It’s 45 minutes long, but this video from the folks at Reason TV is filled with good information on the foolish ideas of central planners who want to control our transportation. You’ll learn in the first half of the video, for instance, how high-speed rail is like…
Daily Analysis
Bad News for Barack Obama, Tom Friedman, and other Statists Who Want to Use Taxpayer Money to Play with Trains
It’s not too surprising to learn that spending money on “high-speed” rail is foolish. And it’s hardly a revelation to learn that politicians over-promise and under-deliver when they push through these boondoggles. My Cato colleague, Randall O’Toole, has written…
Yes, We Should Cut the Defense Budget
There are very serious ways to save huge amounts of money from the defense budget, largely by making smarter choices about defining America’s national security. This obviously involves high-profile decisions about whether it is smart to engage in nation-building in…
Politicians May Not Be the Lowest Form of Life, but They Know How to Live the Good Life at Our Expense
I’ve been writing too much about the Ryan budget, the government shutdown, and other fiscal policy issues. Time for some wholesome politician bashing. But I’m not going to pick on the U.S. Congress, which is one of my favorite targets. Instead, we’re going to cross…
The Moochers Fight Back
The fiscal fight on Capitol Hill has triggered a firestorm of lobbying, as greedy special interests are squealing about a potential loss of handouts. This USA Today story focuses on funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood, both of…
No More Taxpayer Subsidies for Republicans (or Democrats)
This is the type of story that makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve already commented on how I don’t like redistribution from rich to poor, but I really, really hate redistribution from poor to rich. And that’s exactly what happens when taxpayers subsidize the…
Requiring a Permit to Be a Bum?!? Great Moments in Government Stupidity
Since I’ve spent the past 25 years analyzing government, I’m used to spectacular levels of waste and incompetence. Examples of pork such as “$27 light bulbs” and the “turtle tunnel” barely cause me to raise an eyebrow. It takes something really amazing to grab my…
The Nanny State Runs Amok, Asks Americans How Much Time They Spend “Sitting on Toilet”
Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts. In the late 1970s, before the…
Time to Shut Down the Department of Housing and Urban Development
Very few things that happen in Washington are legitimate functions of the federal government. I’ve already posted about the need to dismantle the Department of Transportation and send it back to the states, but some things shouldn’t even be handled by state and local…
No More Subsidies for Big Bird and the Rest of the Leeches at PBS and NPR
Even if we had a giant budget surplus, federal subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be misguided and improper. In an environment where excessive federal spending is strangling growth and threatening the nation’s solvency, the argument to defund…