Why Government Fails and Why Ideas Mattern a famous Sidney Harris cartoon, asenior professor reviews a long andcomplicated mathematical proofthat a younger colleague has writtenon a chalkboard. Pointing calmly at

part of the proof, the elder scholar tells theyounger “I think you should be more explicithere in step two”—a step that appears onthe chalkboard as “Then a miracle occurs.”

This witty depiction of an unscientificmeans of reaching a conclusion sadly describesan actual step in the reasoning of far toomany people who call for government inter-vention. People identify a problem in realityand then demonstrate how that problemcan be “solved” by government. But far toomany such demonstrations feature a “thena miracle occurs” step. This step is theassumption that politicians and other gov-ernment agents are superhuman—that whenthey are elected or appointed to politicaloffice, they are miraculously transformedinto beings consistently more altruistic,knowledgeable, and wise than are businessexecutives, consumers, and other peoplewho operate only in the private sector.

Of course, in many cases the problems

identified are imaginary (such as the allegedstagnation of middle-class Americans’ incomes since the mid 1970s). And evenwhen the problems are real, the meansproposed to solve these problems will oftenfail even in theory (such as when governmenttries to revive a slumping economy withdeficit spending). But even when the prob-lems are genuine and the proposed meansof addressing the problems can in principlesucceed, proponents of intervention seldom

pause to consider the realities of politics andhow these realities typically make it unlikelythat interventions that succeed on a chalk-board will do so in the real world. The resultis consistent failure of government to live up,not only to its frequent billing as a uniquelyproficient and transformative agent for the good, but to live up even to the lowerstandards of performance that most peopleexpect of free markets.

BY DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

Continued on page 6

In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that that the current administration is violatingthe law by spending tens of billions of dollars to encourage people to enroll in Obamacare. Thatsame day, however, the Fourth Circuit held in King v. Burwell that the administration was acting inconcert with the law. At a Capitol Hill Briefing in August, MICHAELCANNON(at podium) of theCato Institute and JONATHANADLERof Case Western Reserve University Law School—two schol-ars who laid the groundwork for these cases—explained their implications for the nation at large.

I

DONALD J. BOUDREAUX is a professor of economics at George Mason University and formerlythe chairman of the economics department. He waspresident of the Foundation for Economic Educationfrom 1997 to 2001. He is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

NADINE STROSSENOn her FirstAmendmentabsolutism

PAGE 12

HON. DIANESYKESThe limitsof judicialminimalism

PAGE 9

NEW BOOK FROM CATODanish editordefendsfree speech

PAGE 17

CatoPolicyReportNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 VOL. XXXVI NO. 6

2 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

PRES IDENT ’ S MES SAGE

BY JOHN A. ALLISON

“The Cato brand has beenrising. We havemaintained areputation forobjectivity in a politicallycharged

environment.

s we approach the end of the year, it isappropriate to give you an update on Cato.Fortunately, Cato is doing very well and haspositive momentum on all fronts, although

there are always opportunities for improvement. Commentators on both the left and the right are dis-

cussing the “libertarian moment.” While it’s obvious wedo not have the current president’s ear, libertarian ideasare being taken very seriously, in part as the result of 37years of Cato scholarship. There is a rapidly rising liber-tarian student movement where Cato has played a criticalrole in training future student leaders and providing theintellectual ammunition for students to challenge theirleft-leaning professors. The Cato brand has also been rising. As a number of

our fellow think tanks have become visibly politically par-tisan, we have maintained a reputation for objectivity in apolitically charged environment. Of course, since we haveplenty of disagreements with both Republicans andDemocrats, this is relatively simple to do. Cato’s financial position is strong, with our second

year of significant increases in contributions. Thank you!However, our budget is tiny compared to the billions ofdollars in resources controlled by the statists. We havemany opportunities to use additional funding to produc-tively communicate the libertarian message. As weapproach the end of the year, I hope you will put Catohigh on your list for financial support so we can maintainand accelerate the libertarian momentum. The list of Cato’s recent accomplishments is impres-

sive. Largely because of a great effort by Cato’s MichaelCannon, the court battle to undo Obamacare continues,with two recent victories in an uphill fight. Cato’sConstitutional Studies team’s record was 10–1 for ami-cus briefs filed at the Supreme Court this past sessionand 15–3 for the previous session. This is the result ofover 30 years of effort to persuade the Court to limitCongress to its constitutionally enumerated powers.Since 1999 Cato has been discussing the danger of

police militarization. Finally, the public is becomingaware of this issue and its threat to innocent citizens(bring back Barney Fife). The Herbert A. Stiefel Centerfor Trade Policy Studies has started an invitational dinnerprogram for business and government leaders to discusstrade liberalization and its many benefits. Participantshave included Eric Schmidt, executive chairman ofGoogle; Russ Girling, president and CEO ofTransCanada Corporation; Greg Page, executive chair-man of Cargill; and former U.S. trade representativeSusan Schwab.

Harvard’s Jeff Miron, who has joined Cato as director of economic studies, has commissioned a series of eco-nomic briefs from top scholars. The scholars are typicallynot libertarian, but their research supports libertarian policy positions. The willingness of these high-level schol-ars to publish under the Cato brand is very encouraging. We also took our ideas into the world’s hot spots this

year: we cosponsored a conference in Ukraine with approx-imately 500 policymakers, businessmen, and journalists, aswell as a student conference for freedom in Venezuela. In the 12 months ending in August, Cato’s scholars

were mentioned in 5,622 news stories, published 849 op-eds, and made 442 major broadcast appearances. Wepublished approximately 100 academically credible arti-cles; held 30 conferences, 38 policy forums, 41 bookforums, and 14 Capitol Hill briefings; and testified 18times before congressional committees. Over 1,300 stu-dents participated in various Cato educational programsand our scholars made many presentations to studentorganizations such as Students for Liberty, YoungAmericans for Liberty, and the Federalist Society.We just launched the Cato Center for Monetary and

Financial Alternatives, which is the first serious challengeto the Federal Reserve in its 100-year history. The qualityof scholars and business leaders who have agreed to par-ticipate is extraordinary and reflects the increasing con-cern by even mainstream economists about both theFed’s monetary and regulatory policies. The Cato Center for the Study of Science is growing

rapidly to take on the increasingly politicized climate-change movement. Climate change is the religion of theProgressives and as their models have continued to failthey have become more irrational in defending theirdetached-from-reality positions. We have launched a campaign to help independent

thinkers truly grasp that big government is failing acrossthe board. We are in the process of hiring two civil-liberties scholars to take on the NSA, the IRS, and themany other agencies and policies (including the drug war)that are a serious threat to your individual liberties. We are a voice of reason in an increasingly politicized

and irrational environment. Cato is committed to creat-ing a free and prosperous society based on the principlesof individual liberty, free markets, limited government,and peace—a noble endeavor. Your support makes ourwork possible.

”

AProgress Report on the Cato Institute

OUR BETTER ANGELS

I n a Sunday interview with the New York Times, theworld-renowned Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker

was asked what he would choose if he could require thepresident to read one book. He selected The Remnants of War by Cato senior fellow John Mueller—a book,Pinker added, that “explains how warfare has changedover the course of history.”

Mueller makes the case that war is “merely an idea,”one that “has been grafted onto human existence. . .And it seems to me that the institution is in pro-nounced decline, abandoned as attitudes toward it have changed, roughly following the pattern by whichthe ancient and formidable institution of slaverybecame discredited and then mostly obsolete.”

GOVERNMENT DATA FLOWS

W hile there is quite a bit of public-sector informa-tion online, it is often buried in unusable for-

mats and archaic practices. In order to offer more infor-mation about the government’s deliberations, Cato’sDeepbills project gathers detailed, accessible versions of legislation, annotating them in order to make key elements of their content easily readable by computer.

As of August, Cato’s data is being used by CornellLaw’s Legal Information Institute, helping to inform its 26 million yearly visitors about what Congress isdoing. The New York Times also employs the Institute’sDeepbills data to flesh out information about legislationthat it publishes on its website. “The path to libertygoes through transparency,” Cato senior fellow JimHarper says, “and transparency is breaking out all over!”

THE POWER OF PRINCIPLE

I n the Deseret News in September, Drew Clark, formeropinion editor of the paper, wrote an op-ed on the

importance of “principles that are both well-articulatedand well-accepted by the people” of a representativedemocracy. Having attended Cato’s 13th AnnualConstitution Day, he praised the Institute for its unwa-vering defense of the country’s philosophical foundation.

“Unlike some institutions in Washington, Catodoesn’t particularly care about brokering political compromises,” he wrote. “And therein lies its power: It consistently preaches a principle-based approach to the Constitution.”

CATO NEWS NOTES

A s the noted social critic H. L. Mencken once declared, “Thewhole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it withan endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

In A Dangerous World? Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, a newbook edited by Christopher A. Preble and John Mueller of the Cato Insti-tute, a number of scholars ask to what degree the United States is threatened,examining not only the multiplicity of supposed dangers, but also the wis-dom or folly behind the measures that have been proposed to deal with them.

Paul Pillar, a visiting professor at Georgetown University’s Center forSecurity Studies, observes that “substate”threats—from terrorism to crime—pale incomparison to traditional threats posedby states. He urges readers to reexaminetheir preconceived notions of what isrequired to keep the United States bothsafe and free. Noting a disconnectbetween the severity of threats and howmuch alarm they generate, he voices dis-may at the tendency to identify monstersabroad and “conceive of America’s place inthe world largely as one of confrontationagainst them.” In the end, he cautions thatthe capacity of the United States to curb

substate conflict is usually very limited. In fact, intervention itself can becounterproductive.

