There's Something About Marriage
When an actress—no, an artist—the caliber of Cameron Diaz weighs in on the future of social institutions, America has an obligation to listen.And listen we did. In a widely discussed interview with...
View ArticleBig Brother Is Watching You
In 1991, George Holliday filmed the LAPD’s arrest and beating of Rodney King. The videotape provoked national controversy. If a similar incident happened today, it might provoke something else: the...
View ArticleObama's Success Hinges on Turkey's Upcoming Election
Istanbul—President Barack Obama outlined a number of goals for rebranding America to the Muslim world in his recent State Department speech, including the completion of Arab Spring democratic reforms...
View ArticleUpgrading to High-Speed Rail on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
In 2010 Amtrak laid out its vision for High Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor (NEC).5 At the time it estimated that development of HSR on the NEC alone would cost $117 billion (in 2010 dollars).A...
View ArticleThe State of Gay Rights
America now has a gay-rights majority. Gallup reports that for the first time ever, most people—53 percent—favor legalizing same-sex marriage. That's up from 27 percent just 15 years ago. The nation...
View ArticleA Perspective on Stagflation 2011
The Fed says inflation is under control, but the price at the pump and grocery check out is indicating otherwise. Why? Stand IERP fellow Ronald McKinnon suggests that ZIRP-the zero interest rate policy...
View ArticleBattle of the Budgets
Since America is on the road to bankruptcy, we've got to make some changes. What would you do?The Peter G. Peterson Foundation gave $200,000 to six think tanks to write budget proposals. The money went...
View ArticleThe Condition of Education 2011--WE SPEND A LOT
Today, The National Center on Education Statistics released The Condition of Education 2011. This report once again confirms just how much the United States spends on education despite the ongoing...
View ArticleThe Painful Truth: Leave the Housing Market Alone
On Tuesday (May 24, 2011), the New York Times editorialized that the federal government needs to step in and force banks to modify loans rather than foreclose on hapless households. This was necessary...
View ArticleThe Teacher Layoff Lie in California
In California some teachers have been laid off and budgets are tight. However, in California education stakeholders continually hype and exaggerate the number of layoffs and do not distinguish between...
View ArticleNew Orleans: Most Market-Driven School District in Nation Increases Test...
New Orleans kids continue to improve under the market-driven charter school system. This year 71% of all New Orleans public school students attend charter schools and 77% of students enrolled in grades...
View ArticleDollar Store Nation
In 1868, a new kind of store opened at 669 Broadway in New York City and immediately captured the city’s attention. Immense, staffed with attractive young women, it featured silver-plated cake baskets,...
View ArticlePrivatizing "Yellow Pages" Government in Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Foundation/Reason Foundation Pennsylvania state and local policymakers are facing mounting debt, strained budgets, and underfunded public pension systems. These unprecedented challenges...
View ArticleTop Down Transpotation Planning Doesn't Work
In case you missed it, Randal O'Toole has an excellent article in the Huffington Post (May 25, 2011) on top-down versus bottom-up transportation planning. He writes in part:The bottom-up paradigm began...
View ArticleSeparating Charity and State
Shortly after taking office, George W. Bush created an office of faith-based initiatives, making it easier for religious groups to receive federal funds in order to minister to the poor, conduct...
View ArticleHSR in the U.S.? Maybe Yes with a Public Private Partnership
The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held hearings earlier this week on high-speed rail. Chaired by Representative John Mica (R-FL), extensive time was devoted to turning the...
View ArticleData in the Cloud Needs Fourth Amendment Protection
“Cloud computing” is the term for applications that are handled by third-party software and storage on the Internet, like Google Docs and QuickBooks Online, as opposed to programs like Microsoft Word...
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US Debt Following Japan Towards Downgrade
The Atlantic's Daniel Indiviglo posted an enlightening chart on his blog earlier this week showing how US debt is trending towards Japan's and has even passed the point where Japan's debt was...
View ArticleObamaCares Disastrous New Long-Term Care Entitlement
When ObamaCare passed, the Obama administration’s top officials repeatedly assured the public that it was not just fiscally sound but fiscally responsible: a path toward long-term deficit reduction and...
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The Facts About Taxes and Spending
Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.Myth 1:Millionaires who favor of an income...
View ArticleActually, Secretary Geithner, Taxpayers Still Losing on TARP
Secretary Geithner claimed this week that the taxpayers are now making money off TARP. But the Treasury analysis is ignoring some key facts. Chris Whalen explains: First and foremost we must subtract...
View ArticleIs China Faltering?
Could China be faltering?Chris Kuehl, chief economist for the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, recently noted that the rapid growth of China's manufacturing base has come with costs....
View ArticleWhy Bank-Owned Homes Won't Sink the Economy
Stephen Gandel has an excellent article on Time.com (May 23, 2011) pointing out why the hundreds of thousands of bank-owned homes won't sink the housing market. While banks are more conservative in...
View ArticleWhen Punishment Is a Crime
In his magisterial book The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn recited in gruesome detail the mistreatment of inmates in prison camps in the Soviet Union. "As many as 54 prisoners may share a...
