Reason Alert - May 21, 2009 - Are California Voters Now to Blame for the $42 Billion Deficit? - Time to Legalize Drugs, Prostitution, Gambling - Dear GOP: Please Choose Liberty - Who Will Replace Justice Souter and How Important Is Empathy? - Newspaper Bailouts - New at Reason
*Are California Voters Now to Blame for the $42 Billion Deficit?*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77526/0/> California's latest plans to raise taxes, shift funds around and borrow more money were nixed by the state's voters on Tuesday. Reason magazine Editor-in-Chief Matt Welch writes, "Budget agreements and avoiding 'gridlock' are the end-all, be-all of California politics, even if the budgets continue to expand and expand and expand every damned year without any noticeable increase in the quality or quantity of government services. And for those voters who don't grasp the sheer Gravity of it all? Contempt. It's not that the initiative process hasn't produced all kinds of terrible policy in California; it has. But the sheer disproportionality of the blame-the-voter analysis reveals what close readers have long suspected is true: The Golden State's political class has long since given up agitating for government growth to be pared back even to the growth rate of inflation-plus-population. They treat massive public-sector pensions as a given, shudder with revulsion even at the mere scare-mention of a tiny percentage of state workers getting laid off, and pin the burden of proof not on the politicians who shovel up crappy new budget gimmicks, but rather on the voters who sensibly tell them to get stuffed." California Newspapers Love Tax Increases, Budget Gimmicks<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77527/0/> *Time to Legalize Drugs, Prostitution, Gambling*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77528/0/> In a column in *The New York Times<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77528/0/> *, Reason.com's Nick Gillespie writes, "Here’s a better idea — and one that will help the federal and state governments fill their coffers: Legalize drugs and then tax sales of them. And while we’re at it, welcome all forms of gambling (rather than just the few currently and arbitrarily allowed) and let prostitution go legit too. All of these vices, involving billions of dollars and consenting adults, already take place. They just take place beyond the taxman’s reach...In terms of economic stimulation and growth, legalization would end black markets that generate huge amounts of what economists call 'deadweight losses,' or activity that doesn’t contribute to increased productivity. Rather than spending precious time and resources avoiding the law (or, same thing, paying the law off), producers and consumers could more easily get on with business and the huge benefits of working and playing in plain sight." Not Advocating More Taxes, Advocating Choice and Liberty<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77529/0/> ** *Dear GOP: Please Choose Liberty*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77530/0/> In her Forbes.com column, Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia writes,"America's institutions are built on principles of liberty, they [conservatives] claim, therefore defending them means defending liberty. But labels shape self-understanding--and the term conservatism shifts the emphasis from defending America because it is the land of liberty to defending liberty because it is American. This has profound consequences for the conservative psyche, putting it fundamentally at odds with liberty whenever it threatens the conservative conception of America...The 19th century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that there are essentially two grand themes around which political life can be organized in America: equality and liberty. Democrats already have a lock on the first and so, unless Republicans want to once again become tax collectors for the welfare state, as they were from 1933 to 1980, they will have to offer something radically different." *Who Will Replace Justice Souter and How Important Is Empathy?*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77531/0/> Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Reason magazine co-founder Manuel Klausner, Instapundit and law professor Glenn Reynolds, George Mason University Professor Ilya Somin and several other libertarian experts discuss who President Obama should nominate to the Supreme Court, whether empathy is an important quality in a justice, and what issues they expect to dominate the Supreme Court in years to come. *Newspaper Bailouts* <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77532/0/> Several members of Congress want taxpayers to bail out dying newspapers. A new Reason.tv video asks if we need newspapers at all and points out that many on the left are supporting a newspaper bailout today, but wonders if that would be the case if this were 2002-03? At that time, many of today's bailout supporters were claiming newspapers were destroying America because they were 'in the tank' for President Bush and 'selling' the war in Iraq to the American people. *New at Reason* Cap-and-Trade Delusions<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77533/0/> Proponents need to stop pretending cap-and-trade will cost nothing and create tons of jobs Ronald Bailey A Forensics Charlatan Gets Caught in the Act<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77534/0/> Video from a defense attorney's sting exposes Mississippi bite-mark "expert" Michael West Radley Balko Why Governments Are Lousy at Running Businesses <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77535/0/>But excellent at s caring you about "annihilating" budget cuts Matt Welch The Housing Boom and Bust<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77536/0/> Thomas Sowell on how government policies made the housing crisis possible Brian Doherty The Swine Flu Panic That Wasn't<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77537/0/> Mass hysteria fails to materialize. Again. Jesse Walker Does Wal-Mart Make You Skinny?<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77538/0/> Small but statistically significant reduction in obesity rates in communities with a Wal-Mart Radley Balko The Government Buys GM and Tweaks CAFE Standards<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77539/0/> How does this help consumers? Anthony Randazzo Reason.tv Video: Privatization Trends<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77540/0/> President Obama may reduce privatization, but states are increasingly using it Adrian Moore and Leonard Gilroy Blackbeard Economics <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77541/0/> The surprising, and surprisingly tame, self-organization of pirates Katherine Mangu-Ward The Feminist Makeover <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77542/0/> Saying goodbye to old-style feminists Katherine Mangu-Ward Open Hearts, Open Minds, Closed Policy<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77543/0/> Federalizing the abortion issue contributes to the acrimony Obama decries Jacob Sullum Selling California Assets<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77544/0/> How to Invest Sale Proceeds, and a Reality Check on Redevelopment Leonard Gilroy Arizona Lawmakers Considering Major Prison Privatization Initiative in Budget Plan <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77545/0/> Private prisons have a long and successful track record in Arizona Leonard Gilroy Reason.tv Video: Greg Gutfeld at Reason Weekend<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/77546/0/> Media coverage of the tea parties and why drugs need to be legal *Media Contact*: Chris Mitchell Director of Communications Reason Foundation, Reason magazine, Reason.tv (310) 367-6109 [email protected] If you were forwarded this email and you would like to receive updates on the latest Reason Foundation research, commentary and events, please click here: http://www.reason.org/reasonalert.shtml<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4671380/28259383/75032/0/> --- You are currently subscribed to reasonalert as: [email protected]. 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