Eugene Gholz, associate professor of political science at the University ofTexas at Austin, explores the economic effects of warfare. Although war itselfhas many highly undesirable effects, he finds that overseas tensions do not nec-essarily harm the U.S. economy. Daniel Drezner, professor of international pol-itics at Tufts University, finds some merit in the global public good provided byoverwhelming U.S. primacy. However, it is not obvious that military power isthe primary driver of the benefit, while sustaining it comes at great cost.

Other contributors include Peter Andreas of Brown University on“Transnational Crime as a Security Threat,” Martin Libicki of the RANDCorporation on “Dealing with Cyberattacks,” and Mark G. Stewart of theUniversity of Newcastle on “Climate Change and National Security.”

Although the world will never be free from dangers, we should aspire tounderstand them clearly. By chipping away at the common perception thatthe world is getting more dangerous each day, the contributors to this volumeattempt to tame the tendency to overreact.

VISIT WWW.CATO.ORG/STORE OR CALL 800-767-1241TO GET YOUR COPY OF A DANGEROUS WORLD?TODAY; $14.95PAPERBACK.

A new book on threat perception

Is the World MoreDangerous?

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 3

4 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

C A T O E V E N T S

W ith the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, there is perhaps no better time to consider a seemingly simplequestion: Why do people borrow? At a Cato Book Forum for Consumer Credit and the American Economy, coauthor and Cato

adjunct scholar TODDZYWICKI (at podium) examined the economics, behavioral science, sociology, history, law, and regulation of creditin the United States. The panel featured other leading experts in financial regulation, including (from left) MARKCALABRIAof the CatoInstitute, ANTHONYYEZERof George Washington University, and HEIDI SCHOONERof Catholic University.

A t a Cato Policy Forum in August, a panel of leading political scientists—including (from left) ADAM BERINSKY of the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology,TREVOR THRALL of George Mason University, JUSTIN LOGAN of theCato Institute, and JOHNMUELLER of Cato and Ohio State University—examinedthe leading causes of public support for war.

A t Cato, CHEYECALVO, the mayorof Berwyn Heights, Maryland, dis-

cussed the troubling trend toward policemilitarization, as well as his own experi-ence on the receiving end of a botchedno-knock raid on his home.

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 5

T HOMASE. HALL, professor of economics at Miami University, noted that the law of unintended consequences has taken onincreasing importance in an era of ever-expanding government. At a forum for his Cato Institute book Aftermath, Hall

explored the unforeseen side effects of four important public policies: cigarette taxes, alcohol prohibition, the minimum wage, andthe federal income tax. Along with the rest of the panel—which included (from left) PATRICKMCLAUGHLIN of the MercatusCenter and JOHNSAMPLES and JASONKUZNICKI of Cato—Hall offered one overarching message: be careful what you wish for.

M otivated by the world’s third-highest corporate tax rate, several Americancompanies are engaging in cross-border mergers to find tax jurisdictions

with better policies. At a Capitol Hill briefing in August, the Institute broughttogether several experts—including (from left) Cato’s DANMITCHELL, DAVIDBURTON of the Heritage Foundation, and IKE BRANNON of Capital PolicyAnalytics—to discuss appropriate policy responses to corporate inversions.

A t a Cato Forum for his bookFragile by Design, CHARLES

CALOMIRIS of Columbia BusinessSchool argues that the well-being of abanking sector depends on the ability ofpolitical institutions to limit rent-seekingby populist groups.

6 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

CONCENTRATED BENEFITS, DIFFUSE COSTS

The chief scholarly response to this naivetéabout politics is Public Choice economics.Starting in the 1950s, my late Nobel laureatecolleague James Buchanan, along with myemeritus colleague Gordon Tullock, insistedthat any formula for government interventionthat ignores political realities is unscientific.In effect, Buchanan and Tullock togetherwere like the senior professor who, evaluatingcolleagues’ elaborate proofs of the efficacy ofgovernment intervention, identified anillegitimate assumption. Just as no naturalscientist can reach a legitimate conclusion byassuming that a miracle occurs to transformphysical substances or quantitative values intosomething that they are not, no social scientistcan reach a legitimate conclusion about publicpolicy by assuming that election or appoint-ment to government office miraculously trans-forms human beings into saints with super-human knowledge.

Unlike in the cartoon, of course, thosewho “prove” that government can successfullyintervene into the economy never explicitlywrite “then a miracle occurs.” Instead, theassumption of the miraculous transformationof human nature is slipped into the proofsilently, even unknowingly.

Yet sensible people need not be expertin formal economics or political science todetect that something is seriously wrongwith typical explanations of how governmentwill fix this or that problem. All that peopleneed do is to observe with their minds freeof romantic notions about the power andmotives of democratically elected politicians.These observers will see many political phe-nomena that are plausibly explained only onthe assumption that government officialsaim self-interestedly to promote their ownwell being—especially by maximizing theirtenure in office—rather than aim altruisticallyto enhance the public welfare.

Consider the U.S. sugar program. For 80

years now, since the passage of the 1934 Jones-Costigan Act, Uncle Sam has used productionquotas, import quotas, high tariffs, and loanguarantees to ensure that American consumerspay higher prices for sugar and sugar sub-stitutes, such as corn syrup. Economist MarkPerry estimates that, in 2012 (a typical year),the sugar program artificially raised the totalamount that American consumers paid forsugar by about $2.9 billion. Why would agovernment of the People, by the People,and for the People impose such unnecessarycosts on the People?

The answer is that government officials—including those chosen democratically—often best promote their own interests bysecuring favors for special-interest groupsat the expense of the general public. Whilethe number of Americans who consumesugar is roughly 314 million, only about 4,700farms in the U.S. produce sugar. This factmeans that in 2012 the sugar program costeach American about $9.24—or about $24for the typical American household. But thesugar program raised each sugar grower’srevenues in 2012 by, on average, a whopping$617,000.

Put yourself, first, in the place of a typicalconsumer. How much effort will you exertto end the sugar program? Very little, if any.You mightbe sincerely upset that this programlightens your wallet each year by $10, give ortake a few cents, but because the cost to youis so small, you won’t go to great lengths to

register your opposition. You might sendan email to your representative or write a let-ter-to-the-editor to demand that this programbe ended. But you probably will not do eventhis much, because you understand that suchindividual small exertions have zero chanceof changing public policy. And most don’tknow the details of the sugar program tobegin with, so they remain silent.

Of course, what’s true for you is true fornearly all other Americans. The only excep-tions are sugar growers. Now put yourselfin the place of one of them and suppose thatyou catch wind that Congress is thinking ofending the sugar program. How much effortwill you exert to save this program? A lot.

If you’re a typical sugar grower, this programadds to your annual revenues several hundredsof thousands of dollars—the stream of whichover time is today worth millions of dollarsto you. So if you sense that the threat to theprogram is real, you’ll spend millions of dollars,if you must, to protect the program. Likewisefor each of your fellow sugar farmers.

The end result is that Congress hears onlyfrom sugar growers and not from sugar con-sumers. Those who benefit from the programvigorously defend it; those who pay the costof the program remain silent. This realityimpresses upon each member of Congressthat a vote against the program creates a realrisk of significant opposition to his or herreelection bid. Sugar growers will activelyexpress their hostility to votes against theirinterests while sugar consumers are silentand invisible, acting as if they don’t care oneway or the other about the program.

POLITICS WITHOUT ROMANCEThis account of the politics of the U.S.

sugar program is an example of the mostfamiliar Public Choice theory of political out-comes—namely, the special-interest-group effect.This theory predicts that when the costs ofa government program are spread across thepopulation differently than are the benefits—for example, when the costs are diffused bybeing spread widely while the benefits are

Government officials—includingthose chosen demo-cratically—often best promote their own interests by

securing favors for special-interest groupsat the expense of the

general public.

”

Continued from page 1 “

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 7

concentrated on relatively small numbers of people—a bias infects political decision-making. Government officials typically servethe interests of concentrated groups at theexpense of dispersed groups.

Two other major Public Choice insightsare closely connected to the theory of spe-cial-interest groups. One is rational ignorance.Because you understand that your vote willnot determine the outcome of any election,you have no incentive to become as informedabout the issues at stake as you would if yousincerely believed that your vote would deter-mine the outcome. Why spend your precioustime and energy to become informed aboutthe candidates and the issues if practicallyyou can do nothing to determine which can-didate wins? Far better for you to spend thattime and energy on matters that you cancontrol, such as improving your job skills orhelping your kids with their homework.

In short, you remain ignorant—for perfectlyrational reasons—about politics and publicpolicy. And so, too, do nearly all other voters.In contrast to voters, though, are the spe-cial-interest groups. Members of these groupshave powerful incentives to stay informedabout what’s happening with the programsthat significantly affect them. For example,while the great majority of Americans arerationally ignorant of the U.S. sugar program,all sugar farmers remain up-to-date on itsdetails. This reality means that policies chosenby government are unlikely to be ones thatthe People would choose, or even tolerate,if they were better informed.

The second major Public Choice insightconnected with the special-interest-groupeffect is rent-seeking. Sugar farmers, steelexecutives, heads of too-big-to-fail banks,and other recipients of special privilegesfrom government don’t actually spend agreat deal of their own personal time pressingthe flesh in Washington. They aren’t spe-cialized experts at pleading for politicalfavors. Instead, they pool their funds tohire such specialized experts—experts knownas lobbyists. These political insiders are

ambitious, highly educated, and talentedprofessionals who work full time at the taskseeking special favors—what economistscall “rents”—for their clients. And, of course,for their clients the use of the time andtalents of professional lobbyists is worthwhilebecause it increases these clients’ wealth.

