Get Government Out of the Airport Security Screening Business
My new op-ed for the Washington Times' "Cut or Be Cut" series explains why it is time to get the TSA out of the passenger and baggage screening business:Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,...
View ArticleUp from Serfdom
Editor's Note: On April 6, Reason published David Boaz's "Up From Slavery: There's no such thing as a golden age of lost liberty," which argued that libertarians who omit or minimize slavery and other...
View ArticleObamaâ??s Education Spending Frenzy
A year after coming into office with promises to shake up the way public education is managed in this country, how have Barack Obama and his highly regarded education secretary, Arne Duncan,...
View ArticleCapitalism for Punks
Arguably the most anarchist force ever unleashed by pop culture (their bitter, funny "God Save the Queen" was redacted from the top of the U.K. pop charts because it defamed Elizabeth II), the great...
View ArticleGet the Government Out of Airport Screening
Washington Times Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, governments across the world increased airport security, and rightly so. But in a hasty overreaction to that tragic day, Congress...
View ArticleL.A.â??s Pot Revolution
On a warm, bright winter day in January, I spent a few hours driving around two neighborhoods in Los Angeles, looking at marijuana stores.You know, marijuana stores. Where you (well, not necessarily...
View ArticleJustice John Paul Stevens' Mixed Record on Civil Liberties
Retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is being hailed as a champion of the accused. Stevens, The New York Times editorial board opined, has a "record of being on the side of fairness and...
View ArticleNews Flash: Postal Service Not Viable Business
A federal audit of the U.S. Postal Service says its business model isn't viable. Surprise! It's long overdue for privatization.The audit, however, doesn't got that far. In a blog post at the Washington...
View ArticleA Different Kind of Story About Free Enterprise
A story about the obvious—and not so obvious—supporters of free enterprise.This video has been entered in the "I Am Free Enterprise" video contest sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was...
View ArticleDon't Let Obama Touch Immigration Reform
Forbes America's immigration system is badly broken and in desperate need of fixing. And that is precisely why President Barack Obama should not be allowed to touch it. After the bruising battle over...
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On Being a 21st Century Peasant
“Here’s all I’m trying to say: The planet on which our civilization evolved no longer exists,” asserts environmentalist Bill McKibben in his new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. “The...
View ArticleThe Son Also Rises
The Rally for the Republicans at the Kentucky Fair & Exposition Center isn’t your standard rubber-chicken campaign event. Frank Simon, a Louisville religious-right leader known for his strong...
View ArticleUpdate on Ports: Looking for Private Partners and a New Perspective
A very interesting and comprehensive article appeared in the Galveston County Daily News. The article traces the (short) history of large public-private partnership proposals for ports, beginning...
View ArticleInnovative Road Finance Plan Unveiled in England
Our friends at Tollroadsnews.com are reporting on a potentially pathbreaking report by the London-based Social Market Foundation outlining a plan to fund roads through distance-based charging. This may...
View ArticleTaking State Parks off the State's Books
Bacon's Rebellion The Commission on Government Reform and Restructuringâ??established under executive order by Gov. Bob McDonnellâ??will soon begin the important work of identifying opportunities to...
View ArticleUnfaithful Friend of Liberty
As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens "gradually became the leader of the court's liberal wing,"The New York Timesreports, "he became increasingly skeptical of claims of government power."...
View ArticleThe Senate v. The Constitution
With all the praise being heaped on departing Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a person might have forgotten momentarily that the man spent a good chunk of the past two decades working to...
View ArticleA Nanny State Assault on Internship Programs
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about raising money for my non-profit college journalism education program in this lousy economy, the nanny state is now threatening my Politics & Journalism...
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Housing Finance Reform: The Case for Beginning the Process for Winding Down...
Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to testify today on the important matter of reforming our nation’s framework for housing...
View ArticleFinancial Services Reform Debate on RT Tonight at 6pm
I will be back on RussiaToday tonight to discuss the most recent news in the battle to reform Wall Street rules. Click here for a live feed. The show begins at 6pm, my segment will be on somewhere...
View ArticleMass Transit's Real Contribution to Travel
Much of the debate over mass transit focuses on the role transit plays in commuting. Transit's role can be very important, as in New York where transit serves three quarters of the commutes into...
View ArticleThoughts on the Dodd Bill
Yesterday, the president made a new push for Wall Street reform rules. It is an important topic. It is badly needed reform. It is an issue Congress is screwing up.Leading the financial services reform...
View ArticleEducation Reformers Get Schooled
In 1990, in one of the most innovative developments in modern American education, the Milwaukee public schools created a parental choice system. Some low-income parents got vouchers that could be used...
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Special Thanks to the Top 40 Percent of Taxpayers
From Kurt Brouwer at Fundmastery Blog:here is a chart using data from the Congressional Budget Office to show the percentage of all Federal taxes (individual income taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes,...
View ArticleLower and Simplify Taxes!
It's that joyous time of year: income tax time. So I spend time with my accountant. I don't want to see him, but I must. I could not do what he's doing. The tax code has grown so complex that today...
