Podcasts about Cato Institute

In conservative economics, cuts to social services are often seen as necessary to shrink the expanding deficit. Donald Trump's budget bill is something altogether different: it cuts Medicaid while slashing tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, adding $6 trillion to the national debt, according to the Cato Institute. Janet Yellen, a former Treasury Secretary and former chair of the Federal Reserve, sees severe impacts in store for average Americans: “What this is going to do is to raise interest rates even more. And so housing will become less affordable, car loans less affordable,” she tells David Remnick. “This bill also contains changes that raise the burdens of anyone who has already taken on student debt. And with higher interest rates, further education—college [and] professional school—becomes less affordable. It may also curtail investment spending, which has a negative impact on growth.” This, she believes, is why the President is desperate to lower interest rates; he has spoken of firing his appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, whom he has called a “numbskull” and a “stupid person,” and installing a more compliant chair. But lowering interest rates to further political goals, Yellen says, “are the words one expects from the head of a banana republic that is about to start printing money to fund fiscal deficits. … And then you get very high inflation or hyperinflation.”Plus, “rarely have so many members of Congress voted for a measure they so actively disliked,” Susan B. Glasser noted in her latest column in The New Yorker, after the passage of a deficit-exploding Republican budget. Millions of people will lose access to Medicaid—a fact that the President lies about directly—and many trillions of dollars will be added to the deficit. Interest payments on the federal debt will skyrocket, and Trump is so desperate for lower interest rates that he seems poised to fire his own chair of the Federal Reserve and install a compliant partisan to head the heretofore independent central bank. “Anybody panicking about that in Washington?” David Remnick asks Glasser. “I think we are the boiled frog,” she replies. “We are almost panic-immune at this point, in the same way that Donald Trump has, I think, inoculated much of America against facts in our political debate. Even inside of Washington, there's so many individual crises at one time it's very very hard in Trump 2.0 to focus on any one of them.”

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we continue our discussion of President Trump, the expansion of executive powers, and the Constitution with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including the recently released movie, “Superman,” the tragedy on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Supreme Court, and the government narrative on Epstein. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Florida Citizens Alliance CEO Keith Flaugh, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, American Commitment President Phil Kerpen, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

Is misinformation really a new crisis—or just the latest chapter in a centuries-old debate over truth, speech, and power? In this episode, Cato Institute's Jennifer Huddleston and David Inserra unpack the cultural and policy panic surrounding misinformation and disinformation in the age of AI, deepfakes, and viral tweets. Who should decide what counts as truth online? Plus, why humility, media literacy, and a competitive internet might be better solutions than censorship.Show Notes:Jennifer Huddleston, "AI and the Future of Our Elections" Testimony, September 27, 2023Jennifer Huddleston and David Inserra, "Oversight Board Comment on Misinformation and Manipulated Media: The Importance of Free Expression in the Debate over Misinformation" cato.org, October 25, 2023Jennifer Huddleston, "The Rush to Regulate AI Coule be the Death of Parody" National Review (Online), January 26, 2024David Inserra and Jennifer Huddleston, "Actually, Tim Walz, the First Amendment Does Protect Misinformation and ‘Hate Speech'" National Review, August 11, 2024Jennifer Huddleston and Emma Hopp, "What the Past Can Teach Us about Our AI Fears" Reason, October 29, 2024David Inserra and Brent Skorup, "Comments in Response to FCC “Delete, Delete, Delete” Initiative" cato.org, April 11, 2025David Inserra, "The Misleading Panic over Misinformation" Policy Analysis No. 999, June 26, 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the hottest topics on the Hill is the future of the Department of Education and the current administration's education priorities. As national conversations grow around school choice, federal overreach, and the role of states in shaping curricula and standards, many in Congress are reevaluating the federal government's place in our educational system. Join us for a fireside chat with Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and the Cato Institute's Director for the Center for Educational Freedom, Neal McCluskey, on Congress' role in dissolving the Department of Education. This conversation will explore efforts to return control of education to the states, empower local school districts, and ensure that parents and communities have a greater say in their children's education. The speakers will examine policy frameworks behind dismantling the department, the feasibility of such a move, and what a post–Department of Education future might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, President Donald Trump issued many angry threats against Zohran Mamdani, the underdog winner of New York Democratic mayoral primary. Trump has been attacking Mamdani, a state Assemblyman, as a “Communist,”  threatening to arrest him along with other foes, and questioning Mamdani's U.S. citizenship, hinting at a possible effort to try to strip his citizenship.  What caught our eye is Mamdani's response: It was sharply worded, illuminated the real stakes in this battle in a novel way, and effectively declared that the threat posed by Trump's secret police to immigrants actually threatens us all. Democrats can learn from this, because Trump's threats to denaturalize foes may soon become real. We talked to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. He explains what Trump would need to do to denaturalize Mamdani and other political opponents, what liberals and Democrats be preparing for right now, and why basic freedoms are hanging in the balance—for all of us.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is your financial life really private? In this eye-opening episode, Cato Institute's Norbert Michel and Nicholas Anthony take us deep into the world of financial surveillance, starting with the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act. What was originally sold as a tool to catch tax cheats has quietly evolved into a sprawling system of government oversight—with banks and financial institutions acting as unwitting watchdogs. From suspicious activity reports to the third-party doctrine, Norbert and Nicholas explain how the erosion of Fourth Amendment protections has happened largely out of public view. They break down the law's legacy, how it expanded post-9/11, and why $10,000 isn't the large sum it once was. But there's reason for optimism. With growing public awareness, privacy-focused tech, and new reform legislation finally on the table, change might be within reach. If you thought your bank account was your business, think again—this episode will make you see it in a whole new light.Show Notes:Norbert Michel and Jennifer J. Schulp, "Revising the Bank Secrecy Act to Protect Privacy and Deter Criminals" Policy Analysis No. 932, July 26, 2022Nicholas Anthony, "The Right to Financial Privacy" Policy Analysis No. 945, May 2, 2023Norbert Michel, "The Bank Secrecy Act Is a Bigger Threat than FISA" Forbes, April 17, 2024Nicholas Anthony and Naomi Brockwell, "The Illusion of Financial Privacy" Reason.com, May 30, 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Erec Smith of the Cato Institute returns to the show to talk about where the US stands with its DEI and woke culture and policies. Now at a crossroads, will academia change? Sports? Business? With a new administration bent on changing law and policy against DEI, we seem to be in a period of reprieve, but will it last? Cwic Media Website: http://www.cwicmedia.com

Today's podcast is titled “The Morality of Capitalism.” Recorded in 2007, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas, Tibor Machan, Hoover Institution research fellow, professor emeritus of philosophy at Auburn University, professor of business ethics at Chapman University, and co-founder of Reason magazine, and Tom Palmer, Senior fellow at the Cato Institute, discuss the morality of capitalism. Listen now, and don't forget to subscribe to get updates each week for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.

