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Lawrence W. Reed

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The Man Who Ate Hamtramck's Government →

March 1, 2002

In November 2000 Louis Schimmel swept away the government of Hamtramck, Michigan, and literally took over the city–lock, stock, and barrel.

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A Think Tank for Those Who Don't Think →

January 1, 2002

Socialists take aquariums and turn them into fish soup. The endless socialist quest for whatever it is socialists quest for all adds up to pitifully little—nothing more, in fact, than what French economist Frédéric Bastiat dismissed more than a century and a half ago as “legalized plunder.”

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Public Money for Private Charity? A Lesson from Emperor Julian →

August 1, 2001

Most people of faith—whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim, or something else—would ordinarily be the first to argue that God doesn’t need federal funds to do His work; just a change of heart will do, one heart at a time.

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Save Us From Great Ideas (Especially at Taxpayer Expense) →

July 1, 2001

Every day, somebody somewhere gets a great idea and thinks nothing of stealing from others through government to fund it. Those of us who are troubled by these trigger-happy statists need to become more active and vocal in exposing their schemes.

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Why Term Limits? →

May 1, 2001

Do we need a reminder that long-term pols with lots of “experience” in Washington have blessed Americans with trillions in debt and a federal government that sucks more and more from our wallets year after year after year?

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Socialists at War in "Enemy at the Gates" →

April 6, 2001

Think about it: a major motion picture that dares to lump Nazis and communists into one reprehensible socialist dung-heap. Extraordinary!

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Keep the Electoral College →

March 1, 2001

Thankfully, the question of abolishing the Electoral College is moot because the hurdles a constitutional amendment has to jump are simply too high. 

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Get Rid of the Labels →

January 1, 2001

We need to recognize that shorthand just won’t do the job when talking about how complex principles apply to current-day issues.

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Incentives and Disincentives: They Really Do Matter! →

November 1, 2000

The best way to reform welfare programs is to eliminate them.

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Government Deposit Insurance: A Dumb Idea →

October 1, 2000

Sadly, those who think government must provide deposit insurance fail to realize how much of the problem they see is already the result of government’s own handiwork.

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Guns, Gun Laws and Liberty →

August 1, 2000

Does the mere prevalence of guns in American society contribute to gun violence? If statistics matter, the answer is no.

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The Census: Inquiring Minds Want to Know →

May 1, 2000

The first census in 1790 included a question about race and residence, but that was about the sum of it. In the years since, the census has morphed into much more than a head count.

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A Tribute to the Jitney →

January 1, 2000

Jitneys have a long and honorable tradition in America.

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Government Education Reinvents Government →

December 1, 1999

To note that government rests on the use of force is not some radical anarchist idea. It is the very definition of the institution and its ultimate distinguishing feature. For much of the last half millennium, political scientists of virtually every stripe accepted the notion as fact. No respectable scholar tried to paper it over and pass government off as some kind of voluntary, benevolent society.

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The Roosevelt Myth →

September 1, 1999

Running against Herbert Hoover in 1932, Roosevelt campaigned as an advocate of limited government, even (correctly) accusing Hoover of “reckless and extravagant spending” and of thinking “that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible.” 

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A Tax is Not a User Fee →

June 1, 1999

At all levels of government, there’s a bipartisan effort to impose new or higher taxes and mislabel them as seemingly less onerous “user fees”. Sometimes, a user fee is indeed a user fee. Other times, it’s not that at all. Instead, it’s a tax hike disguised by a misnomer.

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Ending Corporate Welfare as We Know It →

May 1, 1999

Corporate welfare is one of the toughest nuts to crack in Washington. While almost everyone says he is opposed to it, Congress hasn’t done much about it.

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The Poverty of the United Nations →

January 1, 1999

The fact is that Americans consume more because Americans produce more. 

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What is "Urban Sprawl"? →

October 1, 1998

Depicting sprawl as a “monster” or a “plague on the land” may capture headlines, but it doesn’t inform.

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Trust Not in What the Government Can Do For You →

June 1, 1998

What’s lamentable here is that some of our politicians lie, cheat, and steal. It is not lamentable that Americans lose faith in them when they do those things. It is laudable, because it is common sense being appropriately applied.

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Rousseau was a collectivist who dreamed of homogenizing individuals in a communal blender, thereby sacrificing their uniqueness for the sake of the “common good.”

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