The Cato Institute

Reflecting on 9/11

One of the biggest temptations for America after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, was to turn inward. We mostly resisted…

The trauma of 9/11 threatened to turn our great nation inward behind rising barriers to trade and immigration. 

But, after the stunning images of that day, trashing symbols of world trade went out of fashion. For world leaders, it became more urgent than ever to promote peaceful commerce through international cooperation.

A decade after the fall of the World Trade Center towers, the volume of U.S. exports was 40% higher and imports 27% higher than in 2000. Since 2000, foreign-owned assets in the United States and U.S.-owned assets abroad have both more than doubled in relation to our nation’s GDP.

Meanwhile, the federal government ramped up security and visa requirements after 9/11 in many ways that were necessary, but also in ways that only discourage well-meaning foreign tourists, students and business travelers from visiting the U.S.

As a result, while trade and investment flows expanded, people flows stagnated. The U.S. has lost significant market share in global tourism since 2001, causing the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. tourism industry. 

America’s openness to the world — to trade, investment, ideas and people — has been a source of strength and influence for decades. That openness was tested by the awful events of September 11th, 2011. The fact that we remained open to commerce and, more grudgingly, immigration is yet another defeat for al Qaeda.

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Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson!

Today marks the 274th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth…

One of the most well-known founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, in addition to serving as the second Vice President and third President of the United States. 

The Declaration of Independence is one of the greatest and most influential political documents of all time. Although often understood as a  mere declaration of intention to sever political ties with Britain, it is, in fact, a carefully crafted argument justifying that intention. The Founders offered a careful set of arguments for armed revolution, a course that was not undertaken lightly, with full awareness of the consequences.  Each signatory knew that he was signing his own death warrant in the event of failure.

In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed a sophisticated, radical vision of liberty with awesome grace and eloquence. He affirmed that all people are entitled to liberty, regardless what laws might say. If laws don’t protect liberty, he declared, then the laws are illegitimate, and people should rebel. While Jefferson didn’t originate this idea, he put it in a way that set afire the imagination of people around the world. Moreover, he articulated a doctrine for strictly limiting the power of government, the most dangerous threat to liberty everywhere.

The ideas of liberty he promoted continue to form the basis of the American cultural heritage today.

Jefferson was among the most learned men of his time. With his gifted pen and meticulous script, Jefferson drafted more reports, resolutions, legislation and related official documents than any other Founding Father. Jefferson set a new, individualist standard for virtue: that what counted most was the way individuals conducted their private lives, their contribution to civil society rather than politics.

Though Jefferson had personal failings — in the case of slavery, a monstrous one — Jefferson’s accomplishments and philosophy of liberty must be recognized for their monumental importance.

The most enduring legacy of the American Revolution is the attempt to establish a system of individual liberty and limited government governed by law—a system consistent with the nature of human beings as moral agents with inalienable rights. That effort has been an inspiration to lovers of liberty all around the globe.

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Forty Years & Going Strong: Regulation Magazine

On the 40th anniversary of Regulation magazine, Cato is pleased to offer this overview of American regulation and its reform, and offer some thoughts on how further liberalizations could be achieved…

Imagine how much easier your life and livelihood would be if you received immediately usable insights about regulatory polices from leading economists, policy analysts, and legal experts four times a year. That’s what Regulation offers.

Published since 1977, Regulation has examined nearly every market, from agriculture to health and transportation, and nearly every government intervention, from interstate commerce to labor law and price controls.

Each issue’s articles are crafted by national authorities at the cutting edge of regulatory reform and are written in clear, unambiguous terms that can be immediately understood and applied to your individual needs. 

In Regulation, many of the nation’s top economists, law professors, and other policy experts offer easy-to-understand guidance and insights on microeconomics and regulatory policy affecting every American’s life. Past editors include such esteemed policy thinkers as Murray Weidenbaum and Antonin Scalia; Walter Olson and Peter Huber; Christopher C. DeMuth and William Niskanen. Cato’s Peter Van Doren, a former professor at Princeton and Yale, has edited the magazine since 1999.

The last four decades have seen landmark liberalization of U.S. regulatory policy, yet many promising reform ideas now languish and policymakers have backslid in some cases.

The common view of regulation in the United States is that, for its first century or so, the country embraced laissez faire; there was little government intervention in the private decisions of the free market. This is not quite true; state governments were active regulators in some sectors, especially banking. However, it is generally correct to say that federal regulation was limited until the years following the Civil War, and it expanded greatly during and after the New Deal.

In the mid-20th century, as policymakers continued to expand federal regulation, economists and legal scholars on university campuses and in Washington began to question the traditional “market failure” justifications for these policies, as well as the assumption that government intervention altruistically benefits public welfare.

Unfortunately, the momentum for market liberalization has reversed in the new century. 

Can additional liberalizations be achieved in the near future?

Read the Spring 2017 Anniversary Issue of Regulation magazine…