This week, President Donald Trump issued many angry threats against Zohran Mamdani, the underdog winner of New York Democratic mayoral primary. Trump has been attacking Mamdani, a state Assemblyman, as a “Communist,”  threatening to arrest him along with other foes, and questioning Mamdani's U.S. citizenship, hinting at a possible effort to try to strip his citizenship.  What caught our eye is Mamdani's response: It was sharply worded, illuminated the real stakes in this battle in a novel way, and effectively declared that the threat posed by Trump's secret police to immigrants actually threatens us all. Democrats can learn from this, because Trump's threats to denaturalize foes may soon become real. We talked to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. He explains what Trump would need to do to denaturalize Mamdani and other political opponents, what liberals and Democrats be preparing for right now, and why basic freedoms are hanging in the balance—for all of us.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, President Donald Trump issued many angry threats against Zohran Mamdani, the underdog winner of New York Democratic mayoral primary. Trump has been attacking Mamdani, a state Assemblyman, as a “Communist,”  threatening to arrest him along with other foes, and questioning Mamdani's U.S. citizenship, hinting at a possible effort to try to strip his citizenship.  What caught our eye is Mamdani's response: It was sharply worded, illuminated the real stakes in this battle in a novel way, and effectively declared that the threat posed by Trump's secret police to immigrants actually threatens us all. Democrats can learn from this, because Trump's threats to denaturalize foes may soon become real. We talked to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. He explains what Trump would need to do to denaturalize Mamdani and other political opponents, what liberals and Democrats be preparing for right now, and why basic freedoms are hanging in the balance—for all of us.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we continue our discussion of President Trump, the expansion of executive powers, and the Constitution with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the future of the Supreme Court, low fertility rates here in the U.S. and around the globe, and a few ominous directions in Artificial Intelligence. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Florida Citizens Alliance CEO Keith Flaugh, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Dr. George Markovich, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

In this episode, Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome and Adam Michel dive deep into the sweeping new legislation—dubbed "The One Big Beautiful Bill"—moving through Congress. They break down what's at stake as key provisions of the 2017 tax reform are set to expire, unpack the bill's complex mix of tax cuts, new carve-outs, and industrial subsidies, and examine why temporary tax policy and policy uncertainty could derail economic growth. Plus, they confront the fiscal fiction behind tariffs as a reliable revenue source and make the case for a cleaner, more permanent pro-growth tax system. If you're looking for a sharp, honest take on where tax and trade policy stand in 2025—and where they should go—this one's for you.Show Notes:Adam Michel, "Republicans' One, Big, Beautiful Tax Bill Needs a Makeover" Cato.org, May 14, 2025Adam Michel, "Four Things the Senate Can Do to Improve the House Tax Bill" Cato.org, May 22, 2025Scott Lincicome, "Republicans Can't Pay for Their Tax Cuts with Fantasy Revenue Sources" The Washington Post, May 27, 2025Scott Lincicome, "Trump's Latest Tariff Idea Is Dangerously Foolish" The Dispatch, June 19, 2025Adam Michel, "Senate Big Beautiful Bill: More Growth, More Subsidies, More Debt" Cato.org, June 30th, 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Contribute to Politicology at politicology.com/donate To unlock Politicology+ visit politicology.com/plus This week, Ron Steslow and Jennifer Schulp (Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives) discuss the Senate passing the GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins. They dive into the implications of the Bank Secrecy Act and the critical importance of privacy-enhancing tools in the digital age. They explore how new legislation impacts personal privacy, the role of stablecoins in the financial ecosystem, and the potential consequences of government surveillance.   Then, in Politicology+ they discuss political corruption in cryptocurrency and Congressional stock trading. They dive into the lack of political will to combat it, despite public outcry, and the challenges of enforcing ethical standards. Not yet a Politicology+ member? Don't miss all the extra episodes on the private, ad-free version of this podcast. Upgrade now at politicology.com/plus. Send your questions and ideas to podcast@politicology.com or leave a voicemail at ‪(703) 239-3068‬ Follow this week's panel on X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/RonSteslow https://x.com/jenniferjschulp Related Reading:  CNBC - Senate passes GENIUS stablecoin bill, giving crypto industry first major legislative win Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The current administration has enacted the most active immigration policy in American history, issuing unprecedented executive orders, attempting to deport one million people a year, and imposing new restrictions on legal immigration. David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, and Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, will provide analysis of the current administration's policies on deportation, the rule of law, legal immigration, and the role of Congress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us at the Cato Institute for an in-depth fireside chat featuring Congressman Rich McCormick and Matt Mittelsteadt, Cato policy fellow in technology. This timely conversation will explore the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity policy, and the state of AI in Congress.Join us for a discussion on the current state of AI governance at the federal and state levels, the proposal for a 10-year moratorium on state and local AI regulations (what it means, and what's at stake), and the long-term vision for responsible, innovation-friendly AI policy in the United States.Whether you're a policymaker, tech professional, academic, or simply interested in the future of AI regulation, this is a must-attend conversation on how to balance innovation, security, and civil liberties in the age of artificial intelligence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we continue our discussion of President Trump, the expansion of executive powers, and the Constitution with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including Presidential War Powers, The cease fire in Iran and Israel and the “Trump Doctrine,” the Department of Education, and Immigration in America. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Optima Foundation CEO Erika Donalds, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Senior Economist with the Competitive Enterprise Institute Ryan Young, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

Roger welcomes Marian L. Tupy, founder and editor of HumanProgress.org and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty, for a compelling conversation about human progress, population growth and the myth of scarcity.They explore the legacy of economist Julian Simon, the surprising data behind global trends and why more people often means more innovation, not less. They also break down how human ingenuity continues to drive prosperity across the globe and why doomsday narratives about overpopulation, resource depletion and environmental collapse fail to reflect reality. Plus, they examine how the idea of “the ultimate resource” shifts our understanding of economics, freedom and the future of human flourishing.In addition to his work with Cato and HumanProgress.org, Marian L. Tupy is the co-author of “Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet” and “Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting”. He's also a co-creator of The Simon Project, an initiative that examines the relationship between population growth and resource abundance and publishes the yearly Simon Abundance Index. His work focuses on the intersection of data, human liberty and long-term optimism.The Liberty + Leadership Podcast is hosted by TFAS president Roger Ream and produced by Podville Media. If you have a comment or question for the show, please email us at podcast@TFAS.org. To support TFAS and its mission, please visit TFAS.org/support.Support the show

Donald Trump urges Israel and Iran to stick to the agreed ceasefire. The two sides have traded accusations of violations. It comes after Iran targeted a US military base in Qatar. So, will this ceasefire hold? And what does it mean for the wider Middle East? In this episode: Dania Thafer, Executive Director, Gulf International Forum. Ellie Geranmayeh, Deputy Head, Middle East and North Africa Programme, European Council on Foreign Relations. Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute. Host: Imran Khan Connect with us:@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

Starting July 1, we'll be trying some new things on this feed, starting with conversations between Cato Institute scholars. We hope you'll join us. Please consider listening to some of our other podcasts on cato.org/podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trump administration's immigration enforcement program is under scrutiny as new data from the Cato Institute reveals that most ICE detainees since October 2024 had no criminal convictions. The report highlights a growing number of nonviolent, noncriminal individuals swept up in deportation efforts. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed with the latest news from a leading Black-owned & controlled media company: https://aurn.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is capitalism really crushing the middle class—or are bad policies and worse narratives to blame?In this episode of the Let People Prosper Show, I'm joined by Dr. Norbert Michel, vice president and director of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Fiscal Alternatives. We dig into his new book, Crushing Capitalism: How Populist Policies Are Threatening The American Dream.Norbert pulls back the curtain on the false story of a stagnating middle class, exposes the economic harms of tariffs and industrial policy, and makes the principled case for decentralization and free-market capitalism. This is a must-listen if you're tired of political narratives distorting economic reality—and want honest solutions that let people prosper.For more insights, visit vanceginn.com. You can also get even greater value by subscribing to my Substack newsletter at vanceginn.substack.com. 

You remember your fourth grade history textbook: The British Empire unfairly taxed the American colonies. Tea was dumped in the Boston Harbor. Colonists refused taxation without representation. Therefore, the American Revolution was driven by economics, right? Well, maybe not.Today on Political Economy, I'm talking with Deirdre McCloskey about the core ideas that drove the Revolution. We explore American capitalism and the idea of equal opportunity as America grows closer to its 250th birthday.Deirdre is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. She is also a distinguished professor emerita of economics and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a professor emerita of English and communication. She is the author of some two dozen books, including the Bourgeois trilogy, and has a wonderful article, “Economic Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution,” published in AEI's recent book, Capitalism and the American Revolution, part of our America at 250 series.

