From The New York Times:

The ghost of George Washington Plunkitt, the 19th-century Tammany Hall boss who cynically defined “honest graft,” is in the air as bipartisan panic suddenly sweeps Congress over an ethical matter that is old news on Wall Street: insider trading.

A long-languishing bill to ban stock trading on inside information that lawmakers glean at private hearings and discussions has begun moving toward passage. The bill was lifted from hibernation by a new study from the Hoover Institution and a report on “60 Minutes” detailing the apparent freedom lawmakers have long enjoyed from the insider trading ban that applies to the rest of America.

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“One of Barack Obama’s great gifts is the ability to say things that are absolutely absurd and make them sound not only plausible, but inspiring.”

President Obama is spreading poverty – not wealth – around the country by attacking the people who are creating wealth in the first place. As economist Thomas Sowell argues, raising taxes only encourages people to keep their wealth and jobs overseas. Barack Obama’s belief that individuals in certain professions should be taxed less than others is nothing more than clever ludicrousness.

In our recent episode, Thomas Sowell, Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, discusses everything from his life, the President, and class warfare to similarities between Marxists and Occupy Wall Street protestors. In this interview, Sowell reflects on the leading Republicans of our time and the Tea Party’s ability to restore sanity in Washington next year.

Has Barack Obama’s time in office surprised you? Sowell isn’t surprised at all – he explains that “Barack Obama has followed policies which have ruined the economy. He has followed foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies.” While Obama takes credit for killing Osama bin Laden, in reality special ops forces found and killed him based on interrogations at Guantanamo.  Interrogations which the President vehemently opposed throughout his campaign.

To learn more about Thomas Sowell’s political insights and his recent book, The Thomas Sowell Reader, watch the full interview below.

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The Declaration and the Constitution have been thrown out the window by the Obama Administration.

There’s no doubt that these are two of the most impressive and influential documents in history.  The founding fathers of our country provided a framework for democracy that has stood the test of time. And yet when it comes to actual governing, that framework seems to have been forgotten.  It deserves to be revisited.

On our most recent episode, Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, asserts, “Our government needs to have a different character than it does today.” In the interview, Larry Arnn evaluates whether or not Paul Ryan’s plan and George W. Bush’s foreign policy decisions would be considered “constitutional” from a technical standpoint. And he expresses concern that the quality of our government is diminishing with each passing second.

What do you think?  Should politicians strictly abide by the principles laid out by the Declaration and the Constitution? Is the President?  What about your favorite candidate – are his or her positions in adherence to our Constitution?

To hear Larry Arnn’s interpretation of modern politics and more, watch the full interview below.

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“Approximately one-fourth of government spending goes towards healthcare.” And it is our responsibility to fix a broken system.

What’s the first step? The full repeal of ObamaCare.

Congressman Paul Ryan argues that what is needed is increased choice and competition in healthcare. It’s time to turn ideas into policy, and transition from a benefit-oriented system to a market-based system.

So what is stopping us from repealing ObamaCare?  Many people recognize that Obama’s health care law is inherently flawed.  In fact, ObamaCare even dismantles basic programs related to health savings laws.

Paul Ryan, representing Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, met with Hoover Institution to discuss why Obama’s health care law isn’t working and why we need to replace it. To hear more of Paul Ryan’s argument, watch the full episode below.

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“By the middle of the 21^st century, the output of China and India will account for almost 60 percent. The US and Europe by then will each account for 10 percent. It will be a very different world in terms of economic power.”

Michael Spence, Nobel Prize winner and professor of Economics at NYU, discusses the factors that led to the United States’ rise to power, and the causes of its economic and political downfall. Michael Spence argues that growth in the developing world is no longer an economic issue, but a governance issue.  And despite China’s rapid state-led growth, he asserts that “democracy is still alive.”

How will the US respond to rising powers like China and India? In The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World, Michael Spence predicts that the US will lose its dominance but will persevere, much like the British after the Industrial Revolution. Global power is not a zero sum game.

To learn more about the future economic and political power of the US, China, and India, watch the full interview below.

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Does affordable housing require rent control?  No.  Not even in Manhattan.  And in fact, it is no coincidence that the cities with the most rent control (NYC and San Francisco) also have the highest rent.  There is no incentive on the account of the landlords and tenants to build more housing or improve worn out units.

Does race account for differences in income?  Is the “fatherless family” amongst African Americans a legacy of slavery?  Is household income a good indicator of the state of our economy?  No, no, and no.

Uncommon Knowledge all-star Thomas Sowell returns to talk about his latest edition of Economic Facts and Fallacies, and continues his legacy as refreshingly straightforward and clear on economic issues.

To learn more about income equality, race and economics, and the reasons for Thomas Sowell’s persistent pessimism, watch the full interview below.

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The U.S. Department of Education has been gobbling up more turf over the last several years, issuing mandates and pushing a one-size-fits-all set of standards.  Now the most disturbing move is to implement a national K-12 education curriculum.

