Daily Articles

The Debt Ceiling Hysteria and Profligate Government

by Richard M. Ebeling February 5, 2018

Once again, the financial fears have been ratcheted up due to recent announcements by the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that by the middle of March 2018 the Federal government will have run out of room to continue borrowing due to the official debt ceiling. Some are now calling for ...

Why Not End Funding Now?

by Laurence M. Vance February 2, 2018

Donald Trump’s possible decision to end NASA’s funding of the International Space Station by 2025 brings up that age-old question of the proper role of government, although it is certainly not he who is bringing it up. The International Space Station (ISS) program is a joint operation between NASA and the space agencies of Russia, Japan, Canada, ...

Pinochet’s Chicago Boys versus Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2018

Ever since the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power in 1973, American and Chilean conservatives have extolled the economic policies that the Pinochet regime brought to Chile. The policies, which conservatives have long described as “free-market,” originated within a group of Chilean economists known as the Chicago Boys, who accepted governmental positions in ...

Donald Trump’s Authoritarian Opponents

by James Bovard February 1, 2018

President Trump has said and done many things to appall the friends of freedom. From Trump’s pro-torture comments to his praise of police brutality to his cruise-missile barrage against Syria to his threat to annihilate North Korea, there are ample signs that he scorns a freedom-and-peace posture. Unfortunately, many of Trump’s opponents are even more statist than the president. Marking ...

How to Make America Great Again

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2018

It has now been a year since Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America. Among other things, he said in his inauguration speech, From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, ...

Limited Government and a Free Society, Part 3

by Gregory Bresiger February 1, 2018

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt was up for reelection in 1940. Toward the end of the election campaign, wanting to reassure the considerable isolationist sentiment, he promised not to send U.S. troops to Europe. “I have said this before. But I shall say it again and again and again. Your ...

Trump, Free Speech, and Libertarianism

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2018

There is a modest amount of crossover between populism and libertarianism — as there is between libertarianism and other political philosophies — but leftists and progressives should hesitate before lumping us into the same category. For the most part populists are just big-government conservatives — which means they have more in common with the political Left than with us ...

The State of Our Union

by John W. Whitehead January 31, 2018

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing ...

The Libertarian Angle: Free Trade and Minimum Wage

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 30, 2018

How does free trade benefit mankind? How does it affect liberty? FFF president Jacob Hornberger, Richard Ebeling, and special guest and George Mason University economist Donald J. Boudreaux hash it out. Go to the podcast.

Paul Leroy-Beaulieu: A Warning Voice About the Socialist Tragedy to Come

by Richard M. Ebeling January 29, 2018

The Russian Revolution of November 1917, now being marked by its centenary, ushered in a hundred years of political tyranny and terror, economic suffering, exploitation and corruption, along with unimaginable mass murder, among the tens of millions of people who came under the control and command of Marxist inspired socialist regimes around the world.  But before this tragic episode ...

Of Course It’s Welfare

by Laurence M. Vance January 29, 2018

Welfare by any other name is still welfare, even when it is not given to the poor, and even when it is called vouchers or subsidies. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Denver Has a Plan for Its Many Luxury Apartments: Housing Subsidies” (abridged from the January 9, 2018, print edition article “Denver’s Fix ...

The Libertarian Angle: Shutdown Circus and Trump’s Tariff (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 25, 2018

Does the shutdown really matter? How to import tariffs hurt the average person? FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss. Go to the podcast.