In this episode, Ben and Kate discuss DOGE's structure and actions so far, court cases and what's next for the agency.Research/Resources:Department of Government Efficiency. https://doge.gov/. 2025“The White House: Establishing and Implementing The President's ‘Department of Government Efficiency'”. Published in The White House website January 20, 2025 and available on https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/Doge is Busier Than Ever – and Trump Says Elon Musk is ‘Really Not Leaving' by Makena Kelly, Leah Feiger, Zoe Schiffer. Published on Wired website May 30, 2025 and available on https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk-really-not-leaving/“The White House: Restoring Accountability to Policy – Influencing  Positions Within the Federal Workforce'”. Published in The White House website January 20, 2025 and https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-accountability-to-policy-influencing-positions-within-the-federal-workforce/ “U.S. Presidents with the Largest Budget Deficits” by Mary Hall. Published in Investopedia website June 11, 2025 and available on https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united-states-presidents-have-run-largest-budget-deficits.asp“A Century of Federal Spending, 1925 -2025” by Chris Edwards. Published in CATO Institute  website March 16, 2023 and available on https://www.cato.org/blog/century-federal-spending-1925-2025“United States Digital Service”. Published in Wikipedia last edited June 12, 2025 and available on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service “Department of Government Efficiency”. Published in Wikipedia last edited June 17, 2025 and available on  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Efficiency“What's next for DOGE after Elon Musk's departure? ‘Only just begun” by Andrew Mark Miller. Published in Fox News website May 29, 2025 and available on https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whats-next-doge-after-elon-musks-departure-only-just-begun“Musk's real DOGE legacy will be decided by courts long after his departure” by Avery Lotz. Published in Axios website May 29, 2025 and available on https://www.axios.com/2025/05/29/musk-doge-legacy-lawsuits-trump-adminstrationCheck out our website at http://artofdiscussing.buzzsprout.com, on Facebook at Art of Discussing and on Instagram @artofdiscussing.Got a topic that you'd like to see discussed? Interested in being a guest on our show? Just want to reach out to share an opinion, experience, or resource? Leave us a comment below or contact us at info@artofdiscussing.com!! We'd love to hear from you! Keep Discussing!Music found on Pixabay. Song name: "Clear Your Mind" by Caffeine Creek Band"

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we continue our discussion of President Trump, executive powers, and the Constitution with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran, the use of new technology including drones, Israel's little-discussed nuclear power, and illegal immigration in America. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Keith Flaugh, Co-Founder and CEO of the Florida Citizens Alliance, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Senior Economist with the Competitive Enterprise Institute Ryan Young, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

What's going on with the Republican tax bill? How different can state budgets really be from one another? And how does Amtrak justify it's barely used services? Adam Michel joins Econception to discuss. Adam N. Michel is director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, where he focuses on analyzing the economic and budgetary effects of taxation in the United States.

SPECIAL EARLY EPISODE: Glenn discusses the U.S. involvement in Israel's attack on Iran. Plus: Prof. Mohammad Marandi on the local reactions from Tehran. Finally: Jon Hoffman and Justin Logan from the CATO Institute on the implications for foreign policy and the dangers of a wider war.  ----------------------------------------------------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update:  Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook LinkedIn  

The government's power to see is its power to oppress. The more the state knows about us, the more levers it has to control us. Understanding that connection, its history and its application, is critical if we are to secure our liberties in the face of authoritarian threats, such as the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the federal government in Los Angeles.I'd scheduled this episode—with returning guest Patrick Eddington about his new book The Triumph of Fear: Domestic Surveillance and Political Repression from McKinley to Eisenhower—before ICE set off protests in LA. But what's happening there highlights the need for conversations like the one that follows, because the tools we give the state to protect us are the tools a rogue administration can use to destroy our freedoms.Patrick Eddington is a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute. He was formally a CIA analyst, but left the Agency in 1996 after he and his wife Robin, also at the CIA, became whistleblowers, publicly accusing the CIA of hiding evidence that American troops were exposed to Iraqi chemical weapons during the Gulf War.Join the ReImagining Liberty community and discuss this episode with your fellow listeners.Support the show and get episodes ad-free.Produced by Landry Ayres. Podcast art by Sergio R. M. Duarte. Music by Kevin MacLeod. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Across America, protests against Donald Trump's immigration raids are popping up, a week since the unrest in Los Angeles began. Protesters are incensed that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue to enter workplaces to round up undocumented immigrants. But it's Donald Trump's decision to send California National Guard troops and Marines to LA to protect federal agents and property that's really causing a stir. Today, Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, on why it's an authoritarian move Trump has long wanted to take and the risks of normalising troops on the streets. Featured: Ilya Somin, Professor of Law at the George Mason University in Virginia and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute

We take a look at how the Trump administration is handling immigration, with David Bier, Director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute

For generations, the idea of American liberty has been synonymous with limited government and individual freedoms. Yet, since the Founding, the reach of state surveillance has grown exponentially, often shrouded in secrecy and justified by the need to fight threats to safety and security.To explore the historic choices and institutional dynamics that paved the way for the modern surveillance apparatus, Aaron Ross Powell sits down with Patrick Eddington, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the new book, The Triumph of Fear: Domestic Surveillance and Political Repression from McKinley to Eisenhower.They discuss the long and often unsettling story of state surveillance in America, how it has led to a system susceptible to profound rights violations and political repression, and how actions—or inaction—by all three branches of government have allowed these capabilities to grow.You will finding it interesting if deeply troubling.© The UnPopulist, 2025Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

Alex Nowrasteh is Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. After Bob (on the Human Action podcast) summarized the recent SoHo forum immigration debate between Alex and Dave Smith, Alex had written a substack article responding to Bob's critique. Alex joins Bob to discuss the controversy, covering the empirical studies, the Hoppean argument concerning government-controlled property, and the current situation in LA.Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:The YouTube version of this conversation.This episode's sponsor, PersistSEO.com.Alex Nowrasteh's substack column pushing back against Bob's critique. The list of CATO studies (co-)authored by Alex Nowrasteh.Bob and Adam Haman comment on the SoHo debate. Bob goes solo on the Human Action podcast to parse Dave Smith's arguments and to question Alex's empirical claims.Bob's episode talking about blockades and immigration in a free society (with reference to his novel, Minerva).Help support the Bob Murphy Show.

In this episode, Michael F. Cannon, the Cato Institute's Director of Health Policy Studies, dives into the policy decisions that shaped Medicare and fundamentally distorted the U.S. health insurance market. From how tax incentives nudged Americans into employer-sponsored plans to the unintended consequences that left many seniors uninsured, Cannon breaks down the government's role in creating systemic challenges in health care. He also explores how tax policy has long been used as a tool to mandate certain health behaviors, and what a less distorted, freer market might look like. If you want to understand the policy roots behind today's health care complexities, this conversation is a must-listen.

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we discuss President Trump, executive powers, and the Constitution with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including the insurrection in Los Angeles, the Democrat party, and the profile of young women in the United States. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Keith Flaugh Co-Founder and CEO of the Florida Citizens Alliance, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Ambassador Francis Rooney, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

Colleen Hroncich, (Her-on-check) policy analyst with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. "The child is not the mere creature of the State." Pierce v. Society of Sisters 100 year anniversary - (Supreme Court ruling)

Send us a textThis week's cannabis legalization news (June 8th, 2025) dives into 14 key stories, with a focus on federal cannabis policy. Highlights include ominous looks at federal policy changes, Trump's controversial budget bill, and split rulings in federal courts about cannabis prosecutions. The episode also covers the state-level crackdowns on hemp misrepresentation, updates on dispensary operations, the implications of the Rob Far Amendment, and how overregulation affects cannabis markets, featuring insights from the Cato Institute. The show rounds out with key cannabis updates from states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, alongside entertaining segments like 'Name That Strain.' Special mentions include trends in marijuana use among older adults and labor rights victories in the cannabis sector.