View ArticlePushing Back on Claim Bankruptcy Can't Handle Big Bank Failure
This week, Mike Konczal wrote a post criticizing the GOP's position on financial services reform. While I have no love for the Republican party, he did say something pretty misleading that I want to...
View ArticleA Positive View of the Jobless Recovery
Reuters reported yesterday that the Fortune 500 companies tripped their profits in 2009 from the previous years level, to $391 billion collectively. Fortune magazine also noted that those same...
View ArticleFrom Paris Hilton to John Edwards
In recent years, the porn industry has gotten screwed harder than a beleaguered Marquis de Sade heroine, first by rampant piracy, then by a vicious recession. Now that thousands of former customers...
View Article24-Hour Party People
Yesterday I waded into a mass of tea party protesters gathered at the front of Colorado's Capitol and completely forgot to brace myself for a "small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht" (as New York Times...
View Article53% Oppose Regulation of Internet
A new Rasmussen poll finda thatJust 27% of Americans now believe the Federal Communications Commission should regulate the Internet like it does television and radio. That marks a 22-point drop in...
View ArticleThe Americanization of British Politics
As a transmitter of a dangerous cultural virus, the American traveler in Britain is always prepared for that conversation; the one that blithely insists that it is his heritage, his vapid, corpulent,...
View ArticleD.C. Taxi Corruption Update
Last summer Washington, D.C. reeled from revelations about taxi companies bribing city council staffers to get favorable treatment as part of taxi regulation reform. I noted the inevitability of this...
View ArticleAfter Tragedy, Can Russia and Poland Reconcile?
If last week's plane crash in Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others—including some of Poland's top government officials and military leaders—had been a fictional event, it...
View ArticleQuestions Legislators Should Ask About High-Speed Rail
My name is Robert Poole, and I'm the Director of Transportation Policy at the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit public policy think tank. After receiving two engineering degrees from MIT, I've spent...
View ArticleVMT Reduction Is the Wrong Goal for Transportation Policy
One of the leading academic transportation policy journals, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, invited Adrian Moore, Sam Staley, and Bob Poole to write an essay for a symposium on...
View ArticleLooking at Hoenig on the Dodd Bill
Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig writing in The New York Times Saturday makes a couple of sharp critiques of the Dodd financial services reform bill. His theme is that "the...
View ArticleNursing Our Way Out of a Doctor Shortage
Thanks to health care reform, millions of previously uninsured Americans will have policies enabling them to go to the doctor when necessary without financial fear. But it's a bit like giving everyone...
View ArticleThe Rise of Decline
When Andrew Joseph Stack, a software consultant with a history of tax troubles and marital problems, crashed his Piper Cherokee into the Austin, Texas, office of the Internal Revenue Service in...
View ArticleDown the Health Care Wormhole
If we can put a man on the moon, we can re-write the basic laws of supply and demand and get more quality health care, dispensed by fewer providers per patient, at lower prices for all Americans. Sure...
View ArticleFor Singles Suburbia Reigns
A new survey of home purchases by singles turned up something surprising for city watchers: 52 percent chose suburbs over urban or rural areas. The survey reveals a couple of other interesting tidbits...
View ArticleHigh Speed Rail Flops...in China?
Last week's news of blistering economic growth in China (11.9% for the first quarter 2010) overshadowed this tidbit gleaned from the tail end of a report in The New York Times (emphasis added):"Lending...
View ArticlePolicy Strategies for U.S. Surface Transportation Funding Reauthorization
Federal surface transportation policy is at a fateful crossroads. Since the completion of the Interstate system, the federal program has lost focus and a sense of purpose. The user-pays funding...
View ArticleGovernor Fights the Good Fight in New Jersey
An amazing story in the Wall Street Journal (April 17, 2010) chronicles how difficult it is to turn a state around. James Freeman interviewed Governor Chris Christie, who is making a valiant effort to...
View ArticleNetwork Neutrality's Impact on Smartphones
If you own a BlackBerry or other smartphone, try this experiment. Find a friend who owns an Apple iPhone and try out the same application, say Google Maps. On which device is it faster and easier to...
View ArticleHash Bash
On Saturday morning at the Cow Palace, a 15,000 seat indoor arena located just south of San Francisco, the nacho concession was surprisingly deserted. But it was early yet, and given the long line of...
View ArticleEarth Day Turns 40
Forty years ago this week, 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day celebration. It was the largest national demonstration ever, with events taking place on 2,000 college campuses,...
View ArticleBitTorrent Was a Bad Case from the Start
After reading over some of the postings from the few weeks and exchanging emails with Richard Bennett at Technology Liberation Front, I am coming to see how disastrous a decision it was for the FCC to...
View ArticleChina's Failed "High" Speed Rail - An Update
Yesterday, I reported on a New York Times story that said a high-speed rail service in China's Fujian province had failed due to competition from air. After querying this further with our contacts in...
View ArticleMake California's Programs Compete for Money
David Osborne, who helped lead the Clinton administration's "reinventing government task force," is author of the book Reinventing Government and a new Reason Foundation study on how to fix the...
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