For society at large, however, rent-seekingactivities are wasteful. The reason is thatlobbyists spend their time pleading for gov-ernment to transfer slices of the economic pie from the general population to their clients—an activity that, at best, does nothingto enlarge the pie. But if government wereunquestionably not in the business of dis-pensing interest-group favors, no one wouldpay talented professionals to seek such favors.The talented professionals who now work aslobbyists would, instead, be obliged to workat tasks that increase the size of the pie.

AN INCONVENIENCE STORE Public Choice scholars also warn of

problems caused by the “bundling effect.”The nature of this effect is best introducedwith an example from everyday life: shoppingat a supermarket.

Imagine if we were to choose groceries inthe same way that we choose governmentpolicies. Rather than you filling your grocerycarts with items that you want, and leavingout of your cart all items that you don’t want,you would instead be presented with, say,two different pre-filled grocery carts. The

supermarket manager would allow you toinspect carts A and B, but not allow you toadd items to any cart, to remove items fromany cart, or to transfer items between carts.

Let’s say that cart A has the wine andyogurt that you want, but has also diapersand dog food that you do not want. And cartA does notcontain the breakfast cereal thatyou’d like. Cart B, in contrast, has neitherdiapers nor dog food, and it does have yourfavorite cereal, but it does nothave the wineor the yogurt. Clearly, neither cart satisfiesyour preferences as well as those preferenceswould be satisfied if you got to choose whichitems to include, and which to exclude, fromthe cart of groceries that you buy.

Still, if you want groceries, you must chooseeither cart A or cart B. If you choose cart A,outside observers—including the supermarketmanager—can know only that you prefer thebundle of groceries in cart A to the bundle incart B. Outside observers, seeing you choosecart A, cannot know that you chose that cartdespite its offering of diapers and dog foodrather than because of that offering.

The situation is exactly the same whenvoters cast ballots for their preferred can-didates because each candidate for politicaloffice is a bundle of positions on each of themany issues within government’s purview.Anyone who runs, for example, for the U.S.presidency today will have a position onhealth care policy, foreign policy, trade policy,the desirability of carbon taxes, and on andon. The list is as long as is the range and reachof government’s power.

So when a voter casts her ballot for Smithrather than for Jones, she necessarily castsher ballot only for the bundleof positions thatshe believes Jones takes. She cannot, whenchoosing between Smith and Jones, vote forJones’s position on, say, tax policy withoutalso voting for Jones’s position on educationfunding. Even if this voter prefers Smith’sposition on education funding, she cannotvote for that policy if she casts her ballot forJones. If Jones wins the election, therefore,the most that we can conclude is that a majority

Lobbyists spend their time pleading for government totransfer slices of the economic pie from

the general populationto their clients—anactivity that, at best,

does nothing to enlarge the pie.

”

“

8 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

of voters prefer the bundle of positions takenby Jones to the bundle of positions taken bySmith. We can say nothing about the majority’spreferences for any individual policy.

This reality creates an information deficiencyfor elected officials. Successful candidatesfor office never know for sure just why theywon (or why their opponents lost). Did Jonesdefeat Smith because of Jones’s position oneducation funding or despite his position onthis matter? No one really knows. Exit pollingand other sources of information can help toreveal better knowledge of voters’ preferences,but these sources are highly imperfect. Soeach victorious candidate naturally assumesthat the majority of voters approves of thepositions that he took on all of the issues.The result is that even candidates who winelections by large majorities inevitably windup, when in office, pressing for at least a handfulof policies that most of those candidates’ ownsupporters likely find objectionable.

IDEAS STILL MATTER The narrow material interests of voters,

interest groups, and government officials playthe leading role in Public Choice theory.Emphasizing the reality and consequencesof such interests is necessary in light of theromantic notions that many people still haveabout democratic government. (It remains,after all, a commonplace to call politiciansand government employees “public servants”—a term never used to describe the likes ofstockbrokers or Walmart store managers,despite the fact that such private-sector agentsclearly serve the public.)

Yet Public Choice scholars recognize thatmotives other than narrow material interestsplay a role in politics. People’s politicalbehaviors are affected also by their norms,beliefs, and ideologies. This fact is a causefor both concern and optimism.

In private markets, each person who ignoresthe preferences of buyers or sellers in orderto indulge his or her personal ideologicalinterests pays the cost of doing so. For instance,a racist restaurateur who refuses to serve

African-Americans forgoes the profits hewould earn from such customers. As a result,markets naturally temper ideological actionsthat are inconsistent with sellers’ efforts toearn profits or with buyers’ efforts to stretchtheir spending power as far a possible.

Matters differ in politics, for two reasons.First, most political decisions are about howto spend otherpeople’s money or resources;and second, no voter truly expects that hisor her vote will determine the outcome ofany election. Each of these realities meansthat the bulk of the consequences of everyindividual political decision falls on peopleother than the decisionmaker.

Consider a citizen in a voting booth. We’vealready seen one reason why he’ll cast an unin-formed vote—namely, because he knows thathis vote won’t determine the outcome of theelection, the benefit to him of becoming ade-quately informed is very small. A second,related reason is that he stands to captureonly an infinitesimally small share of benefitsof casting an informed vote, and to sufferonly an infinitesimally small share of the costsof casting an uninformed vote. Becausebecoming informed is costly, each voterremains rationally ignorant of the detailedfacts and issues at play in any election.

Although this rational ignorance initiallyappears to be an unambiguous cause fordespair about the prospects of any good evercoming from politics, it isn’t necessarily so.Precisely because each voter, as such, has nomaterial interest that will be affected by how

he, as an individual voter, casts his ballot, hehas free rein to vote ideologically—to votehis conscience, if you will. For example, asteelworker in Pittsburgh who supports freetrade can safely vote against the candidatewho promises higher tariffs on steel imports.Because this steelworker has no hope ofdetermining the election’s outcome, it costshim nothing to express in the voting boothhis ideological preference for free trade, eventhough his material interest would be betterserved by the protectionist candidate.

The upshot is that democratic outcomesare not destined to be determined strictly byspecial-interest-group politics and other col-lective-decisionmaking imperfections. Ulti-mately, voters’ ideasabout the proper role ofgovernment matter a great deal.

If the public believes that a large and dis-cretionary government will generally interveneproductively, then the result will be a large,discretionary government that intervenes.And special-interest groups will then get“cleared” by uninformed and pro-governmentvoters to then determine the actual detailsof government’s activities. Basic PublicChoice economics predicts that these detailswill be ugly.

If instead, however, the public is skepticalof the power of government to do good, thenthat ideology of limited government will beexpressed in voting booths. That expressionwill, in turn, keep predatory rent-seeking andgovernment failure to a minimum.

So ideas do indeed matter. They mattergreatly, far more than do the identities, partyaffiliations, or campaign slogans of whatevercrop of candidates has most recently beenelected to office. Changing the world can bedone only by changing prevalent ideas (a task,I add, that has long been at the forefront ofthe Cato Institute’s agenda). And one set ofideas that, were it to become more prevalent,would surely change the world for the better,is the set of ideas known as Public Choice.Knowledge of Public Choice destroys theromantic myth that government is some sortof miracle worker.n

Ideas do indeed matter. They mattergreatly, far more thando the identities, partyaffiliations, or campaign

slogans of whatevercrop of candidates hasmost recently beenelected to office.

”

“

Next month the curtain rises onthe 10th term of the RobertsCourt. From the beginning,

Chief Justice Roberts has been explicit aboutwanting to foster greater consensus on theCourt. It’s often suggested that the Court’slegitimacy would be enhanced by fewer five-four rulings along the usual conservative-liberal fault line. In his confirmation-hearingtestimony, and more fully in his first majorpublic address, Roberts articulated his viewthat although differences among the Justicesshould not be “artificially suppressed,” agreater degree of consensus in the Court’sdecisions would bring “clear [jurisprudential]benefits.” He explained that unanimous ornear-unanimous decisions “promote clarityand guidance for the lawyers and for the lowercourts trying to figure out what the SupremeCourt meant.” More fundamentally, he said,“[t]he rule of law is strengthened when thereis greater coherence and agreement aboutwhat the law is.” And he famously set for him-self this guiding principle: “If it is not neces-sary to decide more to dispose of a case, in myview it is necessary not to decide more. Thebroader the agreement among the justices,the more likely it is that the decision is on thenarrowest possible ground.”

Much of the early commentary about the

Court’s last term focused on the significantincrease in the number of unanimous judg-ments. For the first time since the 1940s,almost two-thirds of the Court’s merits opin-ions were unanimous on the bottom line, ifnot necessarily in their reasoning. This is gen-erally thought to be a striking and welcomedevelopment. In some key respects it is,although it’s important to note that a signifi-cant part of the Court’s docket each termconsists of technical statutory or proceduralissues that do not engage the philosophicaldifferences among the Justices. Still, theuptick in bottom-line agreement is remark-able, especially in cases raising difficult con-stitutional questions. In this category theCourt achieved this greater degree of con-sensus—if that’s what it is—for the most partby following the Chief’s maxim about nar-row decisions, applying one technique oranother of judicial minimalism. This dynam-ic will undoubtedly fuel the ongoing debateabout whether the Roberts Court is com-mitted to minimalism and, if so, whetherthat’s a good thing.

