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Unsurprisingly, President Obama and others have used the recent $2 billion loss by JPMorgan Chase as a call for more regulation. What the president and his allies miss is that recent events at JPMorgan illustrate how the system should — and does — work. Argues Cato scholar Mark A. Calabria, "Just as the Dodd-Frank Act used the cover of a crisis to reward special interests and ignore the actual fault lines in our financial system, President Obama and others are attempting to use JPMorgan's recent losses to cover up and distract from regulatory failings."
Although gasoline taxes have long been the main source of funding for building, maintaining, and operating America's network of highways, roads, and streets, the tax is at best an imperfect user fee. In a new paper, Cato scholar Randal O'Toole proposes an affordable vehicle-mile fee system that preserves traveler privacy, eliminates nearly all traffic congestion, adequately funds all federal, state, and local roads, and does so in a revenue-neutral manner after eliminating gas taxes and local road subsidies.
For decades U.S. housing policy has focused on promoting homeownership. In a new study, author Morris A. Davis shows that the policies designed to further homeownership have been ineffective and expensive and that homeownership as a public policy goal is not well supported. "A back-of-the envelope calculation suggests the present value of the cost of these policies to U.S. taxpayers is a staggering amount: $2.5 trillion," says Davis.
Behind the Case
Details and resources related to the lawsuit brought by David and Charles Koch against the Cato Institute.
Tough Targets
Examines defensive gun use, analyzing eight years of news reports on ordinary citizens defending themselves against criminals.
Cato Journal
"Is Immigration Good For America?" - features articles from experts in the field and covers some of the most controversial aspects of immigration today.
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