Rand Paul Is Right about Israel | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary

Rand Paul Is Right about Israel | Benjamin H. Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Being pro-Israel does not require arming it with our tax dollars forever. Israel can now defend itself and then some."

Republicans Are Weak on Farm Subsidies | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Republicans Are Weak on Farm Subsidies | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The level of hypocrisy is breathtaking. For example, conservatives rightly denounced government subsidies to business when the auto industry was at issue. Why, then, are subsidies a good idea when directed to, say, Archer Daniels Midland?"

"And it is hard to see how anyone can claim to be a fiscal conservative while supporting $15 – 35 billion per year in government spending that largely goes to a group of people with incomes above the national average. Farm income for 2010 exceeded $92.5 billion. That's a 34 percent increase from 2009, and — even if you subtract payments from the government — 28.8 percent above the previous ten-year average. While conservatives often mythologize small farms, most farm subsidies go to large and corporate farms. In fact, the largest 10 percent of recipients receive 73 percent of all subsidy payments."

"It is always easier to cut the other guy's subsidy. And some of the most deeply 'red' states are among the biggest collectors of federal largess. In 2010, solidly Republican states such as Alaska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Virginia were among the largest recipients of per capita federal spending. That means any serious attempt to cut federal spending is going to require Republicans to take on their own constituencies."

Obama on Auto-Defrosting Refrigerators - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Obama on Auto-Defrosting Refrigerators - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "All evidence suggest that the truth is precisely the opposite of what Obama claimed. Frost-free freezers came about in the normal market way. A company found a way to package it as a luxury good available in some markets. Another company saw the advance and emulated it, offering it to still other markets (though the process was likely slowed by the government regulation called the patent). Other companies saw the potential for solving a monstrous household problem and began making them more cheaply and more efficiently, as the target market gradually went from luxury to mainstream. Over time, the improved product was ubiquitous."

It's Time to End Amtrak Funding | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary

It's Time to End Amtrak Funding | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Train travel has declined for good reason: Trains are slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and far more expensive than either.

Per passenger mile, Amtrak fares average twice as much as airfares or the cost of intercity driving."

"The round-trip subsidy to each New York-to-Orlando train passenger is close to $500." "Taxpayer subsidies to someone driving or flying between New York City and Florida are less than $25 round trip."

"Amtrak's diesels use as much energy and emit as much pollution as cars in intercity travel."

Destructive Economic Myths | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Destructive Economic Myths | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If the debt ceiling is not raised, government officials will have a choice to default on the interest payments (less than 10 percent of the government's total income) or cut spending. Sen. Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania Republican, has introduced the Full Faith and Credit Act (S.163), which would require the Treasury to make interest payments on U.S. government debt its first priority if the debt ceiling is not raised. This legislation would require the federal government to reduce spending on other activities and/or sell assets, as any business or family would need to do when faced with a similar problem."

"Spending would only have to be reduced to roughly the 2006 level to avoid an ongoing deficit."

"If government spending could bring about full employment, the socialist countries would have been great successes rather than basket cases. Remember, the money government spends on "creating" jobs comes from either taxing or borrowing — both of which take money and jobs out of the more productive private sector — thus reducing the total number of jobs."

U.S. seeks veto powers over new domain names | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

U.S. seeks veto powers over new domain names | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: "The Obama administration is quietly seeking the power for it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a move that raises questions about free expression, national sovereignty, and the role of states in shaping the future of the Internet."

House Republicans slash agencies, nick themselves - FoxNews.com

House Republicans slash agencies, nick themselves - FoxNews.com: "When Democrats took over Congress in 2007, they inherited a $3.8 billion budget for Congress. That includes money for members' and leadership offices, House and Senate committees, and support agencies such as the Capitol Police and the Congressional Budget Office, which crunches numbers for lawmakers as they consider legislation.

Since then, that budget has risen to $4.7 billion, a 23 percent increase over four years."

Phony Solutions for Real Social Ills | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary

Phony Solutions for Real Social Ills | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Reducing the incidence of unwed motherhood, divorce, fatherlessness, welfare and crime would be a good thing. So why the focus on issues that would do nothing to solve the 'breakdown of the basic family structure' and the resulting 'high cost of a dysfunctional society'? Well, solving the problems of divorce and unwed motherhood is hard. And lots of Republican and conservative voters have been divorced. A constitutional amendment to ban divorce wouldn't go over very well, even with the social conservatives. Far better to pick on a small group, a group not perceived to be part of the Republican constituency, and blame it for social breakdown and its associated costs."

The Trouble with Economic Statistics - Robert Higgs - Mises Daily

The Trouble with Economic Statistics - Robert Higgs - Mises Daily: "Because they are ill-defined conceptually, many official economic statistics fail to capture what they purport to measure. Figures on 'poverty,' for instance, are notorious in this regard. Is poverty an absolute or a relative condition? If the latter, what is the proper standard of comparison?

Obviously, the living conditions of many Americans below the 'poverty line' must seem affluent to billions of submerged denizens of the Third World. Apart from international comparisons, many Americans now classified as poor would have seemed well-to-do in the eyes of, say, their grandparents. Above a certain absolute income, 'poverty' becomes less a definite condition than a staging area from which armies of redistributionists launch their attacks on higher-income people."

Internet 'kill switch'--help or hindrance? (poll) | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Internet 'kill switch'--help or hindrance? (poll) | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: "'It's difficult for the US to criticize an autocrat like Hosni Mubarak for shutting down the Internet if we give our own president similarly sweeping powers,' says Berin Szoka of the TechFreedom think tank in Washington, D.C. 'Even if that never, ever happens here, our having such laws on the books certainly makes it more likely other governments will gain, and abuse, such powers.'"