Equality is central to the liberal project. Thomas Jefferson failed, dramatically and unforgivably, to live up to this ideal, but he stated in correctly when, in a letter, he wrote that "the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately." Liberalism views us as equals, and demands the law treat us as such.The illiberal project, then, is the denial of this equality. And the failure to notice inequalities, or to view the inequalities afflicting some as less worthy of concern than the inequalities afflicting others, is how nominal liberals can slide into illiberal politics without realizing it.My guest today has spent his career reminding liberals of their blind spots, and calling for the principles of a liberal society to be applied consistently, leaving no marginalized groups marginalized.Jonathan Blanks is a writer and editor who has spent the bulk of his career focusing on constitutional law, civil liberties, due process, and criminal legal issues. After more than 12 years at the Cato Institute, Blanks has spent the past few years writing about American culture and the effects of police policy.Join the ReImagining Liberty community and discuss this episode with your fellow listeners.Support the show and get episodes ad-free.Produced by Landry Ayres. Podcast art by Sergio R. M. Duarte. Music by Kevin MacLeod. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What did Elon Musk and DOGE accomplish over the first few months of the Trump administration? Tommy talks with Alex Nowrasteh, Vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute

George Selgin is a senior fellow and director emeritus at the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, as well as the author of the new book titled False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933-1947. George returns to the show to discuss the complicated economic history of the Great Depression, how that history has led us to the macro-events of 2008, 2010, and 2020, how we can apply lessons from the Great Depression to macroeconomic policy to the current moment, and much more. Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on May 13th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Follow George on X: @GeorgeSelgin Check out our new AI chatbot: the Macro Musebot! Check out our Macro Musings merch! Subscribe to David's new BTS YouTube Channel  Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:25 - Welcoming George Selgin and False Dawn 00:03:25 - Why Another Book on the Great Depression? 00:06:37 - The New Deal's Role in Recovery from the Great Depression 00:08:50 - Myths About the New Deal Overview of the Great Depression 00:12:30 - Measuring Unemployment 00:16:42 - The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 00:27:05 - Helpful: Suspension of the Gold Standard and the Bank Holiday 00:35:47 - Unhelpful: Reconstruction Finance Corporation 00:38:02 - Helpful: Creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation 00:42:31 - Unhelpful: The National Recovery Administration 00:48:42 - Unhelpful: Fiscal and Monetary Policy and Ignoring Keynes 00:57:17 - Lessons for Today: Uncertainty 01:00:56 - The Lesson of Level Targeting 01:06:42 - Breaching Contracts 01:11:40 - Outro

Join us on Madison's Notes as we sit down with George Selgin, senior fellow and director emeritus of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia. In this insightful conversation, Selgin unpacks the myths and realities of FDR's New Deal through the lens of his book, False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947 (University of Chicago Press, 2025). While the New Deal is often celebrated as a bold and successful response to the Great Depression, Selgin argues that many of its policies actually prolonged economic suffering—with unemployment remaining staggeringly high years later. Drawing on extensive historical and economic analysis, he separates the New Deal's successes from its failures, examines the distinct roles of fiscal and monetary policy, and reveals the overlooked factor that truly ended the Great Depression (hint: it wasn't just WWII). This episode challenges conventional narratives and offers crucial lessons for navigating future economic crises. Tune in for a nuanced discussion on why we must assess policy decisions carefully—learning from the past to build a more resilient future. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Thank you so much for listening to the Bob Harden Show, celebrating nearly 14 years broadcasting on the internet. On Wednesday's show, we discuss Supreme Court decisions on economic liberties and occupational licensing restrictions with Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus Bob Levy. Professor and author Andrew Joppa and I discuss a variety of topics including the escalation of tension and rhetoric between Putin and Trump, concerns on the implementation of the “golden dome,” the relationship between the legacy press and the Democrat party. Please join us on Thursday's show. We'll visit with Christy DeVigili from the Florida Citizens Alliance, Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Executive Director of the America First Policy Institute Florida Chapter, Bob Rommel, and former Mayor of Naples Bill Barnett. Access this or past shows at your convenience on my web site, social media platforms or podcast platforms.

This episode is the second installment in the "What Is the Right?" summer series for Giving Ventures. In this series, we're exploring the different factions and flavors that make up the right side of the ideological spectrum here in this weird political moment we live in. Today, we're looking at a group that some say isn't even fairly categorized as "right" at all: libertarians. How do you fairly describe what "libertarian" really means? They are the smallest of the small-government people, the most live-and-let-live of any group. It is the focus on freedom and individual liberty that means you also get a free range of ideas on what that liberty means. This episode features two great leaders in the libertarian space: Katherine Mangu-Ward and Peter Goettler. Katherine is Editor-in-Chief of Reason Magazine, the longest running libertarian magazine. Reason is a key cog in the libertarian ecosystem, and Katherine's leadership is doing much to keep it that way. Peter Goettler is President and CEO of the Cato Institute, the foremost libertarian think tank, based in Washington, DC. For more than 40 years, Cato has been the place for sound, reasoned policy ideas from a libertarian perspective.

Analyzing the Dave Smith / Alex Nowrasteh Debate on Immigration – with Sheldon RichmanIn this episode of The Rational Egoist, Michael Liebowitz is joined by Sheldon Richman to analyze and unpack the high-profile immigration debate between libertarian comedian Dave Smith and immigration policy expert Alex Nowrasteh. Richman—executive editor at The Libertarian Institute and former senior editor at both the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies—offers his seasoned perspective on the philosophical and policy-oriented arguments made on both sides. They explore the economic, ethical, and practical dimensions of immigration policy and discuss what was missed or misunderstood in the debate.Richman is also the author of Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other, and has long been a leading voice on liberty, peace, and individual rights.Michael Leibowitz, host of The Rational Egoist podcast, is a philosopher and political activist who draws inspiration from Ayn Rand's philosophy, advocating for reason, rational self-interest, and individualism. His journey from a 25-year prison sentence to a prominent voice in the libertarian and Objectivist communities highlights the transformative impact of embracing these principles. Leibowitz actively participates in political debates and produces content aimed at promoting individual rights and freedoms. He is the co-author of “Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Correction Encourages Crime” and “View from a Cage: From Convict to Crusader for Liberty,” which explore societal issues and his personal evolution through Rand's teachings.Explore his work and journey further through his books:“Down the Rabbit Hole”: https://www.amazon.com.au/Down-Rabbit-Hole-Corrections-Encourages/dp/197448064X“View from a Cage”: https://books2read.com/u/4jN6xj join our Ayn Rand Adelaide Meetups here for some seriously social discussions on Freedom https://www.meetup.com/adelaide-ayn-rand-meetup/

Andrew Day and Curt Mills talk to Jon Hoffman of the Cato Institute about the escalating Gaza war, the reported Trump-Netanyahu "rift," Steve Witkoff's "red line" for Iran, and the state of Russia-Ukraine diplomacy. Recorded May 21, 2025.

For the ad-free and full version of this episode, subscribe to Politicology+ at https://politicology.com/plus In this episode, Ron talks to Nick Anthony (Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute and a Fellow at the Human Rights Foundation) about Central Bank Digital Curriences, their potential to invade privacy, alter the dynamics of financial control, how governments are trying to justify them, and why those arguments are insufficient. They discuss: (04:16) Intro to CBDCs (07:58) How CBDCs would give unprecedented control over how you can spend money  (12:15) The Arguments for and against CBDCs (19:53)The hidden assumptions behind CBDC arguments  (24:50) The real world privacy implications of CBDCs (33:05) CBDCs around the globe  (36:21) The political dynamics in the U.S.  (47:47) Bitcoin vs CBDCs Check out the HRF's CBDC Tracker: https://bit.ly/3WtFb3g Follow Ron and Nick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RonSteslow https://x.com/EconWithNick Email your questions to podcast@politicology.com or leave us a voicemail at ‪(202) 455-4558‬  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Negar Mortazavi joins a panel discussion on US-Iran nuclear talks, the dynamics in Tehran and Washington, and the role of Israel and Arab states. The panel was hosted at Cato Institute in Washington with Jon Hoffman, Greg Brew and Danny Citrinowicz. (Episode 132)

Join us on Madison's Notes as we sit down with George Selgin, senior fellow and director emeritus of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia. In this insightful conversation, Selgin unpacks the myths and realities of FDR's New Deal through the lens of his book, False […]

