Author: Norman Leahy

I’ve frequently criticized our current political class as a collection of spend-happy, careerist hypocrites. And they are. But not every pol America has produced has been a character lesson in duplicity and mendacity. Some have stood on principle even when it was politically unwise, and career suicide, to do so. One of them was Grover Cleveland, the only person elected to two, non-consecutive presidential terms. A New York Democrat who most New York Democrats wouldn’t dare to be seen with today, Cleveland believed in fiscal restraint and constitutional fidelity. As FEE’s Lawrence Reed writes, Cleveland penned a series of articles…

Two things are true about former president Donald Trump: until proven otherwise at the polls in 2024, he is the frontrunner and favorite to be the GOP’s next presidential nominee and… …he is a world-class grifter who has spent his time out of office inventing new ways to bilk his supporters for cash. The most recent of those schemes: the $99 Trump NFT, or what he called “Trump Digital Trading Cards.” The “cards” sold out in a single day, netting Trump an easy $4.5 million or so, were vintage Trump nonsense – derivative and utterly useless. As Jonathan V. Last…

Government intervention in markets is not new, and it is very much a bipartisan affair. But large-scale industrial policies like those the Biden administration has gotten through Congress in the last few months are impressive, even by D.C.’s statist baseline. The federal government’s decision to spend big on semiconductors, green energy and other industry subsidies has C-suite denizens smiling. But the trendsetters in all things industrial policy – the Europeans – are mad as hornets about it. The reason: the majority of European companies aren’t eligible for U.S. subsidies (because like Trump before him, Joe Biden is a student of…

About that $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill Congress has passed…just how do the worthies plan to spread that cash (much of it borrowed, but that’s our grandchildrens’ problem)? In all the ways one would expect from a gaggle of spend-happy pols in the waning days of the year. The headline numbers from the Senate Appropriations Committee: The omnibus includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs, including $118.7 billion – a 22 percent increase – for VA medical care, and $858 billion in defense funding. What are some of the specifics of these eye-watering numbers? Reason pulled out some of the…

There’s a treasure trove of bad decisions and nonsense buried inside the $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress is considering. But there is also something genuinely good, and essential, namely, the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. This bill would prevent a replay of the shady legal shenanigans and mob violence unleashed on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, when the electoral votes from the 2020 elections were formally counted. As Sen. Rand Paul wrote in the Louisville Courier Journal, the proposed reforms are meant to preserve the Electoral College and remove the ambiguities the major parties have exploited for…

The Transportation Security Administration has deployed a facial recognition system at a handful of U.S. airports. The purpose: to make sure your face matches the one on the ID you must already submit to get on a plane. As with anything related to the highly problematic TSA, the prospect of a government security agency building a biometric database raises all sorts of questions. Let’s dispose of one immediately: passengers are not required to use the TSA facial recognition systems (good luck with that). The program does not keep your face on file forever )with notable exceptions). And yes, the TSA…

Politicians do a lot of cynical things. But few are more jaded than the ritual demonstrations of care, concern and advocacy for working people. While it’s easy to dismiss standard campaign fare like as good work for good wages or even President Joe Biden’s promise to be the most union-friendly incumbent ever, these generic statements have real-world consequences. And as Cato’s Scott Lincicome writes, they often result in destructive economic policies that make everyone – workers included – poorer and less free. But there’s a solution: politicians should work for more freedom in the economy and the workplace: …lawmakers should…

It’s no secret that high taxes on items like alcohol and cigarettes – otherwise known as “sin taxes” – have produced durable black markets in those goods. But in case more proof is needed, the Tax Foundation looks at excise tax rates on cigarettes versus smuggling. What they discover is entirely predictable: Excessive tax rates on cigarettes induce substantial black and gray market movement of tobacco products into high-tax states from low-tax states or foreign sources. New York has the highest inbound smuggling activity, with an estimated 53.5 percent of cigarettes consumed in the state deriving from smuggled sources in…

The winners of the Nobel Peace prize are not always firm and dedicated friends of freedom. But this year’s winners all made a profoundly important case for standing against authoritarians and their apologists. “People of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world,” said Oleksandra Matviychuk, who accepted the prize on behalf of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, which she heads. “But peace cannot be reached by a country under attack laying down its arms. This would not be peace, but occupation.” Matviychuk also said the west needs to: “Stop pretending deferred military threats are ‘political…

The Congressional Budget Office released its annual report on how Congress can reduce the budget deficit. Given the blistering pace of federal spending, this report, like others before it, will get put on a shelf and forgotten. But that doesn’t mean we should forget it. Eventually, the electorate will demand Congress cut the red ink, and when that happens, ideas like those the CBO issues will be a major part of the discussion. What are some of the suggestions this year? Among the biggest are ways to reduce spending on what has long been the largest part of the federal…