Immigration Reform, SCOTUS and “Market Fundamentalism”
The New York Times reports that younger people are more likely to favor liberalized immigration policy than the baby boomer generation.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. Florida bans life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles who commit crimes short of murder.
Samuel Brittan attacks “market fundamentalism” in a recent Financial Times column.
The New York Times reports that younger people are more likely to favor liberalized immigration policy than the baby boomer generation.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Alex Nowrasteh on why we need to reform our immigration system.
“The immigration black market only exists is because the government has made the legal market as cumbersome as it can. True immigration reform makes legal channels more appealing, not less. That means lightening the paperwork and the regulatory burden, and eliminating quotas. The more unattractive legality becomes, the more attractive illegality looks in comparison.”
2. LEGAL
The Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. Florida bans life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles who commit crimes short of murder.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Counsel Hans Bader on the liberal justices’ reliance on “international opinion” in their decision.
“In relying on ‘international opinion’ to decide the case, the Supreme Court ignored the pleas of civil libertarians and libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute not to smuggle international standards into the interpretation of the American Constitution, since doing so is a dangerous precedent: international law and opinion are often hostile to important American civil liberties like free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion; the right to self-defense against home intruders; and laws designed to secure those protections.”
3. ECONOMICS
Samuel Brittan attacks “market fundamentalism” in a recent Financial Times column.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: CEI President Fred Smith on what’s wrong with Brittan’s column.
“Brittan’s arguments are shallow. He attacks a straw man caricature of capitalism. His objections should be focused on the current ‘mixed economy’ in which crony capitalists benefit from various Pigouvian interventionist rationales (wealth redistribution, correcting externalities, ensuring adequate production of ‘public goods’ and so forth). As Larry Summers noted in his essay in the recent compilation, Creative Capitalism, he’s really criticizing market socialism, not capitalism. Fannie and Freddie are examples of the risks of the GSE-centric mixed economy. That – not ‘market fundamentalism’ – should have been Brittan’s target.”