The Father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, joins us to explore the complex world of international trade and its impact on investors.  Key insights include: Challenging conventional wisdom about trade policies Understanding economic forces that drive investment opportunities Gaining expert perspective on global economic trends Stockman provides a candid analysis of current trade strategies, revealing: The true drivers of economic competitiveness Potential pitfalls of protectionist approaches Critical insights for strategic investors The episode cuts through political noise to offer clear, actionable economic intelligence for informed decision-making. Smart investors look beyond headlines to understand the deeper economic forces shaping their financial future. Resources: Check out David Stockman's Contra Corner Newsletter Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/553 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, I sit down with a long time White House occupant who was the official economic advisor to an ex president. We get the real deal on tariffs and what they mean to you. Trump gets called out and the ominous sign about what's coming six months from now, today on, Get Rich Education.   Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being the flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com   Corey Coates  1:14   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:30   Welcome to GRE from Brookline, Massachusetts to Brooklyn, New York and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are listening to get rich education, just another shaved mammal behind this microphone here. I recently spent some time with the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, in New York City, and sometimes an issue so critical surfaces that real estate investors need to step back and understand a broader force in the economy. Three weeks ago, here, I told you how the second and third way, real estate pays you. Cash flow and ROA are sourced by your tenants employment and the future of your tenants employment is influenced by tariffs and other policies of this presidential administration. This is going to affect rates of inflation and a whole lot of things. Now, an organization called the American Dialect Society, they actually name their word of the year, and this year, it is shaping up to be that word, tariff. In fact, Trump has described that word as the most beautiful word in the dictionary. And I think we all know by now that a tariff is an import tax that gets passed along to consumers when it comes to materials used in real estate construction that's going to affect future real estate prices. Well, several key ones so far were exempted from recent reciprocal tariffs, including steel, aluminum, lumber and copper exempted. Not everything was exempted, but those items and some others were but who knows if even they are going to stay that way. And now, when it comes to this topic. I think a lot of people want to make immediate overreactions in even posture like they're an expert in become an armchair economist, and I guess we all do a little of that, me included. But rather than being first on this and overreacting, let's let the policy which Trump called Liberation Day last month when he announced all these new tariffs. Let's let policy simmer a little and then bring in an expert that really knows what this means to the economy and real estate. So that's why I wanted to set up this discussion for your benefit with the father of Reaganomics and I today. In fact, what did Reagan himself say about tarrifs back in 1987 this is part of a clip that's gained new life this year. It's about a minute and a half.    Speaker 1  4:13   Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing, and today, many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery. You see at first when someone says, Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs, and sometimes for a short while at work. Price, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is first, home grown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition, so soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens, markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.    Keith Weinhold  5:50   Now, from what I can tell you as a listener in the GRE audience, maybe you're split on what you think about tariffs. In fact, we ran an Instagram poll. It asks, generally speaking, tariffs are good or bad? Simply that 40% of you said good, 60% bad. Over on LinkedIn, it was different. 52% said they're good, 48% bad. So it's nearly half and half. And rather than me taking a side here, I like to bring up points that support both sides, and then let our distinguished guests talk, since he's the expert. For example, if a foreign nation wants to access the world's largest economy, the United States, does it make sense for them to pay a fee? I mean, it works that way in a lot of places, when you want to list a product on eBay or Amazon, you pay them a fee. You pay a percentage of the list price in order to get access to a ready marketplace of qualified buyers. All right. Well, that's one side, but then the other side is, come on, let's look at history. Where have tariffs ever worked like Where have they ever been a resounding, long term success? Do they have any history of a sustained, good track record? I generally like free trade. Then let's understand there's something even worse than a steep tariff. There are quotas which are imposed, import limits, trade limits, and then there are even all out import bans. What do terrorists mean to the economy that you are going to live in and that your tenants live in? It's the father of Reaganomics, and I on that straight ahead on Get Rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold.   you know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back, no weird lock ups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text, family to 66866, to learn about freedom, family investments, liquidity fund, again. Text family to 6686   Hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind at Ridge lendinggroup.com, that's ridgelendinggroup.com.    Hey   Robert Helms  9:28   Hey everybody. It's Robert Helms of the real estate guys radio program. So glad you found Keith Weinhold in get rich education. Don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  9:48   when it comes to White House economic policy like tariffs, taxes and inflation, don't you wish you could talk to someone that's often been inside the White House. Today, we are even better. He was the official advisor to an ex president on economic affairs, a Wall Street and Washington insider and Harvard grad. Today's guest is also a former two time congressman from Michigan. He's a prolific author, and he is none other than the man known as the father of Reaganomics. He was indeed President Ronald Reagan's budget advisor. He was first with us last year, but so much has happened since. So welcome back to the show. David Stockman,    David Stockman  10:26   very good to be with you, and you're certainly right about that. I think we're really in uncharted waters. Who could have predicted where we are today, and therefore it's very hard to know where we're heading, but you have to try to peer through the fog and all the uncertainty and the noise and the, you know, day to day ups and downs that's coming from this White House in a way that we've never seen before. And I started on Capitol Hill in 1970 so I've been watching this, you know, for more than a half century, actually, quite a while. And man, it's important to go through all this, but it's sort of uncharted waters.    Keith Weinhold  11:04   Sure, it's sort of like you wake up every day and all you do know is that you don't know. And David, when it comes to tariffs, I want to give you my idea, and then I want to ask you about what the tariff objective even is. Now, to be sure, no one is asking me how to advise the President. I'm an international real estate investor, but I do most of my business in the US, and I sure don't have international trade policy experience. It seems better to me, David, that rather than shocking the world with new tariffs that kick in right away, it would have been better to announce that tariffs begin in, say, 90 days, and then give nations space to negotiate before they kick in. That's my prevailing idea. My question to you is, what's the real objective here? What are terrorists proposed to do? Raise revenue, onshore companies merely a negotiation tactic? Is the objective? Something else?    David Stockman  12:00   Well, it might be all of the above, but I think it's important to start with a predicate, and that is that the problem is not high tariffs abroad or cheating by foreign competitors or exporters. There is a huge problem of a chronic trade deficit that is not benign, that does reflect a tremendous offshoring of our industrial economy, the loss of good, high paying industrial and manufacturing jobs. So the issue is an important one to address, but I have to say, very clearly, Trump is 100% wrong when he attempts to address it with tariffs, because foreign tariffs aren't the problem. Let me just give a couple of pieces of data on this, and I've been doing a lot of research on this. If you take the top 51 exporters to the United States, our top 51 trade partners, and this is Mexico and Canada and the entire EU and it's all the big far eastern China, Japan, South Korea, India, you know, all the rest of them. If you look at the and that's 90% of our trade, we have 2.9 trillion of imports coming in from all of those countries, and the tariff that we Levy, this is the United States, on those imports, is not high. It's higher than it was in the past, mainly because of what Trump did in the first term, but it's 3.9% now compared to bad times historically, decades and decades ago. That's relatively low. But here's the key point, if we look at the same 51 trading partners in terms of the tariffs they levy on our exports to China and to the EU and to Canada and Mexico and South Korea and all the rest of them. The tariff average, weighted average that they levy is 2.1% so let me restate that the average US tariff is about twice as high 4% around things as what our partners imposed 2% now the larger point is whether it's 4% or 2% doesn't make a better difference. That's not a problem when it comes to 33 trillion of world trade of which we are, you know, the United States engages in about five and a half trillion of that on a two way basis, import, export, in the nexus of a massive global trading system. So he's off base. He's wrong. The target is not high tariffs or unfair foreign trade. Now there are some people who say, Well, you're looking at monetary tariffs. So in other words, the import duty they levy on, you know, exports to South Korea or India or someplace like that, right? And that, the