To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Cato Monthly E-Update August 2008
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 10:47:04 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
August 2008
Of
Particular Note
Obama, McCain, and Health Care
In the face of widespread public demand for changes in the U.S. health
care
system, both Barack Obama and John McCain have offered detailed proposals for
reform. In "A Fork in the Road: Obama, McCain, and Health Care," Cato scholar
Michael D. Tanner examines the candidates' plans, and concludes that, while
Senator McCain's proposal is far from perfect, from a free-market perspective,
it appears superior to Senator Obama's plan.
New Regulation Looks at Liability, Regulatory Reform, and Eminent Domain
In the current issue of Regulation, Andrew P. Morriss adds a new player
to the classic "Bootleggers and Baptists" regulatory dynamic. In the same
issue, Alexandra B. Klass wonders why Kelo activists aren't incensed over
natural resource development takings. Also, John
V. C. Nye discusses Pigovian taxation on gasoline, and Ian W. H. Parry and
Kenneth A. Small
respond.
Summer 2008 Issue of Regulation
CATO
COMMENTARY
July 30, 2008, "Greasing the World Economy Without Doha," Daniel J.
Ikenson, The Wall Street Journal. The Doha trade round died a thousand deaths
long before this week. But outside the bureaucracies in Geneva, Brussels and
Washington, few are grieving
because the world economy has moved on.
July 29, 2008, "Poking the Bear," Ted Galen Carpenter, National
Interest (Online). Few people want to return to the animosity and tensions that
marked relations between Washington and Moscow throughout the cold war. But
clumsy policies by both the United States and Russia now threaten to bring
back those unhappy days. The Bush administration presses for further expansion
of NATO to Russia's border and is meddling in parochial disputes between Russia
and its small neighbor, Georgia. For its part, the Medvedev/Putin regime shows
signs of trying to cause headaches for the United States in
the Caribbean.
July 27, 2008, "Too Big to Fail, or to Survive," William Poole, The New
York Times. Critics of the Congressional housing package complain that we are
now committing taxpayers to huge new outlays to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac. That view is
wrong: Congressional inaction over the past 15 years had already committed
taxpayers to the bailout.
July 24, 2008, "The Grand Exaggerator," Patrick J. Michaels, National
Review (Online). What is it with Al Gore? Why is he compelled to exaggerate
climate change (excuse me, "the climate crisis"), and then to propose
impossible policy responses?
It's like he's inventing the Internet all over again!
July 24, 2008, "The Fed Plays
With Fire," Steve H. Hanke, Forbes. The U.S. dollar may be cyclically weak
right now, but it remains the main vehicle for foreign exchange transactions,
the leading international invoice currency and the most important medium for
official reserves and interventions to influence exchange
rates. In addition, it provides an anchor for many countries outside Europe to
peg their currencies to. In short, the dollar rules, to the great benefit of
the U.S. Could it lose its dominion? It could. Flabby monetary policy could
bring on nasty
inflation, a collapse in Treasury bond prices and the dollar and a lot of
economic hardship.
July 23, 2008, "Treasury's Thieves," Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., New York
Post. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's bailout plan for mortgage giants
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be titled "The Bondholder Relief Act of
2008": The taxpayers will be providing the relief to holders of
Fannie/Freddie debt, many of whom are foreigners.
July 19, 2008, "A Reality Check on Iran," David Isenberg, Asia Times
Online. The world has over the past months witnessed one of the periodic
upsurges of speculation in the ongoing drama over whether the United States
will attack Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program.
July 16, 2008, "U.S. Should Import More Skilled Workers," Will
Wilkinson, Marketplace. If you're a highly-skilled worker, America needs you.
But if you've got a foreign passport, we probably won't let you in. The U.S.
issues only 65,000 H-1B visas for
skilled workers each year and that's not very many. Senators McCain and Obama
have both said they would support raising the cap. They acknowledge we need
more skilled workers, and they're right. Yes, it would be good for innovation
and growth and it would bring down the prices of goods created by
skilled workers, but here's another reason you might not have thought of: Wage
inequality.
July 8, 2008, "The Aid Africa Can't Afford," Edward N. Luttwak and
Marian L. Tupy, Los Angeles
Times. If the G-8 really wants to help, it should cut off funds for
dysfunctional states.
African development is high on the list of topics for the leaders of the Group
of 8 countries meeting in Hokkaido, Japan. The host country has already pledged
to double its aid to Africa from the current $6.9 billion over the next five
years. President Bush, arriving in Japan on Sunday, made
it clear he planned to push other G-8 nations to meet their 2005 promises to
increase African aid.
