Looking at Trump’s 2018 Budget

The Trump administration has released its 2018 budget plan, which includes spending and revenue projections for the 2018 to 2027 period. The plan would increase spending on defense, infrastructure, paid leave, and a few other items, but would reduce overall spending substantially compared to the baseline. According to Cato scholar Chris Edwards, “The budget’s spending cuts are being called cruel and heartless, but chronic deficits are imposing huge costs on young Americans down the road, which is totally unethical. Trump should be commended for proposing overdue reforms for such a wide range of spending programs.”

Central Banks and Financial Turmoil

History has shown that monetary activism is a chief cause of financial booms and busts. The Fed’s unconventional monetary policies have distorted interest rates and asset prices, misallocated credit, encouraged risk taking, increased leverage, penalized savers, and increased uncertainty—all of which have had a negative effect on productive investment, innovation, and growth. The new issue of Cato Journal, featuring papers from Cato’s 34th Annual Monetary Conference, brings together leading scholars and policymakers to examine the link between unconventional monetary policy and financial fragility.

State-Sponsored Visas: New Bill Lets States Invite Foreign Workers, Entrepreneurs, and Investors

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) recently introduced the State-Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act (S. 1040) to federalize a portion of America’s migration system. Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) has announced plans to introduce a companion bill in the House. In a new study, Cato scholar David Bier looks at the proposed plan and concludes that this type of program would add flexibility to a sclerotic immigration system because states are better able to design visas for changing and varied local conditions, creating positive economic and fiscal benefits for the entire country.

This Is Not Repeal. It Is ObamaCare-Lite, or Worse

House Republicans have approved a bill to revise ObamaCare with only one vote to spare (217-214). Given the response from Democrats and the media, you’d think Republicans were really about to repeal ObamaCare. They’re not. According to Cato scholar Michael F. Cannon, “Rather than do what their supporters sent them to Washington to do—repeal ObamaCare and replace it with free-market reforms—House Republicans are pushing a bill that will increase health-insurance premiums, make health insurance worse for the sick, and ensure that Republicans rather than the real cause (ObamaCare) will take the blame.”

Cato Institute 40th Anniversary

Recent Commentary

Events

June 6

Banking Unbound: The Cato Summit on Financial Regulation

Featuring George Selgin, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute; Thaya Brook Knight, Associate Director, Financial Regulation Studies, Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute; Mark A. Calabria, Assistant to the Vice President and Chief Economist; Emily Ekins, Research Fellow and Director of Polling, Cato Institute; Brian Knight, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University; and Kelly S. King, Chairman and CEO, BB&T Corporation.

10:00AM to 2:00PM
 The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte - 201 East Trade Street, Charlotte, NC 28202

More Events

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.

Cato University: College of Economics

Cato University, the Cato Institute’s premier educational event of the year, will now be presented as a compact 3-day program several times a year, each with a different focus. This year’s inaugural program is based on the conviction that economics is a way of thinking, a tool for decision-making, and a basis for action. Discussions by Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith and top scholars and professors from Harvard University, Northwestern University, and the Cato Institute will solidify your expertise on basic economic principles, and then help you apply those tools to today’s most pressing issues.