Cato Event Podcast

Since World War II, the United States has maintained an active foreign policy agenda, deeply engaged in both the economic and military domains. Many observers over the past few years, however, have voiced doubts about public support for the critical pillars of American internationalism. Many have worried, in particular, about whether younger Americans will believe it worthwhile to take up the mant...

Our 27th president, William Howard Taft, has been relegated to a historical afterthought, if not a punchline. If he’s remembered at all, it’s for his enormous girth and periodic difficulties with bathtubs. Yet in this slim volume on our largest president, Jeffrey Rosen argues that Taft has much to teach us today. Our “most judicial president,” who later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court...

On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal “net neutrality,” a set of Obama-era regulations that had only been enacted in 2015.The outcry was oversized. Racist memes featuring FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who spearheaded the repeal effort, flooded the internet, while grassroots activists invaded Pai’s neighborhood, placing pamphlets with his face on his neighbors’...

The planned meeting between leaders of North Korea and the United States may help the Hermit Kingdom engage positively with a broader part of the world. After the meeting concludes, how should the US work to continue to lower tensions with North Korea? Join us for a live online discussion and ask your questions using #CatoConnects . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The private sector is stepping up to help young immigrant Dreamers while Congress continues to debate their future. Few Americans have done more than Donald Graham, the chairman of the board of Graham Holdings Company and former publisher of the Washington Post . Mr. Graham cofounded TheDream. US to fund college scholarships for hundreds of Dreamers, and he recently received significant donations...

Why is America’s health care system so dysfunctional and expensive? Why do hospitalized patients receive bills laden with inflated charges that come out of the blue from out-of-network providers, or that demand payment for services that weren’t delivered? Why do we pay $600 for EpiPens that contain a dollar’s worth of medicine? Why is more than $1 trillion—one out of every three dollars that passe...

Why is America’s health care system so dysfunctional and expensive? Why do hospitalized patients receive bills laden with inflated charges that come out of the blue from out-of-network providers, or that demand payment for services that weren’t delivered? Why do we pay $600 for EpiPens that contain a dollar’s worth of medicine? Why is more than $1 trillion—one out of every three dollars that passe...

Why is America’s health care system so dysfunctional and expensive? Why do hospitalized patients receive bills laden with inflated charges that come out of the blue from out-of-network providers, or that demand payment for services that weren’t delivered? Why do we pay $600 for EpiPens that contain a dollar’s worth of medicine? Why is more than $1 trillion—one out of every three dollars that passe...

Many critics think social media poses a novel threat to liberal democracy. Seeking to divide Americans, agents of the Russian government bought ads on Facebook. Extreme speech also finds a home on the internet, fostering conflicts that appear to generate more heat than light. Governments and consumers worry about “fake news” designed to misinform readers for fun, profit, and power. And yet social...

Congress’s most solemn constitutional duty is to determine whether, where, and against whom the United States will engage in war. Yet for far too long, legislators have ceded that responsibility to the executive branch, allowing multiple administrations to use the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) as a blank check to wage war whenever and wherever the president decides. As Co...

With a doctorate from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought and decades of work in the world of international human rights institutions behind him, Aaron Rhodes has written a devastating account of that world’s intellectual confusions and moral corruption. In exquisite detail, and as none before it has, his new book explains how the 20th century’s push to treat economic and socia...

Congress is considering a major farm bill this year to extend the current multi-billion-dollar array of subsidies. The last farm bill—in 2014—created two new crop subsidy programs that have cost more than promised. Meanwhile, the crop insurance program has soared in cost and provides handouts to millionaire farm households. There is also concern that crop subsidies harm the environment and undermi...

Marijuana is big business in the 29 states that have legalized medical cannabis and in several more that have legalized recreational use. However, the federal prohibition on marijuana prevents banks from serving legitimate marijuana clients—resulting in billions of dollars of marijuana-related profits being handled almost exclusively in cash. A new Federalist Society short documentary, “Medical Ma...

America’s Founders placed freedom of speech at the head of the Bill of Rights, yet we still struggle to protect it. In fact, it was not until the 20th century that our courts began to develop a systematic jurisprudence against attacks on speech. In recent years, however, ill-defined “hate speech” has been a particular target—especially on the nation’s campuses, where one would expect speech to enj...

In Iraq, U.S. soldiers often encounter ISIS fighters armed with American-made weapons. Intentionally sold to the corrupt, poorly-trained, ill-disciplined Iraqi military by previous U.S. administrations, many of these weapons have now fallen into the hands of terrorists. Far from an isolated incident, this example underscores the unintended—and often dangerous—consequences of internatio...

The school choice debate has largely focused on whether society should have any school choice at all. But not all choice programs are identical. And they certainly do not all produce the same outcomes for students. If school choice policies are to pass, what should they look like? Should we embrace public charter schools, private school choice options, or both? Should financing be through vouchers...

After three decades of constant gains, global respect for free speech has been in decline since 2004. In the recent past even Europe’s liberal democracies have contributed to the decline by adopting increasingly restrictive measures in the name of national security, the countering of hate speech, and, most recently, standing against “fake news.” Does Europe’s model of “militant democracy” offer pr...

In his new book,  Republic in Peril , David C. Hendrickson advances a critique of American policy since the end of the Cold War. America’s outsized military spending and global commitments, he argues, undermine rather than uphold international order. They raise rather than reduce the danger of war, imperiling both American security and domestic liberty. An alternative path lies in a new inter...

Join us for a special private screening of the motion picture Little Pink House . The event includes a Q&A session with Susette Kelo , the real-life plaintiff in the infamous U.S. Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London , along with the film’s director and writer, Courtney Moorehead Balaker , and producer, Ted Balaker , and Institute for Justice President Scott Bullock , who argued Kelo’s case befor...

Free speech is under attack at colleges and universities today, with critics on and off campus challenging the value of open inquiry and freewheeling intellectual debate. Too often speakers are shouted down, professors are threatened, and classes are disrupted. Constitutional scholar Keith E. Whittington argues that universities must protect and encourage free speech because vigorous free speech i...

In his new book,  Directorate S , author Steve Coll explains how Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is partly responsible for the United States’ struggles in neighboring Afghanistan. Coll, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, sheds light on Pakistan’s policy of aiding, supplying, and legitimizing the Taliban, a policy President Trump has openly crit...

Congress has not overhauled America’s legal immigration system in nearly three decades. While legal immigrants overwhelmingly benefit the United States, the system is unfair to those who go through it, and its arbitrary and outdated rules undermine the economic and social benefits that legal immigrants contribute to America. With Congress now in the midst of a wide-ranging debate over which reform...

What principles inform the U.S. Constitution? How have they been systematically subverted? And — what can Americans do to restore the integral order of the American constitutional order? From  Cato University 2018: College of Law Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Constitution was designed to protect a variety of economic liberties, including the right to earn an honest living, but the Supreme Court has subverted that constitutional design by refusing to enforce those provisions consistent with the text, history, and purpose of the Constitution. From  Cato University 2018: College of Law Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Law isn’t just for lawyers, but concerns and impacts everyone. A look at how simple rules that respect and protect the liberty of individuals are the foundation of complex social orders. From  Cato University 2018: College of Law Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.