The New Starts program, created by Congress in 1991, “is the federal government’s primary financial resource for supporting locally-planned, implemented, and operated transit ‘guideway’ capital investments.” In a new paper, Cato scholar Randal O’Toole shows that New Starts has effectively given transit agencies incentives to select the costliest, rather than the most cost-effective, alternative to any transit problem, and argues that the program should be abolished.

• “‘Paint Is Cheaper Than Rails’: Why Congress Should Abolish New Starts,” by Randal O’Toole

The Congressional Budget Office has fiscally scored the Senate’s immigration bill, S. 744, and found that it will decrease fiscal deficits over the next 20 years—giving a huge boost to reform proponents. Cato scholar Alex Nowrasteh explains how the CBO’s findings broadly confirm Cato’s research that immigration reform will be economically beneficial to immigrants and the country as a whole.

• “CBO Dynamically Scores Immigration Bill,” by Alex Nowrasteh
• “The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” by Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda
• “Poor Immigrants Use Public Benefits at a Lower Rate than Poor Native-Born Citizens,” by Leighton Ku and Brian Bruen
• More Cato Research on Immigration

The Obama administration reportedly has decided to provide “direct military aid” to Syria’s insurgents, after concluding that Syrian forces were using chemical weapons.  But according to Cato scholar Doug Bandow, this kind of messy conflict is precisely the sort that Washington should avoid. “Americans should have something fundamental at stake before their government calls them to arms,” says Bandow. “No such interest exists in Syria.”

• “Washington Foolishly Tilts Towards War in Syria,” by Doug Bandow
• “The Perils of Intervention in Syria,” by Doug Bandow
• “Erase the Red Line,” by John Mueller

For many, lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s surveillance practices are now on the agenda. But the program’s defenders insist it’s entirely legal — that the Constitution doesn’t even protect the records in question — and they may be right.  Cato scholar Julian Sanchez argues that this means we need to seriously rethink how the Fourth Amendment works in the 21st century. “Simply by using modern technology,” says Sanchez, “Americans have — for the most part unwittingly — abandoned the Fourth Amendment’s protection for a vast and growing portion of their intimate activities.”

• “How Solid Is the NSA’s Legal Footing?,” by Julian Sanchez
• “NSA Snooping: a Majority of Americans Believe What?,” by David Kirby
• “In Its Bubble of Secrecy, the National Security Bureaucracy Redefined Privacy for Its Own Purposes,” by Jim Harper