real issue, supposedly, is non tariff barriers. For instance, you know, some governments require you that all procurement by government agencies has to be sourced from a domestic supplier, which automatically shuts out us suppliers who might want that business. Well, the problem is we're the biggest violator of the non tariff barrier in that area. In other words, we have something like $900 billion worth of state, federal and local procurement that's under Buy America policies, which means EU, Mexico, Canada, China, none of them can compete. Now I mention that only as one example, because it's the kind of classic non tariff barrier, as opposed to import duty that some people point to, or they point to the fact that while foreign countries allegedly manipulate their currency, but you know the answer to that is that number one, overwhelming, no doubt about it, largest currency manipulator in the world, is the Federal Reserve. Okay, so it's kind of hard to say that there's a unfair trade problem in the world because of currency manipulation. And then there is, you know, an argument. Well, foreign governments subsidize their exporters. They subsidize their industrial companies, and therefore they can sell things cheaper. And therefore that's another example of unfair trade, but the biggest subsidizer of tech industry, and of a lot of other basic industry in the United States is is the Defense Department. You know, we have a trillion dollar defense budget, and we put massive amounts of dollars in, not only to buying, you know, hardware and weapons and so forth, but huge amounts of R and D that go into developing cutting edge technologies that have a lot of civilian applications that, in fact, we see all over the world. That's why we're doing this broadcast right now. The point is that problem is not high tariffs because they're only low tariffs. The problem is not unfair trade, because there's all kinds of minor little interferences with pure free markets, but both, everybody violates those one way or another due to domestic politics. But it's not a big deal. It doesn't make that big a difference. So therefore, why do we have a trillion dollar trade deficit in the most recent year, and a trade deficit of that magnitude that's been pretty continuous since the 1970s the answer is three or four blocks from the White House, not 10,000 miles away in Beijing or Tokyo. The answer is the Federal Reserve has in the ELLs building there in DC, not far from the White House. Yes, yes, right there, okay, the Eccles building the Fed has a huge, persistent pro inflation bias, sure. And as a result of that, it is pushed the wage levels and the price levels and the cost levels of the US economy steadily higher, and therefore we've become less and less competitive with practically everybody, but certainly a lower wage countries nearby, like Mexico or China, far away. And you know, there's, it's not that simple of just labor costs and wages, because, after all, if you source from China, you've got to ship things 10,000 miles. You've got supply chain management issues, you've got quality control issues, you've got timeliness issues. You have inventory carry costs, because there's a huge pipeline, and of course, you have the actual freight cost of bringing all those containers over. But nevertheless, when you factor all that in, our trade problem is our costs are too high, and that is a function of the pro inflation policies of the Fed. Give one example. Go back just to the period when the economy was beginning to recover, right after the great recession. And you know the crisis of 208209 and I started 210 unit labor costs in manufacturing in the United States. Just from 210 that's only 15 years, are up 55% that's unit labor costs. In other words, if you take wage costs and you subtract productivity growth in that 15 year period, the net wage costs less productivity growth, which is what economists call unit labor costs, are up 53% and as a result of that, we started, you know, maybe with a $15 wage difference between the United States and.China back in the late 1990s that wage gap today is $30 in other words, the fully loaded way at cost of average wages in the United States. And I'm talking about not just the pay envelope, but also the payroll taxes, the you know, charge for pension expense, health care and so forth. The whole fully loaded cost to an employer is about $40 an hour, and it's about $10 in the United States and it's about $10 an hour in China. Now that's the reason why we have a huge trade deficit with China, because of the massive cost difference, and it's not because anybody's cheating. Is because the Fed, in its wisdom, decided, well, you know, everybody will be okay. We're going to inflate the economy at 2% a year. That's their target. It's not like, well, we're trying to get low inflation or zero inflation, but we're not quite making it. No, they're proactive. Answer is, we've got to have 2% or the economy is not going to work. Well, well, 2% sounds well, that's a trivial little number. However, when you do it year after year, decade after decade, for a long period of time, and the other side is not inflating at the same rate, then in dollar terms, you have a problem, and that's where we are today. So this is important to understand, because it means the heart of the whole Trump economic policy, which is trying to bring manufacturing home, trying to bring industry back to the United States, a laudable objective is based on a false diagnosis of why this happened, and it is unleashed ball in the china shop, disruption of global economic flows in relationships that are going to cause unmitigated problems, even disaster in the US economy. Because it's too subtle, when you think about it, the world trade system just goods. Now, we've not even talking about services yet, or capital flows or financing on a short term basis. The World Trade in goods, merchandise, goods only is now 33 trillion. That is a hell of a lot of activity of parts and pieces and raw materials and finished products flowing in. You know, impossible to imagine directions back and forth between dozens and dozens of major economies and hundreds overall. And when you start, you step into that, not with a tiny little increase in the tariff. To give somebody a message. You know, if our tariffs are averaging 4% that's what I gave you a little while ago. And you raise tariffs to 20% maybe that's a message. But Trump didn't do that. He raised the tariff on China to 145% in other words, let's just take one example of a practical product, almost all the small appliances that you can find in Target or even a higher end retail stores United States or on Amazon are sourced in China because of this cost differential. I've been talking about this huge wage differential. So over the last 20, 25, years, little it went there now 80% of all small appliances are now sourced in China, and one, you know, good example would be a microwave oven, and a standard one with not a lot of fancy bells and whistles, is $100 now, when you put 145% tariff on the $100 landed microwave oven is now $245 someone's going to say, Gee, are we going to be able to sell microwaves at $245 they're not certain. I'm talking about a US importer. I'm talking about someone who sells microwaves on Amazon, for instance, or the buyers at Walmart or Target, or the rest of them, they're going to say, wait a minute, maybe we ought to hold off our orders until we see how this is going to shake out. And Trump says he's going to be negotiating, which is another whole issue that we'll get into. It's a lot of baloney. He has no idea what he's doing. Let's just face the facts about this. So if orders are suddenly cut back, and the flow that goes on day in and day out across the Pacific into the big ports in Long Beach in Los Angeles is suddenly disrupted, not in a small way, but in a big way, by 20, 30, 40, 50% six or seven months down the road, we're going to have empty shelves. We're going to have empty warehouses. We're going to have sellers who suddenly realize there's such a scarcity of products that have been hit by this blunderbuss of tariffs that we can double our price and get away with it.   Keith Weinhold  25:00   Okay, sure. I mean, ports are designed. Ports are set up for stadium flows, not for surges, and then walls and activity. That just really doesn't work.   David Stockman  25:08   And let me just get in that, because you're on a good point. In other words, there is a complicated supply line, supply chain, where, you know, stuff is handed off, one hand to another, ports in China, shipping companies, ports here, rail distribution systems, regional warehouses of you know, people like Walmart and so forth, that whole supply chain is going to be hit with a shock. Everything is going to be uncertain in terms of the formulas that everybody uses right now, you know that you sell 100 units a week, so you got to replace them at the sales rate, and you put your orders in, and know that it takes six weeks to get here, and all this other stuff, all of the common knowledge that's in the supply chain that makes it work, and the handoffs smooth and efficient From one player in the supply chain to the next, it's all going to be disrupted. But the one thing we're going to have is we're going to have shortages, we're going to have empty shelves, and we're going to have price which I'm sure that Trump is not going to start saying price gouging of a you know, right? But that's not price gouging. If you have a you know, go to Florida. We have a hurricane. Where we live in Florida and New York, we have a hurricane. All of a sudden the shelves are empty and there's no goods around, because everybody's been stocking up getting ready for the storm. And then all of a sudden, the politicians are yelling that somebody's price gouging, because they raised their prices in a market that was in disequilibrium. Well, that's not price gouging. That's supply and demand trying to find a new balance basic economics. You know, when the demand is 100 and the supply is 35 okay, but I'm kind of getting ahead here, but I think there's very good likelihood that there's going to be a human cry right before, you know, maybe in the fall or right before Christmas, about price gouging and Trump then saying, Well, I was elected to bring prices down and bring inflation under control. It's out of control because all of these foreigners raised their prices. And no, they did, and it was the tariff that did it, and all the people in the supply chain are trying to take advantage of the temporary disruptions. So I think people have to understand, and I can't say this, and I don't like to say it, because I certainly didn't think the other candidate in the last election had anything to offer in terms of dealing with our serious economic problems in this country. I'm talking about Harris. But the fact is, Donald Trump has had a wrong idea for the last 40 to 50 years of his adult life. In that core idea is that trade deficits are a sign of the other side cheating. They're a sign that you're being exploited or taken advantage of or ripped off, or it's not at all okay. Trade deficits are a consequence of cost differences between different jurisdictions, and to the extent that we've artificially, unnecessarily inflated our costs. We need to fix the problem at the source. He ought to clean house at the Federal Reserve. But the problem is, Trump wants lower interest rates when, in fact, the low interest rates created all the inflation that led to our loss of competitiveness and the huge trade deficits we have today. So to summarize, it is important to understand, do not have faith in Trump's promise that we're going to have a golden age of economic prosperity. We are going to have a economic disaster, and it's a unforced error. It's self inflicted, and it's the result of the wrong fundamental idea of one guy who's in the oval office right now throwing his considerable weight around and pushing the economy into upheaval that really is totally unnecessary. He should have done what he was elected to do, and Matt's work on getting production up and costs down, that's not going to be solved with tariffs. David, I have another important point to bring up. But before we do just quickly, are those two to 4% tariffs you mentioned earlier. Those are the tariff levels pre Trump second term correct.    