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February 1, 2019|Elizabeth Warren, Frederic Bastiat, Gun Control, Kamala Harris, Medicare for All

How Populist Progressives Ignore the Unseen

by John O. McGinnis|5 Comments

Senator Kamala Harris (D-Ca.) speaking at her 2020 presidential campaign announcement rally in Oakland, California on January 27, 2019 (Image: InFootage / Shutterstock.com).
What separates a wise political economist or politician from a foolish one is the ability to consider the unseen consequences of their policies.

January 3, 2019|2020, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Dukakis, presidential election

Trump’s Approval Ratings Don’t Need to Improve to Win the 2020 Election

by James R. Rogers|7 Comments

President Donald Trump delivers a speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, August 2, 2018 (Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com).
It’s easy to imagine suburbanites, even large numbers of women, preferring the Trump they know to the socialist they don’t.

August 23, 2018|Accountable Capitalism Act, Elizabeth Warren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Williamson, Milton Friedman, profit, shareholder, stakeholder

Senator Warren: America’s Newest Corporate Raider?

by Philip A. Wallach|30 Comments

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks at the National Press Club, August 21st, 2018 (Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com).
Even if the Accountable Capitalism Act is a terrible idea, we shouldn't blame Warren for making a serious political proposal when her colleagues don't.

September 18, 2017|16th Amendment, Campaign Finance, Commerce Clause, Contract Clause, Elizabeth Warren, Ganesh Sitaraman, Gilded Age

The Modern Constitution Empowers Redistribution, the Original One Not So Much

by John O. McGinnis|17 Comments

Ganesh Sitaraman has written an oped in the New York Times arguing that our Constitution was not built for a society as unequal as our has become.  Even leaving aside the claim that our society is becoming substantially more unequal—one I have contested, the essay is mistaken.   First, the Constitution as amended today empowers the federal government to engage in regulatory redistribution and progressive taxation to reduce economic inequality.   Second, the Constitution of 1789 on which Professor Sitaraman principally focuses was consciously built to protect against legislative attempts to mandate more equality. The populist demagogues with whom the Framers were mainly concerned were those who would bamboozle the populous into debtor relief legislation and other wealth destroying schemes that could be sold, just as in our day, as aids to poor and retribution to the rich.   Sitaraman misunderstands both our contemporary Constitution and our original Constitution.

After the 16th amendment and the New Deal Court’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause, the federal government has plenary powers of income taxation and regulation. There is nothing to prevent the left wing of the Democratic party from making our income tax code even more progressive than it already is.

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February 12, 2017|Betsey DeVos, compromise, deliberation, Elizabeth Warren, Marco Rubio, Senate Rule 19, Woodrow Wilson

An Ever Less Deliberative Body

by John O. McGinnis|2 Comments

The Senate has often been referred to as the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, most frequently by the Senators themselves. But the confirmation hearings on President Trump’s nominations have been marked by an absence of deliberation and responsive argument. They reveal a nation in the grip of polarization and interest group power.

The Democrats have been making a show of holding up  the President’s nominees with late night sessions. And in these sessions they did make some arguments against the nominees. The Republicans almost never responded substantively.  It is not as if they cannot respond. For instance, many of the arguments against Betsey DeVos were very weak based on distortions of her record of promoting charters schools in Detroit and on the inaccurate premise more competition in K-12 would harm rather than help children.  But Republicans recognized that few people were paying attention other than the Democratic base. More dramatic debate would just draw more attention to the Democratic resistance.  And what would please the Republican base were not arguments, but the actual confirmations for which Republicans had the votes.

And lest one think the Democrats were interested in actually persuading their colleagues, they boycotted at least three committee hearings where nominees were going to be debated. Walking out made a great show of anger to please their own base, but made a mockery of deliberation. Woodrow Wilson famously said Congress in action is Congress in committee.  During these confirmations congressional inaction was Congress in committee.

The only time that I saw floor debate come alive was about the question of whether Elizabeth Warren violated Senate Rule 19.