I should probably begin by defining theseterms. Modern judicial minimalism as a dis-tinctive theory of decisionmaking is usuallycredited to Professor Cass Sunstein ofHarvard Law School, who coined the term

and is the leading academic proponent of thisapproach to judging. Sunstein proposes thatjudges should generally avoid broad rules andabstract theories and attempt to focus theirattention only on what is necessary to resolveparticular disputes. He advocates a practiceof saying no more than necessary to justify anoutcome and leaving as much as possibleundecided. Minimalist judging of theSunstein variant proceeds along two dimen-sions. First, judicial opinions should be nar-row rather than wide, deciding the case athand while avoiding pronouncing rules forresolving future cases. Second, judicial opin-ions should be shallow rather than deep,avoiding large theoretical controversies andissues of basic principle. Judicial opinionsshould rely instead on incompletely theorizedagreements that enable judges with diversephilosophical commitments to join in bot-tom-line judgments, leaving the more funda-mental questions of principle undecided.

Modern minimalism is justified primarilyon pragmatic grounds. Minimalist decisionmethods—so the argument goes—account forthe limitations on judicial competence and inparticular the limits on the judge’s ability toaccurately assess the consequences of a deci-sion one way or the other. Narrow, shallowdecisions reduce the risk and cost of error.Minimalist decisions are also said to be morepluralistic, demonstrating respect for diverseperspectives by leaving fundamental mattersof principle unaddressed. Minimalism recom-mends itself for other reasons, too. It claims topromote stability and predictability, to main-tain flexibility for future courts, and toempower democratic deliberation by givingpolitical decisionmakers room to maneuverand respond to constitutional questions leftopen by the Supreme Court.

On the surface, the theory sounds like it’slimited to process values, but it’s not.Substantively, minimalism starts from a pre-

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 9

P O L I C Y F O R U M

Originalism v. MinimalismO n September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention

gathered in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to sign the newly draftedU.S. Constitution. Every year, to celebrate that momentous date in liber-

ty’s history, the Cato Institute hosts a daylong conference. At the 13th AnnualConstitution Day event this year, the Hon. Diane Sykes—a federal judge on the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a former justice of the WisconsinSupreme Court—delivered the B. Kenneth Simon Lecture on ConstitutionalThought. In her address, excerpted below, Judge Sykes examined the pitfalls of modern-day minimalism, a legal approach that emphasizes decisions that are bothnarrow and shallow. She argued instead that constitutional interpretation shouldremain anchored in the original meaning of the Constitution’s text, which is the sourceof the Court’s authority and legitimacy.

10 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

P O L I C Y F O R U M

sumption of deference to the politicalbranches. It self-consciously avoids invalidat-ing acts of the legislative and executivebranches either by upholding them on themerits or by using various techniques foravoiding constitutional questions. The pointof defaulting to deference is to recognize thelimited role of the federal judiciary and tomake a large space for democratic self-gov-ernment. Minimalism also advocates a strongversion of stare decisis; consistent adherence toprecedent promotes stability and predictabil-ity, thereby preserving the Court’s institu-tional interests. On a more philosophicallevel, modern minimalism promotes itself as ahedge against judicial supremacy. It calls onjudges to go slowly and in small steps.

The emphasis on incrementalism andgradualism evokes the philosophy ofEdmund Burke, who viewed governance as apractical endeavor guided by experience andwas skeptical of grand political theories.Burke counseled deference to long-settledpractices and traditions tested by experi-ence and the collective wisdom of societyaccumulated over generations. He held thecommon law in high regard.

Of course, the Founding generationdidn’t need a theory of judicial minimalism.The common-law tradition, as it was under-stood and practiced at the time, was itselfessentially minimalist, and important mini-malist features are embedded in our consti-tutional design. The common law as appliedin the courts of the new American states wasbased on English customary law and in theBlackstonian tradition was found, not made.

The philosophical terrain was also differentthan it is now. The Framers inherited a strongnatural-rights tradition, but they also under-stood that because natural-rights principlesare quite general—today we would say “under-determined”—the judges of the new federaljudiciary, like their counterparts in the states,would be called upon to exercise a substantialelement of judgment in individual cases. As aconstraint on that authority, Article III limits

the judicial power to cases or controversiesthat are explicitly judicial in nature. TheFramers rejected a more active political rolefor judicial review by deciding against aCouncil of Revision. Beyond the constrainingeffect of the case-or-controversy limitation,the Framing generation generally understoodthat federal judges would follow long-estab-lished norms of judicial practice. They wouldbe bound by rules and precedents, to para-

phrase the Federalist no. 78. This was thoughtto be a sufficient check against arbitrary deci-sions based on will rather than judgment.

That was the “old” form of judicial mini-malism; it was swept away by the legal realismof the 20th century. The “new” judicial mini-malism is a response to the realist idea thatappellate judges engage in discretionary law-making when they decide cases, including andespecially cases of constitutional interpreta-tion. If judges make constitutional law, thenwe need some theory or method to guidethem in that enterprise.

Now, no one in this room needs to bereminded of the normative constitutional the-ories that have been in contention since theNew Deal, but I’ll remind you anyway becauseit helps to place the new minimalism in itsproper historical perspective. The “living con-stitution” school of thought held sway in thedecades that spanned the Warren Court andthe early years of the Burger Court. This evo-lutionary approach authorized judges to inter-pret the core principles of the Bill of Rightsand the Fourteenth Amendment in a way thatreflects contemporary values and allowedthem to adapt the Constitution’s broad lan-guage to address modern conditions and prob-lems. In practice this theory produced therights revolution of the 1950s and 60s, whichwas aggressively interventionist in implement-ing social, political, and legal reform by judicialdecree. The results were in some cases a virtueand in others, well, not so much. But in all casesthe theory empowered the judiciary to deploythe Constitution as a malleable instrument of social and legal change at the expense of thedemocratic process.

The conservative counterrevolutionbegan in earnest in the 1980s and initiallyfocused on restoring the practice of restraint,understood as judicial deference to the policychoices and value judgments of the politicalbranches. In the early years, the primary con-cern was to stand athwart the jurisprudenceof the Warren Court yelling, “Stop!” (apolo-gies to William F. Buckley). But the emphasison restraint did not address how theConstitution ought to be interpreted andapplied. That would come later, as originalismwas recovered, developed, and refined.

The animating principles of originalismarise from the legal justification for judicialreview—the duty to decide cases according tolaw, including the law of the Constitution.Briefly stated, the basic theory is this: Becauseour Constitution is written, unlike the Britishconstitution, and because it is supreme lawadopted by the people as the original sover-eign that brought the American government

HON. DIANE SYKES

“A unifying theory of minimalism is both unworkable

and unwise.”

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 11

into being, constitutional interpretationought to be grounded in the public meaningof the text as understood at the time of ratifi-cation. On this view, constitutional adjudica-tion begins with an inquiry into the meaningand scope of the provision in question basedon the Constitution’s original meaning.

Anchoring constitutional adjudication inthe document’s text, structure, and history isthought to best legitimize the power of judi-cial review. We all know Marbury v. Madison.The judiciary’s authority to set aside an other-wise valid law in the name of the Constitutionarises by inference from the judges’ duty toapply the law in individual cases. Originalismholds that the interpretive inquiry into thelaw of the Constitution ought to be groundedin, and tethered to, the principles fixed in itstext and structure.

Originalism first established a foothold inthe legal academy and eventually arrived atthe Supreme Court. Professor Sunstein’sminimalism is a response to the rise of origi-nalism and is meant to counter it. Minimalisttheory occupies some common ground with what has come to be known as judicialpragmatism, which is a flexible approach to judging that focuses on the conse-quences of judicial decisions. The aim ofpragmatism is to achieve good overall out-comes, although its practitioners differ intheir account of what is a good outcome.Minimalism and pragmatism are overlap-ping theories of consequentialist judging.Both mix law with politics.

This brings me to my final point aboutmodern judicial minimalism: the theory isflexible about when judges should proceedminimally. It explicitly acknowledges thatnot every case calls for a minimalist ruling. AsSunstein puts it, “[t]he pragmatic founda-tions of minimalism suggest that constitu-tional law should not be insistently or dog-matically minimalist.” In other words, thereare times and places in which minimalism isrightly abandoned. There’s a nonexclusive,multifactor test for determining when it’s

best to issue a minimalist decision and whenit’s best to go maximalist—but you probablyguessed that already.

It should be clear from this discussionthat although minimalism is an approach tojudging, it’s not a theory of constitutionalinterpretation. Unlike originalism, it’s not amethod for determining the meaning, scope,and application of the Constitution or theliberty guarantees in the Bill of Rights.Instead, it’s a theory of deference. Judgesshould defer to the political branches of gov-ernment and to the decisions of priorcourts—except when they shouldn’t. It’s also

a theory of avoidance. Judges should notmake broad pronouncements on founda-tional matters of constitutional principle—except when they should. Got that?

As you’ve probably gathered, minimalismcan and has been criticized for offering nogenuine guidance to judges. As the philoso-pher Tara Smith has noted, “the instructionto the judiciary to ‘minimize your impact’ ishollow.” Critics have also attacked minimal-ism for privileging the doctrinal status quo.Sai Prakash, a law professor at the Universityof Virginia, has noted that whereas original-ism privileges the original public meaning ofthe Constitution, minimalism—because it isprecedent focused—tends to privilege theviews of the Warren and Burger Courts.Other critics have argued that by promotingshallow decisionmaking—especially in casesinvolving broad constitutional principles likefree speech and equality—the theory permitsjudges to smuggle in their own unstated andunexamined ethical assumptions and prefer-

ences. And as I have already noted, the prag-matic flexibility in minimalist theory pro-vides no rule or standard for deciding when itshould apply and when it should not.

