One Size Does Not Fit All | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

One Size Does Not Fit All | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The best way to look at education is not as a private or public good, but from the perspective of reality: All people are different, and diverse people cannot be equally served by a single school system. Some parents want their children to learn that Columbus was good, some bad. Some kids are ready for algebra in eighth grade, some as sophomores. Some students respond well to zero-tolerance discipline, others don't.

Once you acknowledge reality, there's no question that a monolithic system will be hopelessly inefficient. Worse yet, it will foster incessant conflict as people try to get the schools to teach the things they — not somebody else — want.'

'But what about the public good? Aren't there some things that we agree every child must learn?

If we all agree, then freedom is no threat; parents will choose schools that teach those things. And if we don't?

Look no further than endless warring over evolution to see what happens when we ignore reality in service of the perceived public good. As Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer recently documented, even when state standards call for the teaching of evolution, big percentages of high school biology teachers skip it. Why? To avoid conflict with objecting parents and students.

In other words, by trying to force evolution instruction on everyone, even those who want it often miss out.'

Reshaping Social Security And Our Society | William Shipman | Cato Institute: Commentary

Reshaping Social Security And Our Society | William Shipman | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Social Security has fundamentally changed. This is because the historical, almost sacrosanct, linkage between Social Security taxes and benefits has been severed. President Obama was able to achieve this feat with only marginal objection from supporters of the traditional system or from those who have advocated reforming Social Security to a saving-and-investment structure.'

Picture Of Sleeping Substitute Teacher Reportedly Nets Student Suspension | Fox News

Picture Of Sleeping Substitute Teacher Reportedly Nets Student Suspension | Fox News: 'Mustang Public Schools officials said a ninth-grader who snapped a cellphone photograph of a snoozing substitute teacher last Friday at Mustang Mid-High School was suspended following the incident'

Obama's State of the Union: Too Little Foreign Policy | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

Obama's State of the Union: Too Little Foreign Policy | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The second theme — the insistence that US global leadership is undiminished and will remain so — also ought to make Americans uneasy. Obama’s stress on that point seemed to border on shrill. On one occasion, he thundered that analysts who contend that America is in decline, or even that US power has waned, “don’t know what they’re talking about.”'

Top dogs don't need to declare it much. :-/

Romney's Tax Return: Really Nothing Unusual There | Alan Reynolds | Cato Institute: Commentary

Romney's Tax Return: Really Nothing Unusual There | Alan Reynolds | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Looking around for an objective tax analyst, the New York Times settled for Bill Burton, who happens to run an Obama Super PAC.'

'Romney's seemingly low tax rate is partly illusory — a temporary reprieve rather than long-term tax savings.'

A Redistributive State of the Union | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Redistributive State of the Union | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'the president’s narrative ignores the fact that Buffett’s income had already been taxed at the corporate level. When the effect of both taxes is combined, the real effective tax rate is closer to 45 percent. That is quite a high rate on an inherently risky activity — investing — that our tax code should encourage.

And significantly, note that the president’s solution to this supposed problem is not to reduce taxes on Ms. Bosanek, but to raise them on Mr. Buffett.

That is because the president sees the Buffett rule and his complaints about other tax loopholes as simply a tactic, the camel’s nose under the tent, in his desire for more money for the federal government. That is why his actual tax proposals, hidden behind rhetoric about “millionaires and billionaires” and the “wealthiest 1 percent,” would actually raise taxes on people earning as little as $200,000 per year, as well as many small businesses. And many of his proposals will probably hit people with incomes even lower.'

'The president might have given lip service to the need to reduce deficits and the debt, but most of his speech was a laundry list of government programs to spend more money doing more things for more people.'

'But the evidence is now inescapable that the best way to achieve that goal is not through welfare-state redistribution of wealth, but through the creation of more wealth. We should judge the success of our efforts not by how much charity we provide to the poor, but by how few people need such charity.

Would it not be a better America if we could make it possible for Ms. Joseph to get a better job so that she could afford her mortgage and her gas? For that matter, wouldn’t we like a country where she could afford a bigger house and a second car? Nothing that the president has proposed would help bring that about.'

We Should Have Left Iraq Far Sooner | Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary

We Should Have Left Iraq Far Sooner | Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Some claimed that the war would be cost-free, paid for by revenues from Iraqi oil. Others ventured guesses ranging between $50 billion and $200 billion. These absurdly low estimates were sustained by the belief that Iraqi citizens would embrace a foreign military presence. They didn't.

The direct costs of the war totaled nearly $1 trillion, and the costs to care for those injured in the war is likely to exceed $2 trillion.'

Is the United States in a Liquidity Trap? - Frank Shostak - Mises Daily

Is the United States in a Liquidity Trap? - Frank Shostak - Mises Daily: 'people demand money not to accumulate indefinitely but to employ in exchange at some more or less definite point in the future'

"Wrong" Speech Is Also Free Speech: Citizens United at Two | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary

"Wrong" Speech Is Also Free Speech: Citizens United at Two | Trevor Burrus | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman thus demonstrate a crucial fact: many who oppose Citizens United do so because they want to silence speech that promotes policies they oppose. They want to silence it because they think it is bad speech that gives a disproportionate influence to bad ideas. Yet there can be no greater violation of the First Amendment than to act with this motive.'

'A dispassionate assessment of the effects of money in politics demands attention to union spending. But an ideologically committed assessment would tend to view the ideas that one finds convincing as being the result of merit, while viewing the ideas one believes unconvincing and harmful to the nation to be the result of "undue influence."'

'Although I agree with Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman that money may have too much influence on politics, perhaps we should address this problem by creating a government that lacks the power to reward undue influence — that is, a limited government that cannot determine whether someone succeeds or fails in life — and not by stifling free speech.'

Gingrich Rise Is Triumph of Style over Substance | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Gingrich Rise Is Triumph of Style over Substance | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Gingrich said. "People want a leader who's forceful... Part of it is, you know, if I'd said 'The color is blue!' — it's the forcefulness... That delivery, that clearness is as important as the specific topic," he explained.'

'he made a sweet living as a "forceful" pitchman for utterly conventional center-left policies: Medicaid expansion, the individual mandate, cap and trade, "clean energy" subsidies, and the like.'

'"Gingrich Said Freddie Mac Could Be Good Model for Mars Travel" (Bloomberg, Dec. 2, 2011)'

'in 1996, Gingrich had the "big idea" of instituting the death penalty for anyone who brought more than 2 ounces of marijuana into the United States.'

'in 2006 he supported empowering "federal judges who've served in combat" to shut down "jihadist" websites.'

'This December, he advocated sending U.S. marshals to arrest activist judges who rule against religious displays in public schools '