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February 9, 2017|Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Sessions, John Calhoun, John Randolph, Mitch McConnell, Senate

Silencing Warren

by H. Lee Cheek, Jr.|7 Comments

(Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Among the current body of U.S. Senators, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is certainly the intellectual favorite of many liberals in the country, and she is already being spoken of as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.  The former Harvard law school professor and consumer protection advocate has a great command of the issues, but her ideological commitments undermine her abilities, making her less effective as a legislator, and an often insufficiently decorous member of the U.S. Senate. Now that she has become a cause célèbre in the matter of Senator Jeff Sessions’ nomination to be Attorney General, the rebukes she is receiving from Republicans will come back to haunt them.

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January 28, 2016|Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren, Victims' Fund

Other People’s Money

by Michael S. Greve|4 Comments

Harvard University (Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock.com).

In a very fine investigative article in the Washington Examiner, Sean Higgins reports on “Obama’s Big Bank Slush Fund.” As part of their “settlements” with the feds over alleged misdeeds, big banks routinely agree to make donations to various “fair housing” outfits, to the tune of several hundred millions of dollars.

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July 29, 2015|Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Dodd-Frank, Elizabeth Warren, Richard Cordray, Separation of Powers

Dodd-Frank’s Frankenstein Creeps Forward

by Michael S. Greve|4 Comments

This past week, a unanimous panel of the D.C. Circuit (Judges Kavanaugh, Pillard, and Rogers—Judge Kavanaugh writing) held that State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas (“SNB”) may proceed with its lawsuit challenging the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s authority on various constitutional grounds.

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March 22, 2015|Bank of America, Bank regulation, Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren’s World, and Mine

by Michael S. Greve|15 Comments

Federal Reserve Hearing

Some time ago in these pages I’ve expressed my grudging admiration for my native country’s Weberian, bureaucratic legalism.  The years I spent under that system should give me an advantage in a bureaucratizing America that’s still trying to domesticate latter-day cowboys. Nope.  American-style bureaucracy is way more suffocating, stupid, and sinister.

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October 27, 2014|Consumer Bureau of Financial Protection, Consumer Credit, Dodd-Frank, Elizabeth Warren

Who’s Afraid of Consumer Credit? A Discussion with Todd Zywicki

by Todd Zywicki|1 Comment

The market for consumer credit has been subjected to an ever increasing amount of federal regulation since the 2008 crisis. The Dodd-Frank Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to intervene in consumer credit markets and protect us from the rapacious lenders who devour household income and place consumers in unmanageable levels of debt through stealth and manipulative business practices. The predictable results have been a marginal increase in the cost of credit and its decreasing availability to lower income consumers as the CFPB’s rules price them out of this market. Todd Zywicki, co-author of Consumer Credit and the American…

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Book Reviews

A Compelling and Compassionate Book about Epilepsy

by Theodore Dalrymple

Our knowledge of the human brain is limited, but neuroscientist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s observation of her patients yields astute insights.

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Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the “Populist” Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos Espada

Yes, there is something new to be learned about Winston Churchill, and it's in the new 1,105-page biography by Andrew Roberts.

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Liberty Classics

Bringing Natural Law to the Nations

by Samuel Gregg

If sovereign states ordered their domestic affairs in accordance with principles of natural law, the international sphere would benefit greatly.

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Belloc’s Humane Defense of Personhood and Property

by James Matthew Wilson

Perhaps the memory of that metaphysical right to property informs our fears, and could lead to a restoration of human flourishing.

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Podcasts

Born-Again Paganism: A Conversation with Steven Smith

A discussion with Steven D. Smith

Steven Smith talks with Richard Reinsch about his provocative thesis that a modern form of paganism is becoming public orthodoxy.

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"Slouching Towards Mar-a-Lago:" A Conversation with Andrew Bacevich

A discussion with Andrew J. Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich discusses his new book Twilight of the American Century

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Bureaucracy, Regulation, and the Unmanly Contempt for the Constitution

A discussion with John Marini

John Marini unmasks the century-long effort to undermine the Constitution's distribution of power.

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Beautiful Losers in American Politics: A Conversation with Nicole Mellow

A discussion with Nicole Mellow

Nicole Mellow on the beautiful losers in American politics who have redefined the country.

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Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

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