Dan J

Over-reaching government, emotional voters, and one mighty frustrated cityful of people.  Welcome to Austin, Texas. Austin has cut off its nose to spite its face. A few voters, in attempting to make a political statement to “ride sharing” companies like Uber and Lyft, have violated John Stuart Mill’s

Who wants Adam Smith and liberty?  American colleges prefer Karl Marx and big government. Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is apparently the 3rd most-assigned book in American colleges. Marx is joined by many other communists, socialists and authoritarians on the list. Enlightened thinkers that promote freedom, however, are

Bernie Sanders wants to heal our economy.  As a socialist, he is the last sort of person who should be playing doctor.  It's not his diagnoses.  Those are sometimes close to the mark.  It's his prescriptions.  They have an astounding history of causing more illness, not

Entitlements are intellectual junk.  If we want real progress, we need to stop rummaging around in history's trash heap. Education is a human right.  Healthcare is a human right.  A minimum income is a human right.  And somehow the American nation is ignorant of these entitlements.  Or at

The latest government report states, once again, that the TSA is nearly useless. What a lovely prompt to finally get rid of it. An Inspector General has recently reported the wonderful news that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is almost completely useless. It fails in 96% of tests, and has

Americans are currently reaping the benefits of government debt, but deferring payment of that debt to future Americans.  A "Conscientious Baby Boomer" might object: The United States is now carrying eighteen trillion dollars in public debt, which represents a burden of $154,000 per taxpayer.  That is not

If the CIA’s torture doesn’t bother you, its crimes against our nation should. We have known for years that the CIA tortured people in the name of the United States. The new report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reveals how heinous and unnecessary that torture was.

Remember Solyndra? It was the solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt in 2011, taking over half a billion dollars in federal investment capital with it. Solyndra had received this investment through the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program. Its spectacular failure immediately politicized the Loan Guarantee Program and brought

The profound meaning of Thanksgiving has been lost to the American nation over the years. That isn't a slight against our prevailing idea of Thanksgiving as a time to show appreciation for the many blessings of a fruitful country. There is simply a deeper meaning to Thanksgiving that

American political principles were considered a marvel for centuries. Although much less famous, so were the principles of government finance that were extrapolated from them. Bill White’s "America’s Fiscal Constitution" is an effort to identify these fiscal principles and trace their application over the years. It