William F. Buckley Jr.’s first book, God and Man at Yale, examined the anti-Christian and anti-capitalist mindset which, even in 1951, was pervasive among the Yale University faculty. The book caused quite a bit of controversy—not because it wasn’t true, but because the radical liberals/socialists/communists in American academia and other institutions (the press, government, etc.)…
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Government is Good, but has its Limits
We tend to have lots of discussions about public policy at my office—after all, that is what we do. As part of that dialogue, an intern recently asked: Is government regulation never a good thing? Even if regulations are designed to reduce pollution or cut down on secondhand smoke in restaurants (nominally good goals, although…
Quote of the Day
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” – Frederick Bastiat (The Law; 1850)
Quotes of the Day
“Probably, majority opinion agrees with our own national policy that the right of a man to engage in business for himself is not a basic freedom, like freedom from fear, want, freedom of speech and of worship. It is a right which only about one in five of our working force finds himself able, or…
Consumer Protection Usually Doesn’t Live Up to its Name
It seems as if the folks in Washington don’t have enough to do with taking over the American financial, automobile, and health care industries. The talk now is about creating a new consumer protection agency to “protect … the financial well-being of American consumers.” While this may sound like a good cause, a review of…
Quote of the Day
“Some scholars believe that the spread of democracy, which then put land ownership and wealth in the hands of many, and the Industrial Revolution, which made the mass production of goods possible and spread wealth throughout society, are at the root of the environmental crisis,” and “By destroying paganism, white Christianity helped to exploit nature.”…
TX Legislature in Review: Financial Regulation
It is not high finance, but short-term lending helps a lot of consumers out of tight places. This session, multiple bills would have significantly reduced or banned short-term lending. Banks and credit unions generally won’t make short-term loans, so people in need of quick access to funds have to turn higher cost alternatives. While critics…
TX Legislature in Review: Telecommunications
The good news about telecom taxes is that they won’t be going up this session. The bad news is that they won’t be going down. Texas has some of the highest telecommunications taxes in the nation. We’ve made progress recently in reducing those taxes, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Our recent…
TX Legislature in Review: Tort Reform
There were numerous attempts this session to reverse the achievements of the last ten years or so that have reduced abuse of Texas’ civil justice system, reduced excessive litigation costs, and increased access to the courts for those who are truly injured. These included: reducing access to workers compensation (the Entergy bill); lessening causation standards…
TX Legislature in Review: Electricity and Renewable Energy
Most of the electricity bills this session had one thing in common—they were going to make electricity more expensive for Texas consumers or taxpayers. Fortunately, most of them didn’t pass. The major bill that did pass provided incentives, i.e. subsidies, for electricity generation plants equipped with carbon capture technology. But it may not wind up…