Reforming the National Flood Insurance Program: Toward Private Flood Insurance

Authorization for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) expires on September 30, 2017, offering policymakers an opportunity to rethink the scheme and bring forward reforms that would allow a private flood insurance market to develop in its place. In a new paper, Cato scholars Ike Brannon and Ari Blask delve into the NFIP’s history, structure, and current problems, as well as the failures of recent reform efforts. The authors conclude in their analysis that, by all salient criteria, a private market is superior to a government-run flood insurance program.

Withdrawing from Overseas Bases: Why a Forward-Deployed Military Posture Is Unnecessary, Outdated, and Dangerous

The United States maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world—about 800 of them in more than 70 countries. In a new paper, Cato scholar John Glaser argues that this forward-deployed military posture incurs substantial costs and disadvantages, exposing the United States to vulnerabilities and unintended consequences. The strategic justifications for overseas bases—that they deter adversaries, reassure allies, and enable rapid deployment operations—have lost much of their value and relevance in the contemporary security environment.

Cybersecurity or Protectionism? Defusing the Most Volatile Issue in the U.S.–China Relationship

For more than a decade, the United States and China have been engaged in a low-profile trade war that has been conducted in the name of protecting critical economic and national security infrastructure from cyber malfeasance. But in a new paper, Cato scholar Daniel J. Ikenson argues that the trade restrictions and subsidies suggest that the objectives of both governments have less to do with cybersecurity than they do with industrial policy and protectionism.

Cato University: College of History and Philosophy

History is indispensable to understanding and defending liberty under our constitutionally limited, representative government. And at the core of that history is philosophy: the underlying beliefs and values that guided the American Founders in their creating a constitutional order of separated powers, checks and balances, and liberty. Cato University’s College of History and Philosophy in October braids these two powerful subjects together to explore the history of liberty and justice, of wealth and poverty, of individual rights and the rule of law.

Cato Institute 40th Anniversary

Recent Commentary

The Case against U.S. Overseas Military Bases

John Glaser in Foreign Affairs

Rather than defending the security of other states and attempting to stabilize regions of conflict around the world, the United States should encourage allies to carry the burden of their own defense and extricate itself from regional disputes.

Debunking the 100% Renewables Fantasy

Jason Scott Johnston in Real Clear Energy
For the foreseeable future, the 100% renewables goal is yet another piece of progressive environmental rhetoric that in reality means higher costs for consumers and no improvement for the present environment.

Events

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Of Special Note

The Three Languages of Politics

The Three Languages of Politics

First released in 2013, and now available as a newly revised Cato ebook and paperback, Arnold Kling’s The Three Languages of Politics could not be any more timely, as Americans talk past one another in a growing swirl of volume, heat, and disinterest in contrary opinions. An insightful guide on how to lower the barriers coarsening our politics, this isn’t a book about one ideology over another. Instead, it is about how we communicate issues and our ideologies, and how language intended to persuade can too often divide. Kling offers a way to see through our rhetorical blinders so that we can incorporate new perspectives and thinking into the important issues we must together share and resolve.

Special! 10 Copies for $10

Cato Pocket Constitution

To encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents, the Cato Institute published this pocket-size edition.

Now Available

The Libertarian Mind Audiobook

The Libertarian Mind, by David Boaz, longtime executive vice president of the Cato Institute, is the best available guide to the history, ideas, and growth of libertarianism, and is the ultimate resource for the current, burgeoning libertarian movement. This acclaimed book is now available as a fully unabridged audiobook, ready for immediate downloading, on Audible.com.

The Supreme Court: Past and Prologue
A Look at the October 2016 and 2017 Terms

The annual Constitution Day symposium, presented by Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies, marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up.