Author: Norman Leahy

Congress is (apparently) working on a budget that reflects the political aspirations of the two major parties. While the final product is very likely to be a rush job that reflects only the interest of the appropriators rather than much else, there is one thing it is all but guaranteed to do: spend more. Yes, despite the rhetoric coming from House Republicans, the votes have traditionally been on the side of spending more rather than doing anything that might end up in an opposition ad during the next election. How does such behavior translate into dollars and cents? The Cato…

Americans can sometimes get salty in debates over politics and even in debates with politicians. It’s woven into the fabric of our civic life. And it’s this being argumentative, saucy, even downright rude that the Massachusetts Supreme Court said was every citizen’s First Amendment right. In a case challenging a Massachusetts township’s civility code that the plaintiff alleged led to her being unconstitutionally silenced at town meetings, the court sided with her right to speak her mind: Decorum, the new decision concluded, was not a top priority for the cousins John and Samuel Adams when they drafted Article 19 in…

There’s a looming presidential election season out there, though it can be hard to tell from the daily news flow. But there are a few, very early inklings that the Republican contest is starting to get more focused. Not that the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, was ever out of focus, the spotlight, or much else since leaving office in 2021. But there were stirrings, hopes and so on that the Republican faithful might look for someone new in 2024. They may still do that – remember, the first GOP presidential debate isn’t until August in Milwaukee. But dislodging…

For those who may have been wondering…there’s still debate in Congress over what to do about the debt ceiling, the budget, taxes and spending. House Republicans say they are determined to wring savings out of the budget, maybe even balancing it (someday). Democrats are generally unconcerned about balancing any budget anytime soon. But both major parties have said that any spending deal will leave Social Security and Medicare — two of the biggest federal programs, off the table. And there’s reluctance to touch veterans programs, defense spending and so on. What, then, is left to cut, trim or slightly reduce?…

The Moscow meeting between China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin has the press buzzing about a new global order determined to stand against the West and the United States. On the surface, it looks exactly like that – an alliance between autocracies intent on preserving themselves, their clients and their power: In their joint statement, the two authoritarian leaders called for promoting a “multipolar world” – a buzzword for a system not led by so-called Western values and rules, and pledged to work together to “safeguard the international system,” and the United Nations – where the two have a…

It’s something every budding economist (who isn’t a cheerleader for Team Red or Team Blue) knows to be true: countries do not pay tariffs. Individuals do. And the important result of those payments: tariffs make the people paying those higher prices for imported goods poorer. Politicians – including those who say they support free markets – forget or ignore this when they rally behind tariffs to punish this, that or another country. All they care about is scoring points, which they hope will translate into votes on Election Day. Just a reminder: it’s all economic snake oil… Five years after then-President…

There was plenty of excitement in the financial world over the weekend…

House Republicans will probably unveil their version of the federal budget in the next few weeks. As budgets are political documents as much as anything else, the Republican proposal will tell us whether the party is genuinely intent on restraining federal spending. Things got off to an ignominious start when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took the massive federal programs “completely off the table” even as a discussion point in the ongoing talks over the federal debt ceiling hike. The GOP bind got worse when former President Donald Trump chastised those potential challengers for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination who previously…

And while we’re on the topic of privacy and what you can do to protect yours from government snoops, there’s a story in Politico about those doorbell devices many homeowners use to see who’s knocking. Or doing something else. It turns out the data those handy devices collect is a ripe target for law enforcement. And they may be able to get it – all of it – with your permission: In the debate over home surveillance, much of the concern has focused on Ring in particular, because of its popularity, as well as the company’s track record of cooperating…

While various politicians and interest groups wallow in the moral panic over TikTok and “the children,” much closer to everyone’s home were the revelations in this Wall Street Journal story about the FBI admitting it used private cell phone data to track people without a warrant. Because that Fourth Amendment is such an inconvenience. The feds say they don’t do it any longer (promises, promises). But FBI director Christopher Wray said plenty of other agencies are still out there conducting warrantless tracking. The source for much of the data law enforcement bought (and still buys today): it’s all around you:…