POLITICS

George Bush looks like he’ll try to stick to his promise about cutting income tax rates, but his team’s recent justifications, while politically expedient, are obscuring the real case for tax cuts. Given that the U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing,...

Many say that the recent presidential election debacle verged on a constitutional crisis. Looking back at last year’s events, let’s apply some perspective. Take a moment and examine what the real crisis is. Americans are forced to pay for an ever-expanding...

Whatever else may be said about the Clinton era, the past eight years have not been kind to those who believe the public’s business should be conducted in public. Restoring an appreciation in the nation’s capital for the people’s right to know should...

You often hear the phrase “control freak” used in a negative sense. I have even used it myself to describe authoritarian personalities. Authoritarian personalities are people who place a desire to be “right” (that is, seen as right) above the...

With just a week left before the new president takes office, our government is engaged in a frenzy of lawmaking. No, Congress has not convened to consider legislation, and no, your elected representatives will not decide whether these new federal rules go into effect....

The federal surplus for the close of fiscal year 2000 was nearly double the surplus for the prior year. This is a problem! A massive, growing federal surplus is a signal that the government is taking too much of our money. Back in the days of the federal deficit, we...

Worrying about bacteria, New Jersey banned restaurants from serving eggs sunny side up. The ban has since been lifted. Some New Jersey localities have a ban on people pumping their own gasoline. Policemen issue citations for driving without a seatbelt. By law, new...

O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran and friends want to file a big-bucks, class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery. On what legal grounds, against whom, on behalf of whom, and in which court? The attorneys haven’t figured out those pesky details yet....

If the November elections had put Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, I would have expected John Conyers, D-Mich., to introduce legislation that would set up a committee to decide who would qualify for reparations for slavery, whether they should be...

On-again, off-again experiments with free-market policies don’t lead to happy economic endings In a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie “Rear Window,” Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly argue about whether they’ll ever marry. Kelly wants...

If Indians want to reap multi-million-dollar profits from casino gambling, they should be required to shed their legal status as societal victims and compete on a level playing field. Savvy tribes, armed with lawyers and lobbyists, are targeting non-tribal lands in...

The World Bank boasts an ambitious motto: “Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty.” But looking at the bank’s recent loan policies, maybe it should be: “Our Dream is a World Free of Wealth.” Why? Because the Bank is now...

Does anyone remember the Field of the Blackbirds? It was in the news quite frequently about a year ago, back when people were still paying attention to the mess in Kosovo. The Field of the Blackbirds is the battlefield where a Serbian army was defeated by the Ottoman...

Lawmakers can rack up some real accomplishments if they’re willing to reconsider some of the bipartisan reform measures scuttled by President Clinton. You’ve no doubt heard by now what political pundits on both sides of the ideological aisle are saying...

Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged wrote, “When people need help, the best of them (those who need it through no fault of their own) often prefer to starve rather than accept assistance — while the worst of them (the professional parasites) run riot...

YOU CAN CALL IT GREED, selfishness or enlightened self-interest, but the bottom line is that it’s these human motivations that get wonderful things done. Unfortunately, many people are naive enough to believe that it’s compassion, concern and...

One of the reasons Republicans govern less successfully than Democrats is that conviction is rarer among Republicans. Under fierce intellectual attack since the days of Calvin Coolidge (the 1920s), Republicans have been made unsure of their ideas — a strong...

Black slaves are still available — just not in the United States. To make a purchase, you’d have to travel to the Sudan as Gerald Williams, Harvard University pre-med student, did in October 2000. Slavery in the Sudan is in part a result of a 15-year war...