Posts in "CATO Institute"

By Julie VerHage at 11:20AM

Jul 31, 2011

Washington Speak

As has become more and more apparent in recent months, only in Washington can you continue to spend more and pass it off as a budget cut. I don't know about my fellow YAL members, but if I talked to my credit card company and told them that I couldn't stop spending more than my budget, but I could slow my increase in spending, the answer would be "No, you have to pay your bills or your credit score will take a hit."

Speaker Boehner's plan is a sad excuse for the actual spending cuts our country desperately needs. An article by Chris Edwards at the CATO institute points this out with a chart of spending and a link to the letter from the Congressional Budget Office explaining that his plan in fact only cuts $850 million and not the $1.2 trillion the Speaker has claimed.

A disturbing realization is found in the following statement,

The “cuts” in the Boehner plan are only cuts from the CBO baseline, which is an assumed path of constantly rising spending. If Congress wanted to, it could require CBO to increase its “baseline” spending by, say, $5 trillion over the next decade. Then Boehner could claim that he was “cutting” spending by $5.9 trillion, even though his plan hadn’t changed. You can see that discretionary “cuts” against baselines don’t mean anything.

I wonder what the Founding Fathers would say if they were to come back and find Washington in the state it is today.

Just for some added fun, check out this video by ReasonTV.

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By Jose Nino at 5:28PM

Jul 15, 2011

Libertarianism vs. Conservatism, Round 2

Due to great turnout last year, the Cato Institute will be hosting another debate between libertarians and conservatives.

Cato invites you to a thought-provoking debate about the two philosophies and their respective policy applications, as interns from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute go head-to-head to answer the age-old question: Which is the better philosophy, libertarianism or conservatism?

You can register right now for this must-see summer event here! The debate will be held on Thursday, July 21st at 6:30 pm with a reception to follow. Chip Bishop of the Cato Institute will give the introduction and the debate will be moderated by David Barnes, Senior Policy Analyst of Economic Policies for the 21st Century.

If you can't make it to the Cato Institute, this event will be streamed live in the aforementioned links.

Libertarian vs. Conservative

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By Zak Slayback at 6:40AM

Sep 19, 2010

YAL Members Visit Cato For Constitution Day!

On Thursday, I traveled from Somerset, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. with a fellow YAL-er from our high school chapter to visit the Cato Institute for their Constitution Day Symposium and for their Supreme Court Review. The trip, though long, was well worth it. Great lawyers, academics, and others spoke on everything from the incorporation of the 2nd Amendment to cases which pose a threat to or an expansion of liberty in the 2010-2011 Supreme Court Term.

It was a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to any devoted advocate of liberty.

Zak at Cato

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By Jeremy Davis at 6:28PM

Sep 1, 2010

Free E-book from the Cato Institute

For a limited time, the Cato Institute is offering a free downloadable version of Downsizing the Federal Government, a guide which addresses solutions to the financial woes brought on by big government.

As Cato's website explains:

The federal government is running massive budget deficits, spending too much, and heading toward a financial crisis. Without a change of direction in Washington, average working families will be faced with huge tax increases and a lower standard of living. In Downsizing the Federal Government, Cato Institute budget expert Chris Edwards provides policymakers with solutions to the growing federal budget mess. Edwards identifies more than 100 federal programs that should be terminated, transferred to the states, or privatized in order to balance the budget and save hundreds of billions of dollars. Edwards proposes a balanced reform package of cuts to entitlements, domestic programs, and excess defense spending. He argues that these cuts would not only eliminate the deficit, but also strengthen the economy, enlarge personal freedom, and leave a positive fiscal legacy for the next generation.

You can download the PDF version of this free e-book here.

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By Julie Borowski at 5:47PM

Jul 17, 2010

Financial “Reform” Bill Expands Power of Fed

The recently passed Dodd-Frank financial services reform bill is yet another example of power-grabbing legislation that fails to address the root causes of the current financial crisis. Countless studies have confirmed that the Federal Reserve played a major role in the fiscal collapse by artificially keeping interest rates low by inflating the money supply in the economy. Before the official recession began in December 2007, the economy appeared to be booming with an expansion of credit. Inevitably, the long period of unsustainable negative real interest rates gave individuals a tempting incentive to borrow from the banking system. Unfortunately, the artificially low interest rate misled millions of people to take out loans that they could not afford to pay back once the interest rates eventually rose.

