Walter Williams

There’s considerable unnecessary confusion and debate on public policy issues that would be more intelligently discussed and resolved if we’d say what is actually meant rather than using euphemistic disguises. The Grutter and Gratz vs. Bollinger cases...

There’s a little known law called the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. It remains on the books today. Before saying what the law is and its effects, let me run by you some of the language used, in the early 1930s, to push the law through Congress. Rep. John Cochran of...

Much of the ’60s and ’70s civil rights rhetoric was that black political power was necessary for economic power. In 1967, Clevelanders heeded Malcolm X’s infamous “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech with the election of Carl B. Stokes, who...

The March 10 issue of Human Events carried a special report on the 10 most outrageous government programs. The Legal Services Corp. headed the list, followed closely by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Rounding out the...

Early March, Mrs. Williams and I abandoned the snow and the cold to vacation in Panama City, Fla. We savored the hospitality of our many friends, not to mention several fresh fish dinners served at Captain Anderson’s restaurant and at the homes of our friends....

You’ve written a tuition check, carted your son or daughter off to college, given those last minute admonitions and made those tearful good byes. For those thousands of dollars, the anguish of seeing your 17- or 18-year-old pack up and leave home for the first...

We hear so much about “rights” — a right to this and a right to that. People say they have a right to decent housing, a right to adequate health care, food and a decent job, and more recently, senior citizens have a right to prescription drugs. In a...

My health and other aspects of my well-being are the business of whom? You say, “What’s it now, Williams?” I’m simply asking whose business is it if I don’t adequately plan for retirement or save money for my child’s education? If I...

Here’s what I said in last year’s November column: “George Mason University economists are leaders in economic thinking. They include scholars such as Nobel Laureate James Buchanan, who along with his colleague Gordon Tullock, pioneered the field in...

Here’s what the Harvard University Civil Rights Project’s “scholars” said in a July 2001 press release: “Almost half a century after the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Southern school segregation was unconstitutional and...

Do Americans really cherish freedom of association? Are there any justifiable restrictions on freedom of association? In my book, any restriction on one’s right to associate freely with anyone he pleases, on mutually agreeable terms, is both offensive and a...

“America: A Sissified Nation” was the title of a past column that brought in hundreds of favorable responses, mostly from American men and women who were not sissies. In that column, I argued that we Americans have become sissified and are meekly giving up...

Benjamin Franklin warned, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” But that’s what the Bush administration and Congress have asked of Americans — to give up essential...

Every day, we hear something about markets. Your 6 o’clock news anchor might say, “The market had a bad day.” Last year, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan talked about the market’s irrational exuberance. I guess now he’d say...

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Cleveland school voucher case, Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, that taxpayer funds that go to parents who might use the money to enroll their children in religious schools was constitutional. One need not be a rocket scientist to...

We have no less than unadulterated idiots in charge of airport security. You say, “What is it this time, Williams?” Last month, while boarding a Midwest Express flight to Milwaukee, former Vice President Al Gore was pulled aside at the boarding gate. He...

Profits are misunderstood, seen as unearned and sometimes condemned as evil. Maybe that’s why people often reverently pronounce, with an air of moral superiority, “We’re a nonprofit organization.” Before people mount their moral high horse,...

President Bush said he was “deeply concerned” about some of the accounting practices in corporate America and called “outrageous” the disclosure that WorldCom, which is $32 billion in debt, had hidden $3.8 billion in expenses. The president...

If someone does something wonderful, but didn’t intend to, does it count? Should we see ourselves as blessed? You say, “Williams, what are you talking about?” Try this. In 1846, there were 735 U.S. whaling ships, 80 percent of the world’s...

Institutions — established law, custom and practices — matter and should not be ignored. How is it that Western Europe and the United States managed to amass unprecedented wealth while countries of the former Soviet Union, China, Africa, South America and...