Free Republic

It’s not every day you find a government document calling for Cato Institute employees to be charged with treason, but as a new article in The Dispatch details, here we are: "In March 2020, a maritime shipping advisory panel offered a simple suggestion to the government: Charge all past and current members of two libertarian think tanks with treason. "It is certainly not the first time a bunch of libertarians angered members of a bureaucratic panel. But this backlash stemmed from criticism of the Jones Act, a century‐​old law that imposes requirements for shipping between American ports." Haley Byrd Wilt’s...

A vast majority — 70 percent — of Americans in a new poll supports "Medicare for all," also known as a single-payer health-care system. The Reuters–Ipsos survey found 85 percent of Democrats said they support the policy along with 52 percent of Republicans. Medicare for all has been in the headlines after a study by the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University found it would lead to $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending over a 10-year period. The study’s author, Charles Blahous, wrote in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that even doubling taxes would not cover the...

Pop quiz: What do the most fiscally sound states have in common? Good weather? Oil? Blind luck? Or is it conservative policies such as keeping taxes low, regulations reasonable and spending under control?

Rural states with a history of conservative leadership generally fare better than urban ones with a history of progressive leadership — but there are exceptions in this latest study by George Mason University, ranking the 50 states in terms of their governments’ financial health.The Mercatus Center, a pro-market think tank at George Mason, released this year’s version of “Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition,” a remarkably well-named look at how each of the 50 states is faring when it comes to stewardship of public funds.Alaska tops the rankings, with the Dakotas, Nebraska and Florida rounding out the top five.Illinois is...

Mainstream America is finally getting to know the billionaire brothers backing the libertarian movement, thanks to a pair of dueling profiles in New York and The New Yorker. Now that we've heard about their charitable giving, David's 240-foot mega-yacht and role as patrons of the Tea Party movement, it's time to ask a more serious question: How libertarian are they? The short answer...not very.Charles and David Koch, the secretive billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries, the largest private oil company in America, have spent millions bankrolling free-market think tanks and pro-business politicians in order, as David Koch has put it,...