We could clarify that those are for the year 2023 that was the latest full year data that we have with great deal of granularity.    Keith Weinhold  29:56   The point I want to bring up is there any history? That tariffs actually work. Some people cite the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act from the 1930s and that it drove us deeper into the Great Depression. And David, on the one hand, when we think about, do tariffs actually work? If Indonesia can make shoes for us for $11 why would we want to onshore an activity like that? That is a good deal for us. And then, on the other hand, you have someone like Nvidia, the world's leading semiconductor company, they announced plans to produce some of their AI supercomputers entirely on American soil for the first time recently. And you have some other companies that have made similar announcements. So that's a small shred of evidence that tariffs could work. But my question is, historically, do tariffs actually work?    David Stockman  30:44   That's a great question, and there's a huge history. And you can go back all the way the 19th century, where Donald Trump seems to be preoccupied, but what he fails to recognize is that they worked in the 19th century because they were revenue tariffs. It wasn't an effort to, like, bring jobs back to America. We were booming at the time. Jobs were coming to America, not leaving, and it was the federal government's main source of revenue. Because, as you know, prior to 1913 there was no income tax, right? So that was one thing. Okay, then when we got into the 20th century and host World War Two, it became obvious to people that the whole idea of comparative advantage, going all the way back to Adam Smith, and that enhanced a global trade where people could specialize in whatever their more competitive advantage is, was a Good thing. And so we had round after round of negotiations after World War Two that reduced tariff levels steadily, year by year, decade by decade. So by the time we got to the 1990s when China, then, you know, arose from the disaster of Mao and Mr. Dang took over and created all the export factories and said, It's glorious to be rich and all these things is we got red capitalism. But if we start in the 1990s the average tariff worldwide, now this is weighted average on all goods that are bought and sold or imported and exported, was about 9% and there were have been various free trade deals done since then. For instance, we had NAFTA, and the tariffs on Mexico and Canada and the United States went to zero. We had a free trade deal in 212 with South Korea. This never comes up, but the tariff on South Korean goods coming the US is zero. The tariff on us, exports going to South Korea is zero because we have a free trade agreement, and it's worked out pretty well with South Korea. Now we're not the only ones doing this. Countries all over the world. The EU is a total free trade zone in economy almost as big as the United States that used to have tariff levels between countries. Now it's one big free trade zone. So if you take the entire world economy, that 9% weighted average tariff of the early 90s, which was down from maybe 2025, 30, pre World War Two in this Smoot Hawley era, was down to 2.25% by the time that Donald Trump took office, the first time around in 2017 now 2.25% is really a rounding error. It's hardly when you have $33 trillion worth of goods moving around, you know, container ships and bulk carriers and so forth all around the world, and air freight and the rest of it, rail. 2% tariff is not any kind of big deal, as I say in some of the things I write, it's not a hill of beans. So somehow, though 45 years ago, Trump got the idea that tariffs were causing a problem and that we had trade deficits, not because our costs were going up owing to bad monetary policy, but because the other guy was cheating. Remember, this is Trump's whole view of the world. It's a zero sum game. I win, you lose, and if I'm not winning, is because you're cheating. Okay? In other words, I'm inherently going to win. America's inherently going to win unless the other guy is cheating. Now, Trump sees the world the same way that I think he looked at electrical and plumbing contractors in the Bronx, you know, in the 1980s and 1990s when he was developing his various Real Estate projects. These are pretty rough and tumble guys. It's a wild, easy way to make a living. So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of pretty rough baseball that's played that mentality that the other guy is always trying to screw me, the other guy's always cheating, the other guy's preventing me from winning, is, is his basic mentality. And it's not Applicable. It's not useful at all to try to understand the global economy. Try to understand why America's $29 trillion economy is not chugging along as strongly and as productively as it should be, why real wages are not making the gains that workers should be experiencing and so forth. So he ought to get out of this whole trade, tariff trade war thing, which he started, I don't know how he does, it's a little late, and focus on the problems on the home front. In other words, our trade problem has been caused by too much spending, too much borrowing, too much money printing on the banks of the Potomac. It's not basically caused in Beijing or Tokyo or Seoul or even Brussels, the European Union. And we need to get back to the basic and the real culprit, which is the Federal Reserve and its current chairman, Paul, if he wants to attack somebody, go after the Fed. Go after Paul. But ought to give them a mandate to bring inflation to zero and to stop fooling around with everything else and to stop monetizing the public debt that is buying government debt, take care of your own backyard first before you start taking, yeah, sure, yeah, exactly. You know, I've been in this for a long time. I start, as I said, I started on Capitol Hill. There have been a lot of protectionist politicians, but they always argued free trade is good, but it has to be fair trade. And you know, we have this example in our steel industry, for instance, where we producers abroad are competing unfairly for one reason or another. But the point I'm getting to is they always said this is an exceptional case. Normally we would go for free trade, but we got to have protection here. We got to have a temporary quota. Even when I was in the Reagan administration, we had a big argument about voluntary quotas on Japanese car exports, and I was totally against it. I thought the US industry needed to get its act together, get its costs down. Needed to get the UAW under control, because it had pushed wages, you know, way, way, way too high terms of total cost. But they argued, yeah, well, you're right, but we have to have 10 years in order to allow things to be improved and adjusted and catch up. So this is only temporary. This is just this. Yes, this is protectionism, but it's temporary. It's expedient that we can avoid and so therefore we'll make an exception. But there is no one, and most of these people were, you know, in the payroll of the unions, or they were congressmen from south to South Carolina going to bad for the textile industry, or congressman from Ohio going to bat for the steel industry, whatever, but there was no one who ever came along and said tariffs are big, beautiful things, and we need to have permanent high tariffs, because that's the way we're going to get prosperity back in United States. It's a dumb idea. It's wrong. It's disproven by history and people. Even though Trump has done a lot of things that I like you know, he's got rid of dei he's got rid of all of this green energy, climate crisis nonsense, all of that that he's done is to the good when you come to this basic question, how do we get prosperity in America? The answer is, through free market capitalism, by getting the government out of the way, by balancing the budget and by telling the Fed not to, you know, inflate the economy to the disadvantage that it has today. That's how you get there. And Trump is not a real Republican. Trump is basically what I call a status. He's for big government, right wing status. Okay, there's left wing, Marxist status, then there's right wing status. But you know, all of this tariff business is going to create so much corruption that it's almost impossible to imagine, because every day there's someone down there, right now, I can guarantee it at the, you know, treasury department or at Commerce department saying, but we got special circumstances here in terms of the parts that we're making for aircraft that get assembled in South Korea or something, and we need special relief. Yes, every industry you're doing is putting in for everybody's going to be there the lobby. This is the greatest dream that the Washington lobbyist community ever had. Trump is literally saying he put this reciprocal tariff. You saw the whole schedule. That he had on that easel in the White House on April 2, immigration day. It was called Liberation Day. I called it Demolition Derby Day. There was a reciprocal tariff for every single country in the world based on a phony formula that said, if we have $100 million deficit with somebody, half of that was caused by cheating. So we're going to put a tariff in place closes half of the difference. I mean, just nonsense, Schoolboy idiocy. Now it is. I mean, I know everybody said, Oh, isn't it great? We've finally got rid of the bad guys, Biden, he's terrible, and the Democrats, I agree with all that, but we replaced one set of numb skulls with another set. Unfortunately, Republicans know better, but they're so intimidated, apparently buffaloed by Trump at the moment, that they're going along with this. But they know you don't put 145%tariff on anything. I mean, it's just nuts. David, I feel like you're telling us what you really think and absolutely love that.    