What’s wrong with that?  To those who advocate for efficiency in education, this may seem like a good thing.  It’s anything but.

A broad group of education reformers who are fighting this initiative has published a manifesto, titled “Closing the Door on Innovation.”

“A one-size-fits-all national curriculum based on mediocre high-school standards will stifle the educational innovation essential to closing the racial gap in academic achievement,” said Abigail Thernstrom, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, who signed the manifesto.

Bill Evers, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy under President George W. Bush, recently participated in a question-and-answer session regarding a national curriculum.

Q: Some might say that a national curriculum would promote efficiency.  What is your response?

A: The efficiency we should seek in K-12 education should be systemic and be grounded in sound rules and institutions. If we have pluralistic institutions with the right incentives, we will have better learning and more efficient and productive schooling than if we have a uniform and unified national curriculum. Such a uniform curriculum can too easily be bent in some wrongheaded way in the future.  Monolithic national uniformity is inefficient if it cuts off examination of alternatives, readily becomes stagnant, resists feedback, and all too easily becomes captive of future fads and fancies.”

Q: Is there danger in a one-size-fits-all curriculum?

A: Officials in Washington cannot design a curriculum that is fitting and appropriate for all classrooms in huge country like the United States.

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During President Obama’s first two years in office, we have seen him do nothing but fumble on the world stage.  He often seems to sit back and watch major changes occur – making no effort to be a part of the solution or reassert America’s position in the state of world affairs.

Bruce Thornton, a professor of classics and humanities, joins us to discuss his book, “The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama’s America.”

His ultimate advice for the President?  Listen to what Islamists say, and believe they meant it.  We cannot bribe them–with education, money or democracy–because they will never trade spiritual things for physical things.  Ultimately, he argues that there will be no resolution outside of force.

Thornton also discusses the downfall of the democratic city-states of Ancient Greece, who, because of the “destructive pursuit of short term self-interest,” were unable to unify against a common threat.  Thornton argues that for a democracy to survive it must maintain civic virtue – character that is worthy of freedom.

The topic of appeasement draws some disturbing parallels between Chamberlain and Hitler and many of our modern politicians.  Pacifism and internationalism weren’t just popular movements in the 1930s and 1940s.  Remember, internationalism is defined as the idea that it is possible to create harmony of interest and solve all problems through diplomacy.   Sound familiar?

Watch the full episode here:

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Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) has trouble remembering his roots as Pennsylvania’s state treasurer and auditor general. During his Senate campaign, he claimed to be a fiscal hawk and to have saved Pennsylvanians $1 billion of taxpayer money.  Casey is and always has been a big government progressive and will finally no longer be able to use the conservative, fiscal hawk meme with the introduction of the $165 billion union pension bailout bill, coupled with his rubber stamp approval of every plank of Obama’s agenda, Casey is now fully exposed.

Let’s review some of Casey’s recent steps.  Casey met with the Teamsters union back in March 2010 and the “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010” bill’s branding became apparent:

Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, explained that his legislation is important to protecting pensions and saving jobs. It’s also important to keep promises made to retirees, he said.

“We have to fulfill our obligations,” Casey said. “Pensions are a basic commitment to workers and their families that they will be there for them.”

The bill will strengthen the trucking and other industries. It will change the pension funding rules so employers won’t have to make payments that could force them into bankruptcy. Employers can use their savings to hire and retain workers.

In addition, according to the press release, Teamsters Local 776 shop steward Dave Wolf added:

“It was fraud and corruption on Wall Street that caused the crash,” Wolf said. “Now working people are losing their jobs and their pensions because of it.

John B. Taylor, professor of economics at Stanford and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution would disagree with Wolf on the cause of the crash citing the federal government as the leading cause of the crash.  There are many others who would agree with Taylor as well.

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As an ongoing feature at Big Government, the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowlege, with Peter Robinson, will continue posting clips from its current interviews, as well as from many of it’s greatest shows from the past:

While the Left continues to push the meme that the Right is “anti-intellectual,” it is worth examining what really troubles so many Americans about the desire of self-styled “experts” to run the world we all live in.  Hint: it ain’t about intelligence.  There is a species of person in America, in the West, which believes it knows better than the rest of us, and would like us to simply get out of the way so it can take the collective wisdom of its many post-graduate degrees and get on with the business of re-making the world as it sees fit.  In these clips from a longer and wonderful piece (available at the Hoover Institution), Peter Robinson interviews one of America’s greatest actual intellects, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who makes some strong criticisms about the vanity and danger of the intellectual class: they do not know everything, but in fact lack at least 99% of the “consequential knowledge” needed to function in the world; they manufacture the need for themselves, with one dubious crisis after another; and they have an often terrible track record when given the reigns of society, as with McNamara’s Whiz Kids, FDR’s Brain Trust, and the disarmament movement following WWI.  The “Stimulus” and health care “reform” come to mind as well…

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