July 2, 2008, "Habeas Half-Truths," Robert A. Levy, Reason (Online). In
a key decision at the close of its term, the Supreme Court held that 270
detainees at Guantanamo Bay have a constitutional right to habeas corpus, by
which they can petition a federal court for a hearing to
challenge their detentions. Regrettably, that narrow holding has been
misinterpreted and exaggerated by defenders of Bush administration policies to
suggest that federal courts will replace military courts in conducting
criminal-like trials of alien battlefield detainees. That is not what the Court
said. Let's see if we can dispel some of the half-truths and untruths regarding
the Court's holding in Boumediene v. Bush.
July 1, 2008, "Real Global Warming Fix," Randal O'Toole, Denver Daily
News. As concern over global warming grows, urban planning advocates have
jumped on the bandwagon by claiming cities should reduce their carbon
footprints by investing more in
transit and compact development. However, these claims are not supported by the
data, most of which show that transit and dense development are no more
environmentally friendly than autos and low-density suburbs.
Cato
Policy Studies
Deputizing Company Counsel as Agents of the Federal Government, by N.
Richard Janis.
Policymakers must reexamine the manner in which corporations and other
organizations that are suspected of wrongdoing are investigated. In the
aftermath of the Enron scandal, laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, combined with recent
changes to the Federal
Sentencing Guidelines, have substantially increased the penalties on companies
and individuals for white-collar offenses. The combination of draconian
sentences, lack of meaningful judicial control over the imposition of
sanctions, and the impossible burdens on company officers have jeopardized the
very nature of our adversary system of justice.
Bring Appellate Competition Back to Patent Law,by Timothy B. Lee.
Congress created the Federal Circuit as a specialized patent court in 1982, and
for the
first two decades of its existence the Supreme Court largely gave it a free
hand to shape patent law. Under new chief justice John Roberts, the Court has
begun scrutinizing the body of law the Federal Circuit crafted over the last
quarter-century, and the justices dont like what they see. Commentators
across the political spectrum have also criticized the recent evolution of
patent law, which has proliferated low-quality patents and caused a surge in
patent litigation. Although there is plenty of disagreement about the best
substantive
reforms, nearly everyone seems to agree that the Federal Circuit deserves some
of the blame for the sorry state of todays patent system.
The Fiscal Impact of a Large-Scale Education Tax Credit Program, by
Andrew J. Coulson. This paper estimates the budgetary impact of the Cato
Institute's Public Education Tax Credit model legislation on five states and
presents a generalized spreadsheet tool ("the Fiscal Impact Calculator") that
can
estimate the program's effect on any other state for which the necessary input
data are supplied. It is estimated that, in its first 10 years of operation,
savings from the PETC program would range from $1.1 billion for South Carolina
to $15.9 billion for Texas. Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York
are estimated to enjoy 10-year savings within that range. Public Education Tax
Credits reduce the state and local taxes owed by anyone who pays for the
private schooling of an eligible child. Parents can claim
credits for their own children's educational costs, and other taxpayers
(including businesses) can claim credits when they pay for the education of
someone else's child, either directly or by donating to a nonprofit
scholarship-granting organization.
CATO
BOOKS
E-books now
available. Most of Cato's best-selling books
can now be purchased and downloaded as PDF files. Browse our offering of
E-books.
NEW Greatest Emancipations: How the
West Abolished Slavery, by Jim Powell. This book tells the amazing story of
how in a single century slavery was abolished and more than seven million
slaves were
freed. Greatest Emancipation focuses on Haiti, the British Caribbean, the
United
States, Cuba and Brazil, which accounted for the vast majority of slaves in the
west. Jim Powell reveals the process and tremendous influence that slavery's
eradication had on individual societies in the west.
NEW Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America, by Ted
Galen Carpenter. This insightful book examines foreign policy challenges that
America confronts in the 21st century and diagnoses what is wrong
with Washingtons current approach. Throughout these essays, Carpenter outlines
an alternative strategy that would protect Americas security while avoiding
unnecessary and unrewarding military adventures.
The Cult of the Presidency: Americas Dangerous Devotion to
Executive Power, by Gene Healy. The Bush years have given rise to fears of a
resurgent Imperial Presidency. Those fears are justified, but the problem will
not be resolved by bringing a new
administration to power. In The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy argues that
the fault lies not in our leaders but in us.
The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded
Government and Eroded
Freedom, by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor. This book is an unparalleled
analysis of twelve U.S. Supreme Court cases that changed the course of American
history and personal freedom. Levy and Mellor show the impact of the cases on
free speech, economic liberty,
property rights, and private contracts, illuminating how the Court has allowed
breathtaking expansions of government power. (Published by Sentinel/Penguin
Group USA).
