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In the context of health care reform, Ilya Somin puts on a brave face and makes the traditional textual case for reading the Commerce Clause as a relatively narrow grant of power to legislate about actual commercial activity occurring across state lines, rather than an infinitely flexible mandate to Do Good so long as some [...]

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Megan McArdle approvingly quotes Tyler Cowen on the bailouts:
Without the bailouts we would have had many more failed banks, very strong deflationary pressures, a stronger seize-up in credit markets than what we had, and a climate of sheer political and economic panic, leading to greater pressures for bad state interventions than what we now see.  [...]

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I’ve seen conservatives circulating this YouTube clip, in which Andrea Mitchell, discussing polling numbers showing low support for Obama’s health care reforms, notes in an aside that opponents “may not know what’s good for them.” This incredibly tone-deaf choice of words, naturally, prompts cries of “elitism” and “arrogance.”  Insofar as “elitism” has recently been used [...]

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Via Doug Bandow, Theodore Dalrymple makes an argument against a right to health care—though it applies to positive or welfare rights more generally—that I used to find persuasive, and now find less so:
Where does the right to health care come from? Did it exist in, say, 250 B.C., or in A.D. 1750? If it did, [...]

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Via Peter Suderman, I find Tyler Cowen indulging his inner David Brooks with a brief taxonomy of libertarians:
1. Cato-influenced (for lack of a better word).  There is an orthodox reading of what “being libertarian” means, defined by the troika of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties.  It is based on individual rights but does not [...]

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An interesting point from Ezra, summarizing Brad Plumer:
Brad Plumer has a very nice post on why the Congressional Budget Office has, historically, predicted that pollution regulations would cost much more than they actually did. When Congress went to create a cap-and-trade plan for sulfur dioxide in the early ’90s, the CBO figured that permits would [...]

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I’m assuming most of the folks who would find this amusing have already seen it, but I’d been meaning to post this and kept forgetting. It is, I hope, not necessary to explain why this is funny, but not actually a good argument.

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Earlier this afternoon:
Rachel: do the libertarian wonks supporting seasteading intend to continue their wonkery once they move to the sea colony? or would they have to like, build stuff for the first few years?
Julian: Build stuff? Don’t be silly.  The Market will provide
Rachel: So the equilibrium is a place populated partly by libertarian escapists, and [...]

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