View ArticleFederal Work Rules and Regulations Undermine Public Transit
Stephen Smith has a couple of very good posts over at the Market Urbanism blog highlighting the ways federal regulations and labor work rules undermine public transit efficiency. This is a much, too...
View ArticleMisleading Sentences: Banking Edition
The following sentence led off a HousingWire story on Friday morning:"Another downturn in home prices could stifle the solid recovery banks have made in the past two years, cutting into profit margins,...
View ArticleBig Trouble in Little Hoover
Who’s got a solution to the government employee pension crisis that’s bolder than Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s, more extreme than New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s? What rabid extremists want to renege...
View ArticlePolitical Hacks
Suppose you’re the owner of a taxicab company in a largish metropolitan area. One day you notice some taxis tooling around town—and they’re not yours. They belong to an upstart competitor. His cars are...
View ArticleObama's Imperial Presidency
Editor's Note: This column is reprinted with permission of the Washington Examiner. Click here to read it at that site.Rising Republican star Herman Cain got quite the shock last week when he learned...
View Article10 Myths and Facts on Transportation PPPs
Given the recent wave of new infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) enabling legislation proposed or enacted in several states—including Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Texas—it's useful to...
View ArticleGOP To Vote Down Clean Debt Limit Increase
The GOP today is trying to make a statement: a clean vote on the debt ceiling won't fly. It is a political stunt to be sure. But also a reminder of where the process is at in the fiscal responsibility...
View ArticleDoes Disease Cause Autocracy?
Greater wealth strongly correlates with property rights, the rule of law, more education, the liberation of women, a free press, and more social tolerance. The enduring puzzle for political scientists...
View ArticlePrivatizing "Yellow Pages" Government in Pennsylvania
Reason Foundation recently partnered with the Commonwealth Foundation to create a comprehensive report on opportunities to apply the "Yellow Pages test" in Pennsylvania entitled Privatizing "Yellow...
View ArticleWait and Hurry Up
Just before midnight last Thursday, a White House autopen signed legislation extending controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act that were scheduled to expire the next day. President Obama authorized...
View ArticleWhat California's High-Speed Rail Debacle Tells Us About Progressivism
California's high-speed rail (HSR) project is quickly becoming the poster child of how not to do public infrastructure: Costs have skyrocketed by more than half the original estimates, the project is...
View Article"Buy American" Is Un-American
Buy American! A conventional, well-intentioned, patriotically affirming sentiment. We've heard it all our lives. But unless you crave less competition, fewer choices, and higher prices, it's also a...
View ArticleBlock Big Brother's Internet Snoops
Washington Times Americans are moving more and more of their personal data onto the Internet. We send and save emails through Hotmail and Gmail. We share photos with Flickr and post videos on YouTube....
View ArticleA War Fit for a King
Remember back in your high school civics class, when you were taught about the constitutional division of authority in matters of war? When you learned that the president has all the powers of an...
View ArticlePrioritizing Transportation Investments: A Note from Chongqing
I recently was listening to a report on transportation policy and implementation at Southwest University in Chongqing, China. Chongqing is a place many Americans haven't heard of (yet), but it's likely...
View ArticleDavid Mamet's Conversion Story
People of the statist left—and to some extent the statist right—will find much to decry in David Mamet’s new book, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, a token of his late-life...
View ArticleGovernment Against Blacks
The other day, I went to Times Square to ask people what government should do to help poor people. Most everyone agreed on the answer: "more social programs and a higher minimum wage."It's intuitive to...
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America Pays for Villaraigosas Transit Legacy
What is TIFIA? This fey-sounding acronym for the 1998 Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act may be your ticket to a wheezing, convoluted federal lending vehicle designed in large...
View ArticleBrown v. Plata Ruling Highlights Need for Reform (Not Tax Increases)
California’s correctional system is in a state of crippling disrepair. The latest confirmation of the state’s prison woes came in the form of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Brown v. Plata decision,...
View ArticleHayek in Tuscaloosa
The tornados of April 2011 cut a destructive swath through Tuscaloosa, Alabama and surrounding areas. Whole neighborhoods now resemble bombed out post-war Tokyo or Berlin. But this devastation was...
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Housing Prices Still Spiraling Down
Here is a visual of housing prices as updated from this weeks Case-Shiller numbers. The data through March of this year is not looking good. A number of economists and journalists have been calling...
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Planet Burma
"Around the globe, it is democratic meltdowns, not democratic revolutions, that are now the norm." Or so claims Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writing in the June 9...
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The Facts about the Governments Medicare Cost Projections
Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.Myth:The government’s cost projections are...
View ArticleICYMI: Brown v. Plata Ruling Highlights Need for Reform (Not Tax Increases)
In case you missed it, yesterday my colleague Adam Summers and I co-authored a Reason.org commentary (available online here) explaining that in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Brown v. Plata...
View ArticleThe Right To Be a Jerk
Being a jerk is not a crime. That's a lucky break for many of us, but it wasn't enough to keep Nate Cox out of hot water. On a fine spring day in April, Cox was driving down the street in Richmond,...
View ArticleThe Myths About Legalized Gambling
Illinois is on the verge of a major gambling expansion, and citizens are being pelted with competing claims. The advocates envision a gusher of jobs and tax revenues. The opponents brace for an...
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