Cato Institute Event Videos (Full)

President Obama and leaders in Congress are considering cuts to the U.S. corporate tax rate, which is now higher than the rates of all of our trading partners. Tax scholar Jack Mintz played a leading role in Canada’s drive to reduce its federal corporate tax rate to just 15 percent. Dr. Mintz will discuss the Canadian reforms and present new estimates of corporate effective tax rates for 80 nations. Top U.S. tax expert Kevin Hassett will comment on Mintz’s findings and discuss prospects for corporate tax reforms in the United States.

Purchase Now (http://www.amazon.com/Breakout-Nations-Pursuit-Economic-Miracles/dp/0393080269/?tag=catoinstitute-20) Which countries will become breakout nations, maintaining high growth or exceeding expectations in the coming years? According to Ruchir Sharma, China, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa will all disappoint, while India has no more than a 50 percent chance of sustaining its good performance. Two Muslim democracies, Turkey and Indonesia, have strong credentials to become the next breakout nations. In Europe, the top candidates are Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States, despite current problems, retains enough innovation and entrepreneurship to beat expectations. Sharma will discuss how trends of the last decade will change and he will justify his analysis. Swami Aiyar will challenge some of the author's country assessments.

Gasoline Prices: Who's to Blame and What to Do?

Amidst congressional debate over the future of federal surface transportation funding, one fact stands out: the gasoline tax is increasingly less viable as a source of highway user fees. Inflation, increasing fuel economy, and electric cars have eroded the amount drivers pay per mile by two-thirds since 1956, when Congress created the Interstate Highway System. What are the alternatives? What is the future of highway financing? Please join us to hear insights about the current funding system and what will be coming down the road.

Like international trade, cross-border direct investment drives economic growth. The value of cross-border investment flows has increased dramatically worldwide in response to liberalization of investment rules over the past couple of decades. But the trend toward liberalization has slowed, even reversed, in recent years. In April, the International Chamber of Commerce published the first revision in 40 years to its International Investment Guidelines, and the Obama administration published long-awaited revisions to its template for international investment agreements—the so-called model bilateral investment treaty. Will these developments help rein in investment protectionism. How will they influence cross-border investment flows? Can they help achieve the vaunted macroeconomic rebalancing?

(http://www.cato.org/store/books/american-nightmare-how-government-undermines-dream-homeownership)Since the recent financial crisis, many pundits have argued that the future of homeownership is in doubt. Not so, says Randal O'Toole, whose new book, American Nightmare: How Government Undermines the Dream of Homeownership, shows that both the crisis in homeownership and the larger financial crisis have their roots in heavy-handed state and local land-use regulation. Ending that regulation and creating a true free market in housing should boost American homeownership rates to as high as 75 percent. Join the author and a distinguished panel of experts in what promises to be a compelling discussion of this new book and our nation's housing markets.

(http://www.amazon.com/Ron-Pauls-rEVOLution-Movement-Inspired/dp/0062114794)Ron Paul's two presidential campaigns have galvanized a mass movement for smaller government, sound money, and an end to our interventionist foreign policy. This genuinely spontaneous movement has featured blimps, "money bombs," the rEVOLution logo, and thousands of college students chanting "End the Fed" at campuses across the country. Somehow the message Ron Paul had been advancing for 30 years caught on in an era of financial collapse, bailouts, unprecedented deficits, and the two longest wars in American history. Brian Doherty, a senior editor at Reason and author of several books on libertarian history, has been covering Ron Paul since 1999. In his new book he looks at Paul's background, his early years in Congress, his 1988 Libertarian presidential run, his recent campaigns, the grassroots activists who joined the Ron Paul revolution, and indeed the election of Senator Rand Paul. Join us to hear two close observers of Ron Paul discuss "the man and the movement he inspired."

