Co-authored with Veronique de Rugy A value-added tax, a soda tax, a gas tax, banning earmarks, freezing a portion of federal spending at “pre-stimulus” levels – there’s no shortage of ideas being thrown out to fix the country’s disastrous balance
They’ve targeted bottled water and the selling of all kinds of pets, er, “animal companions.” And now, with the soda scold who’s yanking sugary beverages from vending machines, the City by the Bay pulls off the first-ever Nanny of the
Cameras are everywhere today: In convenience stores, at intersections, the workplace, your computer, your cellphone, ATM machines. There’s even been a camera in news anchor Katie Couric. Yet there’s one place cameras have never been allowed: The U.S. Supreme Court.
The Empire State has a long list of sad-sack governors, ranging from the current one, the previous one, the one before that (who served three too many terms, and Nelson Rockefeller, who jacked up spending and passed draconian drug laws
LeBron James has decided to move to Florida and play for the Miami Heat rather than bear another season with the Cavaliers. Everybody is piling on: How could a dude with a tattoo of the word loyalty on his chest
Before hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation. Katrina forced nearly a million people to leave their homes and caused almost $100 billion in damages. To
The financial reform bill currently working its way toward President Barack Obama’s desk for signing is being touted as the biggest overhaul of the banking and investment sectors since the Great Depression. But the new regs won’t be any more
Whether it’s Arizona’s controversial new law or President Obama’s decision to send additional national guard troops to the US/Mexico border, immigration remains one of the most contentious issues in contemporary politics. As the battle over “comprehensive” reform heats up, everyone
To the American mind there may be nothing more quintessentially Swedish than the leggy, blond supermodel. But there’s another Swedish model that inspires almost as much admiration–the Swedish economic model. With a generous welfare state and high living standards, Sweden
Reason.tv presents Citizens Against Government Waste‘s Porker of the Month for June 2010. CAGW makes this award to a politician or special interest who takes pork-barrel spending to new heights. This month’s winner is Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)! The Constellation
President Barack Obama made news on The Today Show when he talked about kicking some ass over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If he is interested in punishing those responsible for what is shaping up as
Kristin Davis rose to notoriety as the madam who provided New York Attorney General and Gov. Eliot Spitzer with the escorts that led to his demise. Davis ended up going to jail for providing a business populated by and for
The Gulf of Mexico continues to gush oil just as a whaling controversy threatens to land Australia and Japan in international court for killing protected species. Meanwhile, another less-publicized but arguably more cataclysmic oceanic disaster continues to worsen. Overfishing threatens
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that “the rich are not paying their fair share” of taxes in the United States and other developed countries. Is she right? It depends on what you consider fair. Using 2006 data, The
Post updated with author’s note. Author’s Note: This article includes three images that clearly denigrate Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. So there is absolutely no question about the provenance of these images, I would like to direct all readers to
In The Capitalist Welfare State, Lund University economist Andreas Bergh explains how Sweden has managed to increase economic productivity despite its large public sector. Bergh says that despite popular mythology, Sweden is not a socialist success story but instead owes
It’s not surprising that so many parents are so worried about autism. After all, the disorder strikes about one out of every 115 kids, its prevalence seems to be growing, and its cause or causes remain mysterious. A 1998 article
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Tea Party movement is “struggling to overcome accusations of racism,” some of which has been perpetuated in its editorial pages. Yesterday’s New York Times, home to the most obsessively anti-Tea Party editorial page
The video sharing site YouTube.com recently started blocking access to countless parodies of the 2004 German movie Downfall, a critically acclaimed film that chronicles Adolf Hitler’s final days in a Berlin bunker. The parodies take off from a powerful monologue
General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has bragged in TV commercials and newspaper columns that GM has paid back its bailout “in full and ahead of schedule.” As with the Pontiac Aztek, an ugly exterior masks an ever darker problem: Whitacre
Last month’s biggest busybody was the New York politician who’s waging a war on salt. This month’s top honors could have gone to the US senator who wants to block betting on box office sales or the Silicon Valley pol
In The Excellent Powder: DDT’s Political and Scientific History, Richard Tren and Donald Roberts argue that the infamous insecticide is the world’s greatest public-health success stories, saving millions of lives by preventing insect-borne disease. Unfortunately for those in areas still
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society,” said legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As students of Buck v. Bell could tell you, Holmes had a habit of being monstrously wrong, but if he’s right
It’s hard to find a politician who isn’t eager to “do something” about high unemployment. Turns out California has found one way to save and create certain kinds of jobs–spend like mad and raise taxes. That job-creation strategy has worked
Is California “too big to fail” or is a Golden State bankruptcy in the cards? Reason’tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with Jon Fleischman, founder and publisher of the FlashReport, to talk about California’s ongoing fiscal meltdown, and how, after a
The drinking age in the US has been 21 for more than 20 years. Today, we all take the drinking age for granted, but should we? In fact, the US is one of only four countries in the world with
Last month Reason.tv highlighted the heartland pol who’s waging a very real war on fake pot, but who will be this month’s top nanny? There are the New Jersey cops who wouldn’t tolerate a naked snowwoman and Pennsylvania state troopers’
As unemployment stubbornly sticks near 10 percent and any sort of economic recovery seems a long way off, think about this: The one part of the economy that’s going gangbusters is government work. Indeed, since the Great Recession started in
One of the main selling points of health care reform was that it would cut the federal deficit by a supposed $143 billion over the next decade and a trillion-plus dollars in the one after that. But not only will
After World War II, Cleveland was booming, thanks to its leadership role in heavy industry and a business-friendly climate. Today, the city’s high taxes and onerous regulatory demands make it nearly impossible for new businesses to set up shop while
Cleveland’s public schools are failing to prepare students for their futures and as a result, all parents who can afford to have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades. Yet some urban schools, like Think College Now in Oakland, California
“I don’t like regulations,” says Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist who blogs daily at AdviceGoddess.com. “I like to shame people into behaving better.” Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with Alkon to discuss her new book, I See Rude People:
First Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) surrenders his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee amid an ethics investigation. Now Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) proposes an idea that she hopes will help her make good on her promise to help lead
Supertrain 2010 = Supertrain 1979! President Barack Obama has pledged $8 billion in tax dollars to build a national network of high-speed rail–trains that can carry passengers at speeds in excess of 150 MPH. But the Supertrain fantasy was a
Freddy’s in Brooklyn is a happening place that has been named one of the city’s best bars by the Village Voice, Esquire, and The New York Times. Unfortunately, Freddy’s–and the surrounding neighborhood–is smack-dab in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards
Last month’s nannies pulled a modern-day Footloose by banning singing, dancing and rapping at new bars and restaurants–in Snoop Dog’s home, no less! But what about this month? Check out who’s pulling the plug on electric bingo machines (sorry charity
When it comes to health care, who gets treated better–man or man’s best friend? Of course, it’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison when you’re comparing four-legged patients to people, and there are many ways in which human care tops
Over the past couple of years, the medical marijuana industry in Los Angeles has exploded. Estimates vary, but there may be as many as 800 dispensaries currently open for business in the city of angels. An ordinance recently passed by
Al Gore says that legislation ensuring “net neutrality” is “needed for the revitalization of American democracy.” Techno-vegan Moby says without it, the “egalitarian” Internet would disappear. Even Mallory from Family Ties, Justine Bateman, thinks “the freedom to access the site
No one is more self-dramatizing on cable news than male hysteric, unsolicited janitor of Cooperstown, and Countdown host Keith Olbermann, who includes more special effects during his Castro-length “Special Comment” segments than Mikhail Kalatozov did in I Am Cuba (one