Flake: 'This Is Not Grown-Up Leadership.' Trump: Flake's a 'Flake.'
The outgoing senator wants to require congressional approval for "national security" tariffs, while the low-polling president taunts Flake about his low poll numbers.
Economics
The Republicans Abandon Free Trade
The GOP betrays its principles for the sake of political expediency.
Trump: Trade War With Canada Justified Because Brits Burned the White House in 1814
I mean, sure, that makes as much sense as any other reason.
Don't Blame the Minimum Wage for Those Self-Service Kiosks at McDonald's
Government-mandated price hikes do a lot of things. Spurring technological innovation is not one of them.
Social Security Will Be Insolvent In 16 Years. Maybe Congress Should Do Something About That.
Medicare will run dry even sooner. Do you trust anyone in Washington to solve this problem?
'National Security' a Lousy Excuse for Lousy Trade and Energy Policies
Extending the justification would allow government intervention into just about anything.
Meet the New Boss: Donald Trump, Who Wants To Tell You What You Can Buy and Sell
Via trade and immigration restrictions, the president is completing the GOP's conversion to the party of economic micro-management.
How Trump's Tariffs Will Harm National Security
Imports improve the economy and benefit the country.
Study: Trump's Proposed Automobile Tariffs Will Destroy 195,000 American Jobs
And if other countries respond with similar tariffs, the U.S. could lose more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs.
Anti-Robot Las Vegas Hotel Workers Prepare to Strike
The Culinary Workers Union is demanding financial compensation and replacement jobs for workers displaced by technology.
Today Is the Start of Hurricane Season. Trump's Tariffs Could Make It More Costly.
Everything from preparations through recovery will be more expensive, thanks to tariffs on steel, aluminum, and timber.
Exclusive: Ronald Reagan's 1980 Election Eve Speech Draft Was Lost to History. Until Now.
In a speech drafted but never delivered in the waning weeks of the 1980 campaign, Reagan was to say: "The overriding question is not one of Left or Right. It is one of reversing the flow of power and control to ever more remote institutions."
Trump Will Hit Americans With Import Taxes on $50 Billion in Chinese Goods
Don't believe the administration's claim that this will hurt China.
Arizona's #RedForEd Fiasco Was a Gift to School Choice Advocates
Seeing your kids held hostage in a battle between government factions is a great incentive to look for alternatives.
Protectionism vs. Cheap Beer
If you tax something, you get less of it, and Trump's tariffs are a tax on making things-including cans, kegs, and the beer that goes into them.
Trump's Budget Only Reduces the Deficit If You Accept Some Very Unlikely Assumptions
The really scary thing is that even the CBO's more accurate assessment is also based on unlikely assumptions.
Rent Control Feeds Inequality in San Francisco
San Francisco is famously America's most expensive city.
Are Imported Cars a Threat to National Security? No Way.
Trump can impose car tariffs only by stretching the meaning of "national security" beyond recognition.
Tariffs Aren't Saving Steel Towns
And it's cruel to tell people that government policy can reverse the decline.
Congress Just Voted to Repeal a Few Bits of Dodd-Frank
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stays, but Obama-era regulations that suffocated small banks are toast.
Why Young Americans Are Drawn to Socialism
They may take for granted the bounty capitalism has bestowed.
Mnuchin: 'We're Putting the Trade War on Hold'
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says Trump administration is withdrawing plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on $150 billion of Chinese imports.
Rejecting Rand Paul's Budget, Republicans Commit to Fiscal Irresponsibility
Even the suggestion that defense spending could be cut is enough to scare most Republicans away from a facing fiscal reality.
Trade Hearing Highlights Staggering Number of Losers From Trump's Tariff Plan
Trump wants tariffs on 1,300 Chinese-made goods. Dozens of American businessmen and women are in Washington this week to explain why that's an awful idea.
Rand Paul's Plan to Balance the Budget by 2023 Will Get a Senate Vote This Week
Do Republicans have the guts to impose strict spending caps?
Australia Attempts to Fight Tobacco Black Markets by Banning Large Cash Transactions
This will hurt innocent people. It may harm legal businesses. And it won't actually work.
Universal Basic Income Proposal Still Fails to Pass Libertarian Scrutiny
We don't need UBI to enable people to tell bosses to take the job and shove it.
President Trump: Competition Is the Solution to High Drug Prices
Change drug prices by changing the market.
Environmental Protection Agency
Activists Decry Effort to Bring Economic Rationality to Clean Air Regulation
"A standard demanding the return of the Stone Age would not prove 'requisite to protect the public health.'"
Unions Could Lose 726,000 Members if Mark Janus Wins His Supreme Court Case
Union-backed report finds unions could be screwed.
Seattle's Proposed Employment Tax is Just the City's Latest Self-Inflicted Wound
City officials seem dedicated to driving away the businesses that create prosperity.
20-Year-Old Whiskey in 6 Days: Will This Self-Taught Chemist Upend the Liquor Industry?
Bryan Davis created a chemical reactor that compresses time, bringing an artistic sensibility back to aged spirits.
Trump's Former Top Economic Advisor Blasts White House's Tariff Plans
"We should buy from them what they're good at; we should sell to them what we're good at," says Gary Cohn, who left the White House in March.
Even Where Weed Is Legal, Government Regulation Makes Advertising It a Nightmare
"You can't post pictures of buds. You can't post pictures of selfies of a bong hit."
Seattle May Hit Peak Progressivism With a Literal Tax on Jobs
Business and labor join forces to oppose an employee head tax.
Trump, Reagan, and Why Republicans Flip-Flopped on Free Trade
The Donald is more like The Gipper on trade policy than you think. And not in a good way.
K Street Lobbyists Are Loving Trump's Tariff Threats
The president's aggressive but rudderless trade policy is watering the swamp.
Undocumented Immigrants Are Less Crime Prone Than Native-Borns
More undocumented immigration meant less violent crime.
The Good and the Bad of Trump's Decision to Delay Some Tariffs
Trump talks about wanting to reduce our trade deficit with China, but using tariffs to do it might jeopardize America's trade surplus in agriculture.
Is Alex Tabarrok the Most Honest Economist in Academia?: Podcast
The libertarian went looking for the reason for entrepreneurial decline. The answer he found went against everything he believed. He published the results anyway.
Tariffs Are Self-Imposed Sanctions
We restrict trade to punish our enemies. Why would we do the same to ourselves?
New York Officials Weaponize Regulatory Power Against the NRA
In a politicized environment, getting on the wrong side of regulators can be dangerous. Don't be surprised if banks and insurers cave.
Nashville Police Attempt to Seize Control of Private Event Security and Get Sued
Taxpayers are increasingly on the hook for millions in overtime, pension costs.
Politics Is Not Pretty: Podcast
Reason editors rate the White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump's nuclear politics, the optics of political summits, and the resuscitation of Zora Neale Hurston.
Trump's Economic Illiteracy Has Deep Roots
In Trump's mind, America loses when it buys too much. And it loses when we sell too.
The Economic Case for Free Trade Is Stronger Than Ever
But working-class identity politics threaten to ruin everything.
Getting Crony Capitalism Half Right
The solution to government interference isn't more of it.
