Cato in the News

Write the Case for Liberty. Win $50,000

Cato is turning 50, and it’s celebrating with a challenge: Make the best case for a freer world in 1,500 words or fewer. The new Vision for Liberty Award wants fresh arguments, not familiar ones. A philosophical defense, a policy proposal, or an article that defies categorization will all compete on equal terms. First place earns the Thomas Jefferson Award ($50,000), second takes the David Boaz Award ($25,000), and third the Trenchard and Gordon Award ($12,500). Submissions open on March 1, 2027, for US residents 18 or older, and close July 4. Learn more at cato.org/vision-forliberty-award.

Scott Lincicome: Free Trade’s Busy Messenger

With more than 650 media citations this year and counting, a new regular column at the Washington Post, recurring columns at The Dispatch and Bloomberg, a standing seat on MS NOW, plus stops on CNN, CNBC, and Fox News this quarter alone, Scott Lincicome, Cato’s vice president of general economics and the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, is making the case for free markets to audiences far beyond the policy world.

Is the FBI Still Investigating Cato?

Nobody will say. A federal judge issued a mixed opinion in September on Cato’s long-running Freedom of Information Act lawsuit requesting records related to the Bureau’s investigation of the Institute. Cato won on some points, with the court calling the Bureau’s secrecy claims “flimsy.” But the FBI gets to keep 59 pages of investigative records under wraps, with no word on whether the case is closed or still open. Worse, the court agreed that the very names of the Bureau’s investigative databases count as protected “law enforcement techniques.” Cato’s Patrick G. Eddington argues that a database’s name is a noun, not a method, and that history shows where this kind of secrecy leads. You can’t keep a system accountable if you’re forbidden to know it even exists.

Cato in the News

Recent Op-Eds

Leave Europe to the Europeans

The DSA’s Socialist Plans Carry a $212T Price Tag — and Every One of Us Will Pay

Don’t Blame Free Markets for Populist Failures

America Needs No Sharia Law but American Muslims Deserve Liberty

TV Highlights

Recent Op-Eds

Leave Europe to the Europeans

The DSA’s Socialist Plans Carry a $212T Price Tag — and Every One of Us Will Pay

Don’t Blame Free Markets for Populist Failures

America Needs No Sharia Law but American Muslims Deserve Liberty

Democratic Socialists and MAGA Share a Dangerous Flaw

TV Highlights