In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that free expression is necessary in order to find truth; that only by contending with the strongest position of one’s opponent can we perfect our own argument. The method of the counter-Enlightenment neo-cons, on the other hand, is to prevent the opposition from speaking at all.
Continue reading “Dark Ages”
Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance
Diagnoses and Prescriptions
The Bush Administration wants countries holding large amounts of Iraqi debt to consider forgiving much of what is owed. As the President has explained, massive national debt is incompatible with economic growth.
Continue reading “Diagnoses and Prescriptions”
Conventional Wisdom
For years, Indiana legislators have labored under the belief that keeping taxes low will spur business and economic development. The theory is that businesses looking to relocate will be lured to states where the tax burden is low, and businesses already here will be less likely to search for greener pastures. Economic development in turn will help stem the brain drain that has characterized our state for many years?the exodus of talented and educated young people who leave Indiana for jobs elsewhere.
Continue reading “Conventional Wisdom”
Bayh Vote
People who don’t live in Indiana may have been perplexed by Senator Evan Bayh’s recent vote for the President’s tax cut. After all, our junior Senator is–theoretically–a Democrat. He was also a governor for eight years, and ought to understand what virtually every credible economist in the country has been saying about claims that the President’s tax cut package will create jobs: If jobs are the goal, the best way to create them in the short term is to help the states out of their worst fiscal crisis since the Depression–a crisis that has been caused in large part by the economic and tax policies of this administration.
Continue reading “Bayh Vote”
Priorities
When Bart Peterson became Mayor of Indianapolis, those of us who had followed the prior Administration’s fiscal operations felt sorry for him.
Continue reading “Priorities”