It’s time to consider the causes which lead to Clinton’s temporary victories and ultimate failures. These causes are clear and have one compelling implication. If we are to have honorable politicians we must sharply limit the role of government. There is a highly constructive role for government but it is constrained by financial and behavioral […]
Read More
The recent budget deal and mid-term elections show why Republicans continue to take a beating. Despite their purported ideology of limited government, Republicans kowtow to special interests favoring crass exploitation of public resources. They are silent when profitable private acts have negative public consequences, for example former Senator Lauch Faircloth’s hog farms in North Carolina. […]
Read More
It’s time for some good news about America. By historical standards, the vast majority of Americans are exceedingly well off. This is important because richer is healthier, safer – and more environmentally sensitive. We have greatly improved environmental quality since the first Earth Day. However, the easy problems have been solved. More complex issues of […]
Read More
The West has long considered natural resource industries – logging, mining, and ranching – as economic keystones. Westerners have relied upon the federal “landlord” for substantial economic benefits. The world’s largest system of water diversions and network of forest access roads (eight times the mileage of the U.S. interstate highway system) testify to their success. […]
Read More
The U.S. Forest Service continues to throw money and timber away, but don’t expect the Republican-led Congress to call a halt to this long-running story of government waste. The GOP is brain-dead when it comes to sparing live trees. Last week , Louisiana-Pacific Corp. placed the winning bid of $155,190 for 1.8 million board feet […]
Read More
Fisheries Management Fisheries are complex environments in which fish are just a single inhabitant. Other species, climate change, habitat modification, fishermen, consumers, and bureaucrats all impact fisheries. Economics, as much as ecology, define fisheries. The success or failure of a fishery can hinge on small changes in the composition of local fishermen, in the policies […]
Read More
When the route to immortality is to become a government program, how can wasteful, dysfunctional bureaucracies be weeded out? Try a “predatory bureaucracy.” A predator is an organism that captures and extracts its sustenance from other animals. We can learn a great deal about the federal budget by, as a simple thought experiment, introducing a […]
Read More
Environmental activists, freedom lovers, and those preferring a less intrusive government share a common perception. They see the government agencies responsible for natural resource management as bureaucratic parasites. Rather than steward our resources, they systematically advocate programs that are environmentally costly, are financially wasteful, and increase the scope of the federal government at the expense […]
Read More
“Strange bedfellows make interesting children.” This observation from Don Snow, Arts and Literary Director of Gallatin Institute, applies to the recently released “Green Scissors” report. The report originated from a hitherto latent coalition of environmentalists and pro-market advocates. On the one side, we have Rep. Kasich (R-OH), a “Gingrich acolyte.” On the other is Ralph […]
Read More
People agree strong government does much good. Nothing new here. But there is a change. Once it seemed that only the sophisticated, the cynical, and economists allied with the University of Chicago understood government’s potentials for mischief. For a generation, the proportion of analysts writing on the pathologies and pitfalls of government power has grown. […]
Read More