For my part, I tend to side with the critics.A unifying theory of minimalism is bothunworkable and unwise. The Article III con-straints on the judicial power already enforcea degree of minimalism, and all judges respectand reason from precedent. We have well-established doctrines to ensure that judges donot unnecessarily decide constitutional ques-tions, and the norm of analogical reasoninghas a natural constraining effect. In otherwords, minimalism is inherent in standardjudicial method. We do not need a heavy the-oretical thumb on the scales. What’s impor-tant is how the traditional sources of law andlegal interpretation—text, history, canons ofinterpretation, precedent, and other well-established tools of the judicial craft—are pri-oritized, weighted, and applied.

At a time of deep political polarization,the modesty and consensus values claimed byjudicial minimalism seem especially attrac-tive. Restraint is indeed a judicial virtue.Judicial mistakes on constitutional questionsare extraordinarily difficult to fix. Arrogatingtoo much power to the judiciary distorts ourpolitics and undermines our ability to demo-cratically shape and alter our basic legal,social, and economic institutions. But strongavoidance and deference doctrines are notthe answer. They may serve prudential orpolitical concerns, but they are not necessaryto enforce the separation of powers andindeed may undermine that critical feature inour constitutional design. The Court’s legiti-macy arises from the source of its authority—which is, of course, the Constitution—and isbest preserved by adhering to decision meth-ods that neither expand, nor contract, butlegitimize the power of judicial review. TheCourt’s primary duty, in short, is not to mini-mize its role or avoid friction with the politi-cal branches, but to try as best it can to get theConstitution right.n

“The Court’s legitimacy arises

from the source of its authority—which

is, of course, theConstitution.

”

12 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

D espite certain predictable ideo-logical divisions, the latestSupreme Court term recordeda level of agreement not seen

since the 1940s. Nearly two-thirds of theCourt’s decisions were unanimous, the high-est percentage in seven decades. Neverthe-less, the 2013–2014 term involved enough fric-tion to provoke a day’s worth of discussion atthe Cato Institute’s Annual ConstitutionDay Conference. This year marked the 13thand, as always, it coincided with the release ofthe new Cato Supreme Court Review.

The conference, “The Supreme Court:Past and Prologue—A Look at the October2013 and 2014 Terms,” featured leading legalexperts discussing the most pertinent cases ofthe last term and what we can expect in thenear future from the Supreme Court.

Nadine Strossen, former president of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union and a profes-sor at New York Law School, examinedMcCutcheon v. FEC from her perspective as aself-proclaimed “First Amendment abso-lutist.” The case struck down aggregate con-tribution limits to federal candidates andcommittees, a decision that Strossen said hasbeen “incredibly maligned and misunder-stood.” She continued, “Many of us believethat [what] democracy is all about is that youvote for a candidate and you give money to acandidate because you want that person toshare and be responsive to your concerns.That’s not corruption; that is democracy.”

With characteristic wit, P. J. O’Rourke,America’s leading political satirist and an H.L. Mencken research fellow at Cato, dis-cussed an Ohio election law that makes it acrime to lie about politicians. Joined byO’Rourke, the Institute filed an amicus briefin the resulting case—which, the humoristsaid, reminded the Court of the importanceof “truthiness” in American civics, as well asthe role of satire and spin more broadly. Politi-co called it “the most entertaining—if not the

greatest—legal brief in American history.”Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a professor

at Georgetown University Law Center and asenior fellow at the Cato Institute, addressedBond v. United States—“that typical case offederalism, adultery, and chemical weapons,”as Review editor-in-chief Ilya Shapirodescribed it. The case involved a defendantbeing brought up, not on charges of assault,but on violating the international chemical-weapons treaty. This was the second timethe case has come before the Court and thesecond time that the government’s positionlost unanimously. Rosenkranz’s scholarshipplanted the seed for the case, which chal-lenged the idea that the federal governmentcould gain extra powers—beyond those con-stitutionally enumerated—according to aduly ratified treaty.

The day closed with the annual B. Ken-neth Simon Lecture, during which a distin-guished legal scholar presents a paper thatwill be included in the following year’s Cato

Supreme Court Review. This September,the Hon. Diane Sykes—a federal judge onthe U.S. Court of Appeals for the SeventhCircuit and a former justice of the Wiscon-sin Supreme Court—criticized judicialminimalism, a legal approach that avoidsbroad rules and abstract theories. (See page9.) Minimalism, she said, is both “unwork-able and unwise.” “The Court’s legitimacyarises from the source of its authority—which is, of course, the Constitution—andis best preserved by adhering to decisionmethods that neither expand, nor con-tract, but legitimize the power of judicialreview,” Sykes concluded. “The Court’sprimary duty, in short, is not to minimizeits role or avoid friction with the politicalbranches, but to try as best it can to get theConstitution right. n

THE 2013–2014CATO SUPREME COURTREVIEWCAN BE PURCHASED FOR $15—ORTHE ESSAYS DOWNLOADED FOR FREE—ATWWW.CATO.ORG.

Celebrating Constitution Day with a new Cato Supreme Court Review

A Term of Striking Unanimity

ABOVE: Cato’s 13th Annual Constitution Day kicked off with a look at the term’s high-profile cases, including a discussion on the First Amendment between (from left) P. J.O’ROURKE, H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Institute; ILYA SHAPIRO, senior fellow at Cato; and NADINE STROSSEN, former president of the ACLU. BELOW, FROM LEFT:NOEL FRANCISCO of Jones Day, NICHOLASQUINNROSENKRANZ of Georgetown University,and TOMGOLDSTEIN of SCOTUSblog each offered their take on the term’s key moments.

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 13

T he August 9 shooting of teenagerMichael Brown sparked days ofprotest in and around Ferguson,Missouri. Soon after, police

cracked down with a controversial military-style response. “If a listener didn’t know anybetter, he would think the description ofevents unfolding in Ferguson must surely betaking place in Iraq or Afghanistan,” TimLynch, director of Cato’s Project on Crimi-nal Justice, wrote on CNN.com. “This isAmerica, but it doesn’t look like it anymore.”

What has happened to police forces inthe United States? This summer, a smallsample of headlines from the major news-papers indicates the severity of the statusquo: “War Gear Flows to Police Depart-ments” (New York Times); “Stop and Seize:Aggressive police take hundreds of millionsof dollars from motorists not charged withcrimes” (Washington Post); and “ChokeholdComplaints Have Been Undercounted,”(Wall Street Journal). For decades, however,the Cato Institute has been drawing atten-tion to each of these trends—from policemilitarization, to civil asset forfeiture, togeneral misconduct.

In 1999, Cato released a briefing papercalled “Warrior Cops: The OminousGrowth of Paramilitarism in AmericanPolice Departments,” which revealed thatthe sharing of military training and technol-ogy with police departments was also pro-ducing a shared mindset. “Confusing thepolice function with the military functioncan lead to dangerous and unintended con-sequences,” the paper warned, “such asunnecessary shootings and killings.”

In 2006, Radley Balko, then a Cato poli-cy analyst and currently a writer for theWashington Postopinion section (as well as amedia fellow at the Institute), released“Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary PoliceRaids in America.” The white paper wasaccompanied by a website in which Balko

painstakingly catalogued dozens of exam-ples of innocent people killed in these raids.“The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created anew figure on the U.S. scene: the warriorcop—armed to the teeth, ready to dealharshly with targeted wrongdoers, and agrowing threat to familiar American liber-ties,” Balko writes in his 2013 book, Rise ofthe Warrior Cop.

Asset forfeiture has also become a majorissue. Under state and federal law, policedepartments can seize and keep propertythat is suspected of involvement in criminalactivity. Unlike criminal asset forfeiture,however, with civil forfeiture, a propertyowner need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged—to permanently lose hercash, car, home, or other property. In 1994,Cato vice president Roger Pilon weighed inon this issue in the New York Law SchoolLaw Review. “Rooted in pre-modernauthoritarianism, forfeiture looks at theworld from the perspective of the state,then asks what needs to be done to bringabout certain public ends, such as thereduction of crime, the end of drug use,

whatever,” he wrote. “Lost or ignored in theprocess, too often, is the individual and hisrights, which is inexcusable in a society ded-icated to the individual.”

The following year, the Institutereleased a book, Forfeiting Our PropertyRights, by the late Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL),then chairman of the House JudiciaryCommittee. Even today, however, moststate laws are written in such a way as toencourage police agents to pursue profitinstead of seeking justice.

Given these trends, the first step shouldbe transparency. To that end, the Institutelaunched PoliceMisconduct.net in 2012.Cato’s researchers scan media reports eachday to locate news stories on police abuse,recording those reports in a database andproviding transparent data for publicreview. The purpose of the website is todetermine the extent to which law enforce-ment officials exceed the limits of theirauthority. “We are simply trying to create aruler with which we can measure policemisconduct,” says Lynch, director of thesite, “so that people can determine forthemselves if it’s really a problem.” n

Cato’s long record of highlighting police impropriety

Cops Exceeding Their Limits

In August, RADLEY BALKO (left), a writer for the Washington Post opinion section and a formerCato policy analyst, and TIM LYNCH, director of the Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice,were both invited to discuss the militarization of local police on MSNBC.

14 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

C A T O E V E N T S

H eld at the luxurious Salamander Resort and Spa in Middleburg, Virginia, this year’s Cato Club 200 retreat was attendedby more than 130 supporters and friends of the Institute. LEFT: PEGGYNOONAN, a weekly columnist for the Wall Street

Journal and the author of five New York Times bestsellers, offered her take on the national mood. RIGHT: Guests spent thelong weekend listening to many other distinguished speakers, including Walter Williams of George Mason University, RadleyBalko of the Washington Post, and investor Ken Fisher.

