Ryan Bourne and Nathan Miller New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has pledged a battery of new social spending if he wins the city’s November election: $10 billion for housing, $1 billion for a new community safety department, at least half a billion to subsidize buses, billions more for free childcare, and untold sums for government grocery stores—a historically ...
Timothy Sandefur In his new book, You Don’t Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty, Cato Adjunct Scholar Timothy Sandefur explores how the idea of individual freedom has shaped not only politics and economics but also the arts—from pop music to poetry, from Star Trek to the blues, and from Western novels to architecture. An excerpt is published below. To ...
Nicholas Anthony With so many great questions at our event marking the 55th anniversary of the Bank Secrecy Act, I thought I’d take a moment to address some of the questions that didn’t get answered on stage. Note: Some questions have been lightly edited, and similar questions have been combined. Why don’t more people know that our government gets access ...
Walter Olson One of the striking features of the present administration is the regularity with which its leaders, from President Donald Trump on down, confidently describe the state of the law in ways entirely contrary to what had been seen as settled, on topics that range from flag burning to Congress’s TikTok ban to whether civil servants can be removed ...
Andrew Gillen While the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loans were persistent, most of their plans were prevented or at least paused by the courts. And when the Trump administration took office, it was clear that the paused plans would never come into effect. But recent news that the administration settled a lawsuit to restart forgiveness under some plans ...
Norbert Michel and Jerome Famularo One of the latest buzz terms in federal housing policy is the “lock-in effect.” It refers to a homeowner being reluctant to sell their home because buying a new home would require taking out a mortgage at a much higher interest rate. In that sense, higher interest rates are “locking” people into their current homes. ...
Dominik Lett and Romina Boccia Shrinking government is much needed and long overdue, but recent budgetary maneuvers by the Trump administration reshape the federal spending process for the worse. Impoundment—the unilateral pausing or cancelling of spending without congressional approval—has accompanied funding shifts that likewise lack clear congressional authorization, including for law enforcement, border control, the military, and welfare. If Congress ...
Matthew Cavedon Former Tennessee police officer Larry Bushart Jr. has spent most of October in jail. His crime? Posting a Facebook meme. The trouble started after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, when Larry responded to the public outrage with a somewhat callous take. He shared a meme on Facebook featuring a photo of President Trump, together with a ...
Marcos Falcone Argentine President Javier Milei won a clear victory on Sunday (October 26) over the opposition in the midterm elections, ensuring that his ambitious reform agenda will continue. With almost 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s coalition, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), obtained 40.7 percent of the national vote, whereas the Peronists, who competed under the name of Fuerza Patria, received 31.7 percent. ...
Scott Lincicome It’s rare that trade wonks feel compelled to weigh in on a case before the US Supreme Court, but October 24 was one of those times. That was the deadline for amicus briefs in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc./Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which features not only profound legal questions about the scope of executive power—in particular whether ...