When President Donald Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the initiative was met with both enthusiasm and skepticism. The prospect of cutting $1-2 trillion from the federal budget by 2026 was an ambitious goal, and one that resonated with fiscal conservatives seeking to rein in government spending. However, early results indicate that despite bold promises, the entrenched realities of government spending are proving to be formidable obstacles. In the months following the November election, Musk and...

Can the United States ‘Grow’ Its Way Out of Debt?
Just as today, in the years following World War II the United States faced a national debt exceeding 100% of GDP. Yet, by the early 1970s, that figure had fallen to around 30%. Many policymakers and commentators today point back at this period as proof that economic growth and sound fiscal policies can solve America’s current debt crisis. But can we really "grow our way out" of today’s $36.4 trillion national debt the way we did after the war? The numbers suggest otherwise. The drop in debt-to-GDP following World War II was driven by several key factors: Rapid economic growth: The post-war...

How to Reverse the Monetary Breakdown of the West
For more than half a century, the global economy has operated under a monetary system divorced from gold. The 1971 collapse of the Bretton Woods system, where the U.S. dollar’s convertibility to gold was suspended, ushered in the fiat money era, a regime in which paper currencies are backed by nothing but government decree. Economist Murray Rothbard, in What Has Government Done to Our Money?, particularly in the chapter “The Monetary Breakdown of the West,” details how this transition has distorted economic incentives, weakened the real economy, and fueled financial speculation at the...

Revisiting Rothbard’s Argument on Tariffs
As American consumers and businesses face the looming possibility of additional tariffs under a second Trump administration, it is worth revisiting the incisive critique of protectionism put forth by economist Murray Rothbard in his book Power and Market. Rothbard’s analysis exposes protectionism not as a tool for national prosperity but as a mechanism for enriching politically connected interests at the expense of the general population. With policymakers entertaining yet more trade restrictions, his arguments remain as relevant as ever. Protectionism, in its essence, involves the use of...
Dean Acheson’s Taiwan Dilemma
In the aftermath of World War II, U.S. policymakers felt they faced an increasingly dire situation in China. By late 1949, Mao Zedong’s Communist forces had decisively defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (Kuomintang/KMT), pushing them off the mainland to Taiwan. In the mind of Dean Acheson, secretary of state under President Harry Truman, the collapse of the Nationalists raised pressing questions. Could Taiwan be held against a Communist invasion? And was Chiang Kai-shek the right leader for this task? Acheson’s initial plans, however fleeting, to replace Chiang underscore the...
The Economics of Deadwood
California’s catastrophic wildfires have become an annual tragedy. Beyond the devastation they bring to communities and ecosystems, these fires are a powerful metaphor for the unintended consequences of human intervention in natural systems. A primary culprit in California’s wildfire crisis is the state’s stringent environmental regulations, which often prevent the clearing of deadwood and other combustible materials. By not allowing these natural fuels to be managed by interested private companies, the state creates the perfect conditions for devastating infernos. This dynamic offers an...
The Illusion of Wartime Prosperity
That war is of benefit to the business of voluntary exchange to mutual benefit is, as one of the last British bearers of the classical liberal flame, Norman Angell, remarked in 1909, the great illusion. Certainly there were some industries that gained, such as the makers of armaments, but on the whole society as a whole suffered a significant decline in its level of general welfare. Long before Angell made the remark, a critique of the intensifying protectionism, imperialism, and armaments procurement of the period that preceded the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the great...
Reintroducing Liberty’s Master Historian
On June 1, 1983, at a morning session of the Cato Institute Summer Seminar, attendees bore witness to what remains to this day one of the greatest single revisionist retellings of the tragic and formative period of world history: 1914-1945. For three hours, Dr. Ralph Raico held forth, touching on every relevant subject to the horrible thirty years of war that gave rise to communism, Nazism, nuclear bombs, the Cold War, and the all powerful state. He expertly tied together the decline of classical liberalism in the late nineteenth century and the rise of statism, the formation and growth of...