Government-established central banks tampering with the market provoked the artificial boom followed by the current inescapable bust or crash. Following the boom-bust cycle, true financial reform legislation should seek to examine how the secretive Fed sets its interest rates. Yet, the Dodd-Frank bill grants the Fed significantly more power to oversee financial firms. According to Cato Institute scholar Mark A. Calabria,

The legislation's worst oversight is to ignore completely the role of loose monetary policy in driving the housing bubble.

Cockerill Interviews David Henderson

David Henderson, economics professor at the Naval Postgraduate School of Monterey California, research scholar the Hoover Institute, and columnist for antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com, was kind enough to do an interview with me recently.

David discussed the liberty-movement leaders young people ought to emulate, the problems he sees with the Austrian Theory of the business cycle, and the personal responsibility of the peacenik and soldier in fighting against, and not fighting in, an unjust war. I believe this is a very important interview for young people, in terms of broadening their mind and seriously challenging the status quo. As such, I didn't cut much of the interview and I ask you, the reader, to find a time to listen to it in full.

If you absolutely can't listen to the whole interview, then fast-forward to about 2:21 minutes into Part 4. Here, I ask David about the issues of peace and personal responsibility, and he gives what I consider to be a very thorough and important response.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

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By Aaron Lieberman at 6:06AM

Apr 28, 2010

Cato's Handbook: "The Limits of Monetary Policy"

Milton Friedman I hope you all get a chance to read the Cato Institute's stance on monetary policy. In general, my understanding is that if they believe the Federal Reserve should continue to exist, at least it should end the dual mandate of not only keeping stable prices but also being responsible for high employment levels, which, as they state in their policy handbook, is outside the realm of what is really achievable. Instead, the Fed's only policy should be a stable prices, with a long term goal of 0% inflation.

This is possibly the most important debate when it comes to our economic freedoms, because if inflation is not foreseen, that is, monetary policy is subjectively manipulated by central bankers, then it is inevitably becomes a hidden tax on all of us.

Milton Friedman always talked about a set increase in the amount of money each year. In this way, the economy would be allowed to expand and at the same time inflation was anticipated. Otherwise END THE FED.

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By Preston Mui at 10:28PM

Mar 18, 2010

Who David Boaz Isn't Voting For

Not anyone who isn't a real freedom-lover, that's for sure.

This year I’m looking for candidates who stand for freedom across the board, who want government constrained by the Constitution, who believe in the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.
And that means I don’t want to back candidates who support
the war in Iraq
the war in Afghanistan
war with Iran
the war on drugs
the constitutional amendment to override state marriage laws and make gay people second-class citizens
the president’s power to snatch American citizens off the street and hold them without access to a lawyer or a judge
new restrictions on immigration

Note: YAL does not support or oppose any candidate for office.

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By Rachel Kania at 4:49PM

Nov 19, 2009

What does ObamaCare mean for Young Adults?

I just finished a "briefing paper" by Aaron Yelowitz of the CATO Institute called ObamaCare, a Bad Deal for Young Adults. The article shows that young adults from the ages of 18-24 will be forced to subsidize the health care of older, higher risk insurance clients under universal healthcare as it's currently proposed. This is because the proposed bill would impose price controls (a.k.a. "community rating") on insurance companies, causing the insurer to be unable to offer lower premiums for low risk customers. The low risk customers are the 18- 24 year olds.

Aaron Yelowitz points out 3 important terms you should know:

Community rating. This means you pay for your health insurance not based on your own health characteristics but on the average characteristics of the community.
Guaranteed Issue. This means that the insurer must issue insurance to all applicants regardless of their health characteristics. The community rating along with the guaranteed issue would create a world where healthy 18-24 year olds end up subsidizing 55 year old smokers through higher rates and/or higher taxes.