T his year’s Cato University at Capitol Hill brought the ideas of liberty to congressional staffers for the ninth year in a row.LEFT: PETERVANDOREN, senior fellow at the Institute, examined the decisions confronting legislators as they face competing

demands. RIGHT: NICOLEKAEDING, Cato’s budget analyst, explained how mandatory spending continues to drive the federal budget.

AUGUST 6:A Legacy of Liberty—#CatoInstameet and Happy Hour

AUGUST 12: Halbig, King, andObamacare: What Happened, andWhat Happens Next?

AUGUST 18: Transparency Time:Wikipedia-Editing for Congress

AUGUST 22: The Ongoing Eventsin Ferguson, Missouri

AUGUST 26: Corporate Inversions,American Jobs, and NationalCompetitiveness

AUGUST 27: Roots of Liberty: Unlockingthe Federalist Papers

AUGUST 28: Public Opinion and War

SEPTEMBER 8: Fragile by Design: ThePolitical Origins of Banking Crises andScarce Credit

SEPTEMBER 9: Civil Rights in theUnited States

SEPTEMBER 10: Lessons fromFerguson

SEPTEMBER 12:Do AmericanPolice Departments Need MilitaryWeapons from the Pentagon?

SEPTEMBER 17: 13th AnnualConstitution Day

SEPTEMBER 18 –21: Cato Club 200Retreat (Middleburg, VA)

SEPTEMBER 18:Aftermath: TheUnintended Consequences of PublicPolicies

SEPTEMBER 29: Originalism and theGood Constitution

SEPTEMBER 30: Consumer Creditand the American Economy

AUDIO AND VIDEO FOR ALL CATO EVENTS DATING BACK TO1999, AND MANY EVENTS BEFORE THAT, CAN BE FOUND ONTHE CATO INSTITUTE WEBSITE AT WWW.CATO.ORG/EVENTS.YOU CAN ALSO FIND WRITE-UPS OF CATO EVENTS IN JOHNALLISON’S BIMONTHLY MEMO FOR CATO SPONSORS.

CatoCalendar

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 15

A t a Cato Policy Forum inSeptember, LAURENVICTORIA

BURKE, creator of the blog Crewof42,asked whether the events in Ferguson,Missouri, reflect a trend toward over-militarization within law enforcementorganizations.

ALTERNATIVES TO CENTRAL BANKING: TOWARD FREE-MARKET MONEY32ND ANNUAL MONETARY CONFERENCEWASHINGTON l CATO INSTITUTENOVEMBER 6, 2014Speakers include James Grant, Judy Shelton, George Selgin, and Patrick Byrne.

CATO INSTITUTE POLICY PERSPECTIVE 2014CHICAGO l FOUR SEASONS l DECEMBER 3, 2014Speakers include Randy Barnett and Eric O’Keefe.

THE FUTURE OF U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTHA CATO INSTITUTE CONFERENCEWASHINGTON l CATO INSTITUTEDECEMBER 4, 2014Speakers include Amar Bhidé, Erik Brynjolfsson,Edward Glaeser, Dale Jorgenson, Robert Gordon, and Edmund Phelps.

CATO INSTITUTE POLICY PERSPECTIVES 2015LOS ANGELES L l BEVERLY WILSHIRE JANUARY 23, 2015Speakers include Tom Campbell, Jim Harper, and Alex Nowrasteh.

CAN WE END POVERTY?NEW YORK l COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY JANUARY 29, 2015Speakers include John McWhorter, Michael Tanner, and Robert Woodson.

CATO INSTITUTE POLICY PERSPECTIVES 2015NAPLES, FL l RITZ-CARLTON GOLF RESORTFEBRUARY 4, 2015

27TH ANNUAL BENEFACTOR SUMMITNAPLES, FL l RITZ-CARLTON GOLF RESORTFEBRUARY 19–22, 2015

CATO UNIVERSITYWASHINGTON l CATO INSTITUTEJULY 26–31, 2015

CATO CLUB 200RETREATSEA ISLAND, GA l THE CLOISTER SEPTEMBER 24–27, 2015

28TH ANNUAL BENEFACTOR SUMMITLAS VEGAS l FOUR SEASONS HOTELFEBRUARY 25–28, 2016

WATCH FOR UPCOMING EVENTS IN CITIES INCLUDING HOUSTON, DALLAS, SEATTLE, DENVER, AND ST. LOUIS.

R OGERPILON, Cato’s vice presi-dent for legal affairs, praised the

book Roots of Liberty, edited by ScottCosenza and Claire Griffin, for its ability to explain the central themes of the Federalist Papers to high-schoolstudents.

16 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

C A T O P U B L I C A T I O N S

S hortly before taking charge of theInstitute in September 2012, Catopresident John Allison releasedThe Financial Crisis and the Free

Market Cure. As the longest-serving CEO ofa top-25 financial institution, Allison spenthis career spearheading BB&T’s phenome-nal success—overseeing the company’s rapidexpansion from $4.5 billion to $152 billion inassets by the time he retired in 2008.

Based on his experience, the book pro-vided “an integrated insider’s perspective”on how the global meltdown was caused pri-marily by government actions. Within itsfirst few weeks, it became a New York Timesbestseller, eventually hitting #1 on theWallStreet Journal’s hardcover business bestsellerlist as well.

Now, Allison is back with a new book.The Leadership Crisis and the Free MarketCure offers the key to achieving long-termeconomic and societal well-being: true lead-ership. With keen insights into both publicpolicy and business, Allison reveals the fun-damental principles he sees as critical to thesuccess of any leader, to all organizations,and to the United States.

The book’s central theme is that there isa set of principles that are consistent withhuman nature and provide the foundationfor individual success. The ultimate goal inlife is to achieve happiness—“in the Aris-totelian context of a life well-lived,” Allisonwrites—and acting in accordance with theseprinciples will improve one’s chances ofreaching that end. These same conceptsapply more broadly as well. “This is a bookabout leadership in the pursuit of happiness,at the individual, organizational, and societallevel,” he writes.

What are the principles of success? Thefirst is a clearly defined and empoweringsense of purpose. “Human beings are goal-directed entities,” Allison continues. “Wehave to know where we are going in order to

get there.” As such, peopleneed a vision of the future anda purpose consistent withthat vision. “The vision andpurpose act like a beacon anddraw us toward who we wantto be.”

With this as the founda-tion, Allison explains theimportance of a clear set ofvalues. “They provide us withprinciples that, if we live bythem, improve the probabili-ty of staying alive, being suc-cessful, and ultimately beinghappy,” he adds. He describeshow to develop a strategy forturning a vision and purposeinto a reality. Allison ranBB&T according to a strate-gy that flowed inevitablyfrom its value system and wasintegrated with its manage-ment style. He is using thissame concept at the CatoInstitute. “Hire fundamentally good people,train them well, give them authority andhold them responsible, expect them to besuccessful, and reward their performance,”Allison writes. Finally, he reveals theprocesses that, based on feedback mecha-nisms, allow leaders to incentivize superiorperformance. At the same time, however,these processes are subject to certain pitfalls.

Consider the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of2002. While the legislation was a response toseveral large accounting fraud–related fail-ures—including WorldCom and Enron—these were clearly unusual cases, not prob-lems with the system as a whole. But the ten-dency to redesign processes according to iso-lated events leads to problems. “Tragically,much of modern regulation is based on thissame conceptual error wherein a small num-ber of visible examples drive government reg-

ulations, which reduces the overall produc-tivity in an industry,” he writes.

In the end, Allison argues that it is thesefive concepts—vision, purpose, values, strat-egy, and process—that helped make theUnited States a global leader. The FoundingFathers realized that freedom was essentialfor human flourishing. They viewed the roleof government as protecting individualrights. Government was therefore to be lim-ited. It was not designed to eliminate all sup-posed ills. “A society based on the correctideals will flourish,” Allison concludes. “It iscritical that we return to the principles thatmade America great—life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness.” n

VISIT WWW.AMAZON.COM OR BOOKSTORESNATIONWIDE TO GET YOUR COPY OF THELEADERSHIP CRISIS AND THE FREE MARKETCURE TODAY.

Allison’s follow-up to his bestseller on the financial crisis

The Importance of True Leadership

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 17

I n September 2005, the Danish newspa-perJyllands-Postenprinted a dozen car-toons—prompted by recent examplesof self-censorship by the European

media—related to Islam, one of which depict-ed the Muslim prophet Muhammad with abomb wrapped in his turban. Their publica-tion quickly spiraled into a violent interna-tional uproar, as Muslims around the worlderupted in protest. The Danish embassieswere attacked. More than 200 deaths world-wide resulted. And the paper’s culture editor,thereafter branded by some as “the DanishSatan,” found himself at the center of one ofthe defining issues of an era.

Now, in The Tyranny of Silence, FlemmingRose grapples with the difficult issues sur-rounding his decision to run those cartoons.Published by the Cato Institute, the book is adeeply personal account of his experience.“What do you say to people who ask how youcan sleep at night when hundreds of peoplehave died because of what you have done?”Rose asks at the outset. The subsequentpages are, in many ways, his attempt toanswer that question. In the process, heseeks to reconcile the tension betweenrespect for cultural diversity and the protec-tion of democratic freedom.

Rose begins the narrative recounting aseries of interviews he conducted with indi-viduals who, in one way or another, were inter-twined in the “Cartoon Crisis.” He speakswith Maria Gomez, a Spanish woman whosehusband was killed in the Madrid terroristattack and who later wore a T-shirt with thecontroversial Muhammad cartoon to the per-

petrator’s trial. He talks to KurtWestergaard, the artist behind theinfamous drawing, delving into theupbringing, background, and workof a man, Rose notes, whose “imagewould change my life.” He meetswith Karim Sørensen, a youngTunisian who was apprehended inFebruary 2008 on suspicion of plan-ning to assassinate Westergaard.

