivers over at gunpoint to issue citations for minor infractions. Upon being pulled over at gunpoint, drivers are …