CATO ONLINE PUBLICATIONS
Cato Unbound: After Heller: The New American Debate About Guns
http://www.cato-unbound.org/
More than five years after six Washington, D.C. residents challenged
the citys 32-year-old ban on all functional firearms in the home, on June 26,
2008 the Supreme Court held in
District of Columbia v. Heller that the ban is unconstitutional. While Heller
rules out straightforward gun bans, it does not rule out the regulation of the
ownership of firearms. Can we expect increasingly heated fights over the legal
scope of regulation? Will the clear legal
affirmation of an individual right to bear arms sap gun rights defenders of one
of their chief rhetorical strategies: the regulatory slippery slope to the
prohibition of gun ownership? How does a decision concerning Second Amendment
rights in the federal district apply to gun laws in the states and
their cities? Does Heller change everything? Or does it merely mean that the
residents of the District of Columbia can acquire a gun if he or she can manage
to clear all the inevitable
regulatory hurdles?
To tell us what Heller really portends for the future of gun rights in
America, Cato Unbound has assembled a stellar panel Second Amendment experts.
Leading off we have Catos own Robert A. Levy, a chief architect of the Supreme
Court case and co-counsel to Mr. Heller. Commenting on Levys lead essay, well
have Denis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence; David Kopel,
research director of the Independence Institute and a noted Second Amerndment
scholar and activist; and Erwin Chemerinsky, the Alston & Bird Professor of Law
and Professor of Political Science at Duke University, one of Americas most
accomplished Constitutional
scholars and lawyers.
The Blog: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Read todays [EMAIL PROTECTED] posts.
CATO PODCASTS Subscribe on iTunes
Doha Is Dead, Liberalization Lives, featuring Daniel J.
Ikenson, 7/31/2008
Coburn Wounds Wasteful 'Tomnibus' Bill, featuring Jeff Patch, 7/30/2008
How Inflation Robs Zimbabwe, featuring Rejoice Ngwenya, 7/29/2008
Voodoo Climatology, featuring Patrick J. Michaels, 7/28/2008
George Will's America, featuring George F. Will, 7/24/2008
Can the Fed Whip Inflation Now?,
featuring William A. Niskanen, 7/23/2008
War Powers Pap, featuring Gene Healy, 7/21/2008
McCain's Hopeful, Flawed Push for School Choice, featuring Neal
McCluskey, 7/18/2008
A Strategy of Restraint Overseas, featuring Benjamin H. Friedman,
7/16/2008
The Obama Foreign Policy, featuring Justin Logan, 7/15/2008
How Fannie and Freddie Got Big, featuring Peter Van Doren, 7/14/2008
Shrink, Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, featuring Gerald P.
O'Driscoll Jr., 7/12/2008
Medicare a Model for National Health Insurance?, featuring Michael F.
Cannon,
7/10/2008
How to Edify E-Verify, featuring Jim Harper, 7/9/2008
The Phony Pinch on State Budgets, featuring Chris Edwards, 7/7/2008
Zimbabwean Economy Threatens Mugabe, featuring Marian L. Tupy, 7/1/2008
CATO VIDEOCASTS Subscribe on iTunes
July 16 The Supreme Court's Heller decision is
the opening salvo in a series of litigations that will ultimately resolve what
weapons and persons can be regulated and what restrictions are permissible. In
this weeks video, Cato Institute senior fellow in constitutional studies,
Robert A. Levy, details what's next for the gun rights fight.
July 8 In this weeks video, Cato Institute senior fellow in
constitutional studies, Robert A. Levy comments on the ruling of District of
Columbia
v. Heller and what was notable about the opinion authored by Justice Anthony
Scalia.
July 3 Naomi Klein's recent book, The Shock Doctrine, points to the
cases in which authoritarian regimes liberalized their economies. Johan
Norberg, in his
recent analysis, "The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics," shows
that most countries have liberalized over the last three decades and capitalism
is given rise to many of the ends that Klein herself would appreciate. In this
weeks video, Johan Norberg discusses the successes of economic freedom.
CATO SCHOLAR TESTIMONY AND LEGAL BRIEFS
Rising Food Prices: Budget Challenges, July 30, 2008
UPCOMING EVENTS Click on title to register or email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unless otherwise noted, events are held at the F. A. Hayek Auditorium
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20001.
Video and audio of
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September 17, 2008
7th Annual Constitution Day
The Supreme Court: Past and Prologue
A Look at the October 2007 and October 2008 Terms
10:30 am - 7:00 pm
Cato Conference
F.A. Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute
November 19, 2008
26th Annual Monetary Conference: Lessons from the Sub-Prime Crisis
8:00 am - 6:00 pm
Cato Conference
F.A. Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute
Featuring Donald L. Kohn, Vice Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal
Reserve System; Anna J. Schwartz,
Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research; Otmar Issing, Former
Member, Executive Board, European Central Bank; Jeffrey M. Lacker, President,
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; and William Poole, Former President, Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
March 4-8, 2009
21st Annual Benefactor Summit
The Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, Mexico
By invitation only.
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