With each of these vignettes, apicture begins to emerge throughwhich Rose reflects on the princi-ples underpinning freedom ofspeech. He notes that the tendencyin Europe is to deal with increasingdiversity by constraining freeexpression. “They feel they will fur-ther social harmony by maintaininga delicate balance between toler-ance and freedom of speech—asthough the two were opposites,”Rose writes. “But tolerance andfreedom of speech reinforce eachother.” They are, in short, two sides of thesame coin—and both are under pressure.

Rose continues his investigation with asweeping look at some of the constraints thathave historically been placed on dissidents—from the heretic Michael Servetus, who wasburned at the stake in Geneva in 1553 for hisreligious views, to Rose’s own encounters withRussian dissidents in the Soviet Union.

Throughout the book, he demonstrates apersistent ability to weigh difficult issues—to“ponder at length and lose myself in layers ofmeaning”—a quality that he ascribes to his

natural skepticism. “I don’t see that as a traitflaw: it is a condition of modern man andindeed the core strength of secular democra-cies, which are founded on the idea that thereis no monopoly on truth,” Rose concludes.“Doubt is the germ of curiosity and criticalquestioning, and its prerequisite is a strongsense of self, a courage that leaves room fordebate.” n

VISIT WWW.CATO.ORG/STORE OR CALL 800-767-1241TO GET YOUR COPY OF THE TYRANNY OF SILENCETODAY; $24.95HARDBACK, $12.99EBOOK.

A new Cato book examines the war on expression

A Passionate Defense of Free Speech

Gifts fromCato.org/StoreFor yourself or as a gift—the Cato Online Store offers a vast range of merchandise. From Cato’s renowned PocketConstitution and acclaimed books, to apparel, bags, Cato-brand Lands’ End apparel, and gift sponsorships, it’s the

perfect way to support Cato and demonstrate your commitment to individual liberty. CatoSponsors receive a 35% discount on all purchases (except Lands’ End). Become a Sponsor whenyou check out of the Cato Store to immediately receive this discount off your entire purchase.

18 • CATO POLICY REPORT November/December 2014

C A T O S T U D I E S

A lthough precise measures ofgovernment ownership acrossthe Middle East and NorthAfrica (MENA) are hard to

come by, the governments of Algeria, Egypt,Libya, Syria, and Yemen all operate sizeablesegments of their economies—in some casesaccounting for more than two-thirds of theGDP. International experience suggeststhat private ownership tends to outperformpublic ownership. Yet, as Cato policy analystDalibor Rohac writes in “The Dead Handof Socialism: State Ownership in theArab World” (Policy Analysis no. 753),“MENA countries have made only modestprogress toward reducing the share of gov-ernment ownership.” Rohac argues thatthese countries need to sustain their transi-tions toward more representative politicalsystems and inclusive economic institutions.“In order to address this problem, privatiza-

tion has to cease being a dirty word,” hewrites. Three main lessons emerge from theexperience of countries that have done this.First, “transparent privatization, using openand competitive bidding, produces signifi-cantly better results than privatization by

insiders, without pub-lic scrutiny.” Second,private ownership andgovernance of thefinancial sector is cru-cial to the success ofrestructuring. Third,privatization needs tobe a part of a broader

reform package that would liberalizeMENA economies. “If governments in theregion are serious about creating mass pros-perity, reducing the role of public ownershipshould be one of their priorities,” Rohacconcludes.

RISK MODELING RISKSThe U.S. financial system faces a major, yetunderappreciated threat from the FederalReserve’s risk modeling agenda—the “Fedstress tests.” The purpose of these models is todetermine banks’ regulatory capital require-ments in order to make the financial systemsafe. But as Kevin Dowd, a professor offinance and economics at Durham Universi-ty, argues in“Math Gone Mad: RegulatoryRisk Modeling by the Federal Reserve”(Policy Analysis no. 754), they instead createthe potential for a new systemic financial cri-sis. Risk models, Dowd writes, are subject to anumber of major weaknesses. They are usuallybased on poor assumptions and inadequatedata, are vulnerable to gaming, and often blindto major risks. They have difficulty handlingmarket instability and tend to generate riskforecasts that fall as true risks build up. “Mostof all, they are based on the naïve belief that

Reducing State Socialism in the Middle East

CATO POLICY REPORT is a bimonthly review published by the Cato Institute and sent to all contributors. It is indexed in PAIS Bulletin.Single issues are $2.00 a copy. ISSN: 0743-605X. ©2013 by the Cato

Institute. • Correspondence should be addressed to Cato Policy Report1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001.

www.cato.org • 202-842-0200.

CATO POLICY REPORTDavid Boaz............................................................................EditorDavid Lampo.......................................................Managing EditorDan Jackson........................................................Assistant EditorJon Meyers.................................................................Art DirectorBrendan O’Hara...................................................... PhotographerClaudia Ringel............................................................. CopyeditorMai Makled.......................................................Graphic Designer

CATO INSTITUTEJohn A. Allison................................................President and CEORobert A. Levy................................................................ChairmanDavid Boaz.............................................Executive Vice PresidentLinda Ah-Sue..................................V.P., Events and ConferencesKhristine Brookes......................................V.P., CommunicationsJames A. Dorn ..........................................V.P., Monetary StudiesGene Healy............................................................. Vice PresidentDavid Kirby....................................................... V.P., DevelopmentBrink Lindsey................................... Vice President for ResearchRoger Pilon.........................................................V.P., Legal AffairsChristopher Preble..........V.P., Defense & Foreign Policy StudiesJohn Samples...................................................V.P. and PublisherEdward H. Crane.............................................President Emeritus

Swaminathan Aiyar..........................................Research FellowVirginia Anderson................................Chief Information OfficerEmma Ashford ......................................Visiting Research FellowDoug Bandow..........................................................Senior FellowTrevor Burrus.......................................................Research FellowMark Calabria...................Director,Financial Regulation StudiesMichael F. Cannon........................Director, Health Policy StudiesTed Galen Carpenter..............................................Senior Fellow

Andrew Coulson.........Director,Center for Educational FreedomChris Edwards...................................Director, Tax Policy StudiesBenjamin H. Friedman......................................Research Fellow Robert Garber.................................................Director, MarketingKaren Garvin.................................................................CopyeditorJagadeesh Gokhale...............................................Senior FellowJim Harper...............................................................Senior FellowNat Hentoff...............................................................Senior FellowJuan Carlos Hidalgo................Policy Analyst on Latin AmericaDaniel J. Ikenson.......................... Director, Trade Policy StudiesAndrei Illarionov.....................................................Senior FellowNicole Kaeding.....................................................Budget AnalystJason Kuznicki...................................................Research FellowDavid Lampo.................................................Publications DirectorSimon Lester.................................................Trade Policy AnalystJustin Logan................................Director, Foreign Policy StudiesTimothy Lynch......................................Director, Criminal JusticeNeal McCluskey...Assoc. Director, Center for Educational FreedomJon Meyers..................................................................Art DirectorPatrick J. Michaels...Director, Center for the Study of ScienceJeffrey Miron..................................Director of Economic StudiesDaniel J. Mitchell...................................................Senior FellowJohn Mueller...........................................................Senior FellowJohan Norberg........................................................Senior FellowAlex Nowrasteh................................Immigration Policy AnalystWalter Olson............................................................Senior FellowRandal O’Toole........................................................Senior FellowTom G. Palmer.........................................................Senior FellowDaniel R. Pearson...............Senior Fellow, Trade Policy StudiesAlan Peterson.......................................................Director of MISAaron Ross Powell..............................Editor, Libertarianism.orgAlan Reynolds..........................................................Senior FellowClaudia Ringel.................................. Manager, Editorial ServicesDalibor Rohac......................................................... Policy AnalystNicholas Quinn Rosenkranz................................Senior FellowJulian Sanchez.......................................................Senior FellowGeorge Selgin..........Director, Center for Monetary Alternatives

Ilya Shapiro..............................................................Senior FellowMichael Tanner.................. .....................................Senior FellowMarian Tupy.................................................Senior Policy AnalystValerie Usher..................................................................ControllerPeter Van Doren................................................Editor, RegulationIan Vásquez......Director, Ctr. for Global Liberty and ProsperityK. William Watson.......................................Trade Policy AnalystXia Yeliang.................. ............................................Visiting FellowMark Zupan.................. ...........................................Visiting Fellow

Richard Lindzen................................Distinguished Senior FellowJosé Piñera......................................Distinguished Senior Fellow

Radley Balko............................................................Media FellowRandy E. Barnett......................................................Senior FellowVladimir Bukovsky..................................................Senior FellowTucker Carlson.........................................................Senior FellowEmily Ekins...........................................................Research FellowLawrence Gasman.............Senior Fellow in TelecommunicationsSteve H. Hanke........................................................Senior FellowJohn Hasnas............................................................ Senior FellowPenn Jillette........................................Mencken Research FellowDavid B. Kopel.......................................Associate Policy AnalystDeepak Lal................................................................Senior FellowChristopher Layne...........Research Fellow, Foreign Policy StudiesGerald P. O’Driscoll Jr............................................Senior FellowP. J. O’Rourke .....................................Mencken Research FellowWilliam Poole...........................................................Senior FellowJim Powell...............................................................Senior FellowRichard W. Rahn..................................................... Senior FellowGeorge Selgin.........................................................Senior FellowVernon L. Smith.......................................................Senior FellowTeller.....................................................Mencken Research FellowCathy Young....................................................Research Associate

James M. Buchanan (1919–2013).Distinguished Senior FellowF. A. Hayek (1899–1992)..................Distinguished Senior FellowWilliam A. Niskanen (1933–2011) ..............Chairman Emeritus

markets are mathematizable,” he adds. Thesolution to these problems is legislation to pro-hibit risk modeling by financial regulators andestablish a simple, conservative capital stan-dard for banks based on reliable capital ratiosinstead of unreliable models.

