The federal tax cut that recently passed Congress and was signed into law by our Potomac Janissary is too small, but it’s better than nothing. So we’ll each receive $300 this summer. Big deal. The average driver here in New York City pays more than that in a few weeks (days?) of negotiating our potholed government highways, which all seem to be
Disaster struck in Tennessee last week—a disaster, at least, from the viewpoint of career politicians of both parties and of members of the elite media, who seem to support every expansion of government. With the General Assembly poised to put another state income tax on the books, hundreds of angry taxpayers revolted, descending on the state
Politically oriented monetary policies and business cycles are the inevitable by-products of a central bank, the ultimate favored banking institution which is viewed as a savior by some politicians facing elections. After the elections comes the bill: Inflation runs amuck. The nation goes into a painful recession, or the stock market crashes.
In 1962, journalist Daniel Schorr interviewed East German leader Walter Ulbricht on television. In the final version, Schorr would ask a tough question, and Ulbricht would rail in anger. Reaction shots showed Schorr serenely nodding back, unshaken and in control. CBS Chairman William Paley praised Schorr for this interview, particularly Schorr’s
The perennial debate over gold is as old as civilization. What makes money valuable? Why do we happily accept some pieces of paper and refuse others? It is because one does or does not have some degree of confidence in the government that issues a currency. So today, for example, almost all players in the National Hockey League, Canadians as well
One’s chance of winning a top prize in one of the rigged state lotteries is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero. That’s what Professor A. K. Dewdney wrote in his book 200% of Nothing . He estimated the chance of winning a big prize in a state lottery as 1 in 13,983,816. California lottery commission officials apparently don’t
The Section 31(a) tax, the little-known stock transaction fee that evolved into another tax for the federal government while arrogating billions of dollars from the pockets of investors, is finally going to be reformed. Congress recently gave final approval to the “Investors and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act” (HR 1088), which President Bush is
Democracies have had their share of wartime civil libertarian outrages, despite the guarantees of constitutions and bills of rights. In Britain , at the outset of World War I, the passage of the Defense of the Realm Act--an act that destroyed the liberties of many Englishmen--led to such an environment of repression that even the English monarchy
Government rail buffs, bureaucrats, and the friends of big government are resting easy these days. The big bad Amtrak Reform Council, which was charged with cleaning up the mess created by almost 32 years of government passenger railroad system, turned out to be nothing more than a cute little poodle. The council offered no radical privatization
The official credo of government regulators ought to be: “The more we screw up, the more of us you’re going to pay for.” Who taught me this lesson in civics? Recently, I attended the Security Traders Association (STA) congressional conference in Washington. The buzz at the conference was about Enron and the failures of the United States Securities
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.