Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842 0200
Fax (202) 842 3490
 Contact Us
Support Cato

Cato Policy Report, March/April 1996

Recent Cato Events

December 11: Julian L. Simon, professor of business administration at the University of Maryland, gave a Capitol Hill Briefing on his new study, "Immigration: The Demographic and Economic Facts." Simon pointed out that immigrants do not increase the unemployment rate for native-born Americans; total per capita government expenditures on immigrants are much lower than on native-born Americans; and educational levels of immigrants have been increasing. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, Cato's chairman William A. Niskanen, and Richard Vedder of Washington University's Center for the Study of American Business commented.

 

January 5: At a Cato Policy Forum entitled "Who Won the Battle of the Budget?" pollster William McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies presented evidence that the public still supports the Republicans despite attacks on what the congressional majority wants to do with the budget. Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal argued that the Republicans in Congress are trying to do too much in the first year and ignoring the advice of gradualists such as William Kristol, publisher of the Weekly Standard. Edward Gillespie, director of communications for the Republican National Committee, maintained that the GOP will be able to make a credible case to the public that President Clinton was the impediment to a balanced budget. Cato fiscal policy studies director Stephen Moore, however, criticized the Republicans for surrendering to big government, noting that the Republican plan would still spend $12.2 trillion over the next seven years.

 

January 11: At a Cato News Conference at the National Press Club, natural resource economist and Cato adjunct scholar Julian Simon unveiled his new book, The State of Humanity, a collection of studies by more than 50 scientists and economists showing that the overall trends in human well-being are universally positive.

 

January 11: At a Roundtable Luncheon, James D. Gwartney, professor of economics at Florida State University, discussed Economic Freedom of the World: 1975-1995, a new book that he wrote with Robert A. Lawson and Walter E. Block, that provides a country-by-county comparison of economic liberty. The book was published by Cato and market-liberal institutes 10 other countries. Gwartney noted that the United States places fourth on the book's index of economic freedom.

 

January 17: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) spoke at a Policy Forum entitled "An American Renaissance of Growth, Freedom, and Opportunity." Gramm called for a 16 percent flat-rate income tax, indexing of capital gains, repeal of the estate and gift taxes, and a free-trade zone throughout the Americas. He also called for a balanced budget by 2000 and a one-year moratorium on new regulations.

 

January 18: Former senator Malcolm Wallop, chairman of the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation, gave a Capitol Hill Policy Forum entitled "Dial 1-800-BIG BROTHER? The Proposed Computer System to Fight Illegal Immigration." Wallop discussed pending congressional legislation that would require employers to check all hiring decisions through a new government-operated computer system that contains fingerprints, retinal scans, or other biometric data. Supporters say that such measures are necessary to fight illegal immigration, but Wallop argued that they seriously undermine individual liberty and illegimately extend the powers of the federal government.

 

January 23: At a Policy Forum entitled "Missing Files . . . Jumbled Records in Out-of-the-Way Places . . . Evidence of a Coverup, But It's Not What You Think," the IRS's former historian, Shelley Davis, shared with the audience her own experiences with the service. Davis described how her examination of the IRS's administrative records revealed that the service exempted itself from congressionally mandated record-keeping protocol. Her discovery caused her to become the subject of an IRS investigation and led to her resignation.

 

January 25 and 26: At City Seminars in Naples and Orlando, Florida, Walter Williams, syndicated columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University, joined Cato president Ed Crane and policy directors Stephen Moore and Roger Pilon in discussing how to place limits on Washington's power.

 

February 6: At a Book Forum celebrating publication of Clint Bolick's new Cato book, The Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision? the author told the audience that although civil rights originally meant the basic and equal rights of all citizens, it has come to mean instead a federally decreed entitlement to racial and other preferences. He called for an end to all government discrimination.

 

February 22-25: Ninety-five of Cato's Benefactors gathered at the Cato Benefactor Summit in Puerto Rico for a break from cold winter weather and to share ideas and strategies. Featured speakers included TCI cable mogul John Malone and Louis Rossetto, editor of Wired magazine. In addition, many of Cato's distinguished policy specialists briefed everyone on the progress of their work and on the latest cutting-edge policy research in such areas as Social Security.

 

February 27: A Book Forum featured Steven Milloy, director of the National Environmental Policy Institute, and Jonathan Samet, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. Milloy discussed his new book, Science without Sense: The Risky Business of Public Health Research, a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual that details "everything you need to know about how to create a risk that will electrify the public, launch you into the pantheon of public health, and land those big fat research grants from the federal government." The book provides a biting critique of the misapplications of techniques and results of epidemiology, statistics, and toxicology. Samet responded to Milloy's description of the misuse of epidemiology and related disciplines and offered a spirited defense of science properly understood and used.

This article originally appeared in the March/April 1996 edition of Cato Policy Report.