A FALSE SENSE OF INSECURITYTerrorism is a hazard to human life, and itshould be dealt with in a manner similar tothat applied to other hazards. Althoughallowing emotion to overwhelm sensibleanalysis is both understandable and com-mon, it is inappropriate for officials chargedwith keeping the public safe. “To do so is irre-sponsible, and it costs lives,” argues JohnMueller, senior fellow at the Cato Institute,and Mark G. Stewart, professor at the Uni-versity of Newcastle, in “ResponsibleCounterterrorism Policy” (Policy Analysisno. 755). Risk analysis is an aid to responsibledecisionmaking that has been developed,codified, and applied over the past fewdecades. The authors deal with four issuescentral to that approach and apply them tothe hazard presented by terrorism: the costper saved life, acceptable risk, cost-benefitanalysis, and risk communication. They findthat, at present, decisionmakers appear to beoverly fearful about negative reactions to anyrelaxations of security measures that fail to becost-effective. “If other uses of the fundsavailable would more effectively save lives, agovernment obliged to allocate money in amanner that best benefits public safety mustexplain why spending billions of dollars onsecurity measures with very little proven ben-efit is something other than a reckless wasteof resources,” they conclude.

HIDDEN COSTS OF EX-IMProponents of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank claim that by increasing exportsand jobs, it benefits the U.S. economy. But asDaniel J. Ikenson, director of the Cato Insti-tute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Pol-icy Studies, writes in “The Export-ImportBank and Its Victims: Which Industries

and States Bear the Brunt?”(Policy Analysisno. 756), the benefits are exaggerated and thecosts totally ignored. The Bank’s skepticsspeak of the opportunity costs that arise whengovernment attempts to allocate resources

according to nonmar-ket criteria. They alsonote that subsidies pro-vided for the benefit ofone exporter put com-peting firms at an artifi-cial disadvantage. Inaddition to theseopportunity and intra-

industry costs, there is a third set of significantcosts that are too often forgotten. This analysisestimates the downstream costs of Ex-Im subsidies that are inflicted on manufacturingfirms in every industry across every U.S. state.Ikenson finds that these policies reward somecompanies in the short run, but penalize manyothers in the process. “These kinds of data areoften obscured or ignored, but they are essen-tial to any informed judgments about the pro-priety and efficacy of the Export-ImportBank,” he concludes.

OPEN AIRThe European Union (EU) and the UnitedStates began negotiations for a TransatlanticTrade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in2013, with the primary goals of reducingimpediments to cross-border trade andinvestment and achieving greater economicintegration between the two economic areas.Curiously, there has been a near absence ofdiscussion in the TTIP negotiations of free-ing trade and investment in commercial air-line services. In “Opening the Skies: PutFree Trade in Airline Services on theTransatlantic Trade Agenda” (PolicyAnalysis no. 757), Kenneth Button, a profes-sor at George Mason University and a world-renowned expert on transportation policy,notes that air passenger and cargo industries’supply chains are rife with restrictions. “Giventhe economies of scale and the scope for spe-cialization that increase by enlarging markets,

airline services liberalization would markedlyincrease the gains from an agreement,” hewrites. This paper argues that the objectionsto liberalization lack genuine merit anddescribes some of the benefits that haveemerged as aviation markets have been freedup over the last 35 years. It offers insights intohow U.S. airline passengers and transporta-tion-consuming businesses would benefitfrom opening the domestic air market tocompetition from foreign carriers. Finally, iturges the U.S. and EU governments to putfree trade in commercial air services on theTTIP negotiating agenda.

THE PUBLIC ON FEDERALISMFor much of its history, the United States hada notably decentralized government struc-ture. Since the 1930s, the national govern-ment has undertaken new efforts to regulatethe economy and society and to redistributeresources. Those new efforts have implied agreater centralization of authority in Wash-ington. In the past the public often supportedsuch centralization. But, as John Samples, vicepresident and publisher of the Cato Institute,and Emily Ekins, polling director at ReasonFoundation, find in “Public Attitudestoward Federalism: The Public’s Prefer-ence for Renewed Federalism” (PolicyAnalysis no. 759), public opinion about feder-alism has changed. “Voters are more support-ive of decentralized policymaking on manyissues where they previously supported astronger national role,” they write. This shiftindicates profound distrust in the capacity ofthe federal government to act on behalf of thepublic good. On some issues, like nationaldefense, much of the public continues to sup-port national primacy. Such issues are oftenassigned to Washington by the Constitution.In contrast, much polling finds that many cit-izens believe state and local governments arelikely to perform better than Washington.“Americans support a more decentralizedfederalism than in the past both on particularissues and as a general matter of institutionalconfidence,” Samples and Ekins conclude.n

November/December 2014 CATO POLICY REPORT • 19

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THEANTIWAR MOVEMENTThe anti-Obama left was out in force. All22 of them.

As the president stood on the SouthLawn to announce the bombing campaign inSyria, liberal demonstrators gathered onPennsylvania Avenue on the other side ofthe White House to protest the man theythought was their ally. . . .

“If George W. Bush were launching warswith Congress out of town, oh, it would beflooded,” longtime liberal activist DavidSwanson said, looking across mostly emptyPennsylvania Avenue “They would bescreaming.”—DANA MILBANK IN THE WASHINGTON POST,

09/24/2014

“BIPARTISAN AGREEMENT”ALWAYS MEANS SPENDING THETAXPAYERS’ MONEYRepublican Ed Gillespie sought to gainground with Virginia voters Friday by inten-sifying his attacks on U.S. Sen. Mark R.Warner. . . .

Despite the positioning, both candidatesagreed on a few topics.

For example, they each called federalsequestration cuts devastating to theNorthern Virginia economy. . . .

Both also agreed that there is an urgentneed to improve Virginia’s transportationinfrastructure. . . .

On national security, Gillespie andWarner agreed on a need to spend more onthe U.S. military in the face of the threatposed by the Islamic State.—WASHINGTON POST, 09/19/2014

BIG MONEY IN CAMPAIGNS “I think franked mail is a tool that can beused to communicate with your con-stituents,” [Rep. Gerry] Connolly says.

Last year Connolly spent more than$94,000 of your tax dollar on mostly glossy,color pamphlets with pictures of him at hisoffice declaring his support for federalworkers, while D.C. Del. Eleanor HolmesNorton spent just over $3,000 touting herrecord. Maryland Democrat John Delaneyspent more than $50,000, which his presssecretary says is to introduce his freshmanboss to voters, which watchdogs say giveshim a leg up over his challenger, RepublicanDan Bongino. Congressman Randy Forbes(R-VA 4) spent about $30,000 onFacebook ads, railing against “Obamacare,”questioning “Free taxpayer funded cellphones” and on dozens of electronic polls,which he defends.—WAMU, 09/08/2014

PARENTAL WARNINGBooks such as The Giver, Divergent, andThe Hunger Games trilogy are, whetherintentionally or not, substantial attacks onmany of the foundational projects andaims of the left: big government, the wel-fare state, progress, social planning andequality. . . .

If you see yourself as a left-leaning pro-gressive parent, you might want to exercisesome of that oppressive parental control andlimit your kids exposure to the “freedom”expressed in YA dystopian fiction.—EWAN MORRISON IN THE GUARDIAN, 09/01/2014

“GOVERNMENT IS SIMPLY THENAME WE GIVE TO THE THINGSWE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER.”A 64-year-old woman drowned whenpolice said her vehicle ended up in adrainage canal in Northeast El PasoMonday morning. . . .

A witness told KFOX14 that policestopped several men from trying to save thevictim.

A witness to the drowning, who request-ed anonymity, said she saw the woman mov-ing her hands inside the car and that policestopped three men from attempting to gether out.

“They went and tried to help this lady,they tried to help her, but the police saidthey can’t, they were yelling and everything,I don’t wanna say nothing bad about them, Iknow they give good service here and every-thing, but I said ‘Oh, my God,’” the witnesssaid. “They hit the window on the driver’sside, and she tried to get out but there’s afence right there, and she couldn’t get out.So she had all that weight with her and all the water inside. The men got scared, theydidn’t want to leave, they were mad, so theygot scared, people were yelling so they hadto leave before they got arrested.”

The story about police telling men toleave was backed up by several people wholive on Vulcan Avenue right next to wherethe drowning took place.—KFOX14 EL PASO, 09/22/2014

GOVERNMENT KEEPS US SAFEWorkers scouring government laborato-ries in the wake of the July discovery ofsmallpox and the mishandling of otherinfectious agents in federal facilities inrecent months have found half a dozenmore improperly stored substances—including the deadly toxin ricin and thebacteria that cause plague.—WASHINGTON POST, 09/05/2014

CRIME WAVE SWEEPS SACRA-MENTOThree of the 40 members of the CaliforniaState Senate have been arrested this year,more than double the statewide arrest rateand higher than the rate in any ofCalifornia’s 25 largest cities.—SACRAMENTO BEE, 08/26/2014

CATO POLICY REPORT1000Massachusetts Ave., N.W.Washington, D.C. 20001ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

“ ”ToBeGoverned...