Steve Chapman and George Will are more optimistic than are Nick Gillespie and Sheldon Richman about the SCOTUS’s Obamacare ruling. Despite a private e-mail sent to me by the great and wise Henry Manne – an e-mail that, as Chapman and Will do in their columns, finds in the ruling increased hope for severing some of the overgrown tentacles of unconstitutional government – my instincts powerfully suggest to me that Nick’s and Sheldon’s pessimism is the more realistic reaction.
Bryan Caplan identifies a major reason for why such pessimism is justified. Speaking of which…
… in today’s Wall Street Journal, Michael Boskin recommends that Pres. Obama read The Wealth of Nations. It’d be nice if Mr. Obama did so, but let’s face facts squarely: nothing in that great book will help Mr. Obama win re-election – and winning re-election is his top and trumping priority.
Here’s yet more evidence why pessimism is justified: the (hardly surprising, alas) fact – as Cato’s Tad DeHaven documents here – that many GOP members of Congress who not long ago proclaimed tea to be their preferred drink have switched to Beltway Kool-Aid.
Also in today’s Wall Street Journal, Doug Irwin warns of the menace of protectionism monopoly privileges for the few, paid for by the many, and supported not only by the relatively few privileged monopolists but also by the economically clueless and excessively clever.
My colleague over in the GMU School of Law Todd Zywicki discussed, on the Bob Zadek Show, repealing the 17th amendment. Here’s the podcast.
FEE In Brief today published a link to my December 1997 article “The Benefits of Immigration.” My vanity demands that I share it with you.