Keith Weinhold  41:04   Interestingly, there is a Ronald Reagan clip about tariffs out there in a speech that he gave from Camp David, and it's something that's really had new life lately. In fact, we played the audio of that clip before you came onto the show today, Reagan said that he didn't like tariffs and that they hurt every American worker and consumer as Reagan's economic advisor in the White House. Did you advise him on that?    David Stockman  41:27   Yes, I did. And also I can give you a little anecdote that I think people will find interesting. Yeah, the one time that he deviated in a big way from his free trade commitments was when he put the voluntary export quota on the Japanese auto industry. That was big. I don't remember the exact number, but I think it said they couldn't export more than 1.2 million cars a year, or something like that the United States. And the number was supposed to adjust over time, but we had huge debates in the Cabinet Room about those things, and at the end of the day, here's what he said. He said, You know, I've always been for open trade, free trade. I've always felt it has to be fair trade. But, you know, in this case, the Japanese industry came to us and asked for voluntary quotas, so I didn't put up a trade barrier. I'm only accommodating their request. Well, the Japanese did come to him and ask. They did, but only when they were put up to it by the protectionists in the Reagan administration who, on this took them on the side, you know, their negotiators and maybe their foreign minister. I can't remember exactly who commerce secretary and said, If you don't ask for voluntary quotas, we're going to unleash Capitol Hill and you're going to get a real nasty wall put up against your car. So what will it be? Do you want to front for voluntary quotas? Are we going to unleash Congress? So they came to Reagan and said they were the Japanese industry said they're recommending that he impose voluntary restraints on auto exports. That was just a ruse. He wasn't naive, but he believed what you told him. He believed that everybody was honest like he was, and so he didn't understand that the Japanese industry that was brought to meet with him in the Oval Office had been put up to, it been threatened with, you know, something far worse, mandatory quote is imposed by Congress. But anyway, it's a little anecdote. What happened? On the other hand, he continued to articulate the case for small government sound money. We had deficit problems, but he always wanted a balanced budget. It was just hard to get there politically. And he believed that capitalism produces prosperity if you let capitalism work and keep the government out of the marketplace. And there is no bigger form of intervention and meddling and disruption in the capitalist system, in the free market, in the marketplace, than quotas on every product in every country at different levels. They're going to have 150 different countries negotiating bilaterally deals with the United States. That's the first thing that's ridiculous. They can't happen. The second thing is they're going to come up with deals that don't amount to a hill of beans, but they'll say, we have a deal. The White House will claim victory. Let me just give one example. As we know, one of the big things that Trump did in the first administration was he renegotiated NAFTA. And NAFTA was the free trade agreement between Mexico, Canada, United States. Before he started in 2017 the trade deficit of the US with Mexico and Canada combined with 65 billion. And he said, That's too big, and we got to fix NAFTA. We have got to rebalance the provisions so that the US comes out, not on the short end of the stick 65 billion. So they negotiated for about a year and a half, they announced a new deal, which he then renamed the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement, usmca, and, you know, made a big noise about it, but it was the same deal with the new name. They didn't change more than 2% of the underlying machinery and structure, semantics. Well now, so now we fast forward to 2024 so the usmca Trump's pride and joy, his the kind of deal that he says he's going to seek with every country in the world is now four years into effect. And what is the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico today, it's 230 5 billion okay? It's four times higher now than it was then when he put it in place. Why? Because we have a huge trade deficit with Mexico. Why because, you know, average wages there are less than $10 an hour, and they're $40 an hour here. That's why it has nothing to do with a bad trade deal. It has to do with cost differences.    Keith Weinhold  46:27   David, this has been great, and as we're winding down here, we have a lot of real estate investor listeners tell us what this administration's overall policies, not just tariffs, but overall policies, mean for future employment, and then tell us about your highly regarded contra corner newsletter.    David Stockman  46:45   Well, those are that's a big question. I think it doesn't mean good, because if they were really trying to get America back on track our economy, they would be fighting inflation tooth and nail to get it down to zero. They would be working day and night to implement what Musk came up with in the doge that is big spending cuts and balancing the budget. They're not doing that. They're letting all these announcements being made, but they're not actually cutting any spending. They would not be attempting to impose this huge apparatus of tariffs on the US economy, but they're not doing that. So I'm not confident we were going in the wrong direction under Biden, for sure, and we're going in an even worse direction right now under Trump. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I put out a daily newsletter called David stockman's Country corner. You can yes signers on the internet, but this is what we write about every day, and I say A plague on both their houses, the Democrats, the Republicans. They're all, in many ways, just trying to justify government meddling, government spending, government borrowing, government money printing, when we would do a lot better if we went in the opposite direction, sound money, balanced budgets, free markets and so forth, so. And in the process, I'm not partisan. You know, I was a Republican congressman. I was a budget director of the Reagan administration. I have been more on the Republican side, obviously, over my career than the Democrats, but now I realize that both parties are part of the problem, and I call it the uni party when push comes to shove, the uni party has basically been for a lot of wars abroad and a lot of debt at home, and a lot of meddling in the economy That was unnecessary. So if you look at what I write every day, it tries to help people see through the pretenses and the errors of the unit party, Democrats and Republicans. And in the present time, I have to focus on Trump, because Trump is making all the noise.    Keith Weinhold  48:59   100% Yes, it sure has kept life and the news cycle exciting, whether someone likes that news or not. Well, David, this has been great. In fact, it sounds a lot like what Reagan might have told me, perhaps because you were a chief economic informant for him, smaller government, letting the free trade flow and lower inflation. Be sure to check out David stockman's contra corner newsletter if you like what we've been talking about today, just like it was last year, David, it's been a real pleasure having you on GRE today.    David Stockman  49:30   Well, thank you very much. And these are important issues, and we've got to stay on top of them.   Keith Weinhold  49:41   Oh, yeah. Well, David Stockman truly no mincing words. He doesn't like tariffs. In summary, telling GRE listeners that the problem with trade imbalances is inflation attack that instead quell inflation, don't impose tariffs. A lot of developing nations and China have distinct advantages over manufacturing in the United States, besides having the trained labor and all the factories and systems in place, think about how many of these nations have built in lower costs they don't have to deal with these regulatory agencies, no EPA, no OSHA, and not even a minimum wage law to have to comply with. And here in the US get this, 80% of American workers agree that the US would benefit from more manufacturing jobs, but almost 75% disagree that they would personally be better off working in a factory themselves. That's according to a joint Cato Institute in YouGov survey. It's sort of like how last century, Americans lamented the demise of the family farm, yeah, but yet, they sure didn't want to work on a farm themselves. Now there are some types of manufacturing, like perhaps pharmaceuticals or computer chips that could likely be onshore, because those items are high value items. Their value can exceed the cost of being produced in the USA, but a lot of these factory goods, not again. If these topics interest you do a search for David stockman's contra corner, or you can directly visit David stockman's contra corner.com. Big thanks to the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman on the show this week. As for next week, we're back more toward the center of real estate investing. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Y   Unknown Speaker  51:42   nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC   Keith Weinhold  52:02   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers, it's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long. My letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called The Don't quit your Daydream. Letter, it wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text GRE to 66866   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.  

Tax season is here, and so is the debate about what you owe and why. Cato Institute's Adam Michel joins us to break down the policies behind your tax return—from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to what's at stake if key provisions expire in 2025. We cover how the law affected everyday Americans, why claims about corporations and the rich not paying their “fair share” fall apart, and what an ideal tax system could actually look like.   Adam Michel is the Director of Tax Policy Studies at Cato Institute. Read his updates on tax and fiscal policies at https://adamnmichel.substack.com/ and follow him on X at @adamnmichel.