(http://www.amazon.com/The-Tea-Party-Three-Principles/dp/1107011353#reader_1107011353/?tag=catoinstitute-20)With the 2012 elections before us, we've seen much speculation about whether the Tea Party will repeat the crucial role it played in the 2010 elections. Focusing on three principles—limited government, unapologetic U.S. sovereignty, and constitutional originalism—Elizabeth Price Foley's new book addresses that question, and more, head on. As George Will put it, "at last, someone conversant with the large issues now roiling contemporary American politics has taken the Tea Party seriously and concluded that it is intellectually substantial and politically constructive." Please join us for what will doubtless be a stimulating discussion, with comments from both a leading critic of the Tea Party and perhaps the nation's foremost political demographer.

This year, the federal government will spend more than $668 billion on at least 126 different programs to fight poverty; welfare spending by state and local governments adds an additional $284 billion. Clearly we are doing something wrong, as the poverty rate is now at the highest level in nearly a decade. Join us to hear Cato senior fellow Michael Tanner discuss his new paper, "The American Welfare State: How We Spend Nearly $1 Trillion a Year Fighting Poverty — And Fail (http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/american-welfare-state-how-we-spend-nearly-$1-trillion-year-fighting-poverty-fail?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=6d883a5e1c-Cato_Today&utm_medium=email&mc_cid=6d883a5e1c&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d)," and whether it is time to reevaluate our approach to fighting poverty.

(http://www.amazon.com/The-Clash-Economic-Ideas-Experiments/dp/1107012422/?tag=catoinstitute-20)The last 100 years have seen dramatic experiments in economic policy, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the World Trade Organization. All the while government's role in the economy has steadily grown. The recent global housing bubble and its subsequent burst — with ensuing bailouts, budget deficits, and sovereign debt crises — has rekindled old debates over fundamental policy issues: the monetary regime, the business cycle, state regulation and ownership of enterprises, and taxes and spending. In his new book, The Clash of Economic Ideas, Lawrence H. White examines the intellectual roots of today's debates, tying the development of economic ideas to the key events in economic history. Along the way we learn why economists so often disagree about the kinds of government policies required for economic prosperity.

The Obama administration plans to spend $7.6 billion in the coming year on nuclear weapons, but that does not reflect the full cost of maintaining and operating the nation's nuclear arsenal. There is additional spending for nuclear nonproliferation and for nuclear reactors. And the military spends many billions more on multiple delivery platforms: bombers, missiles, and submarines. How much of this spending is necessary for U.S. national security? Could the United States maintain a credible deterrent with a smaller, less expensive force? Join us for a discussion with national security and budget experts who will discuss nuclear-weapons spending in the current budget and explore plans for the nation's nuclear arsenal.The Cato Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ploughshares Fund (http://www.ploughshares.org/) in helping make this event possible.

Purchase Now (http://www.amazon.com/Financing-Failure-A-Century-Bailouts/dp/1598130498/?tag=catoinstitute-20)In the economic crisis, no issue has aroused more passion than the mega-trillion-dollar bailouts of large financial firms. The standard narrative has been one of necessity and fear, claiming the government must have greater power to respond or we all face terrible consequences. Now, in Financing Failure, Vern McKinley examines the policy decisions behind the bailouts and reveals the untold story and how it relates to the history of U.S. government intervention. Based on new revelations from documents uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act, he scrutinizes the decisions made by the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and FDIC during the crisis of the first decade of the 21st century and connects them to decisions of the 1930s and 1980s. These findings reveal that the genesis of financial crises is government itself, be it the interventions behind the Great Depression or the mandates that pushed for expanded homeownership that led to the recent crisis.

The Winter 2012 issue of Cato Journal (http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/) was devoted to the critical question of "Is Immigration Good for America?" In conjunction with its publication, we are pleased to present this special Conference, featuring presentations by many of the national experts who contributed to the publication, along with addresses by other key figures in the immigration debate. We are a nation peopled almost exclusively by immigrants or those who are descended from immigrants. More than any other major nation, we are defined by our immigrant past, present, and future. Yet there are significant incongruities between the immigration system we currently have and the one that would best serve our economic interests and our ideals as a free society. This conference will address a number of key questions, including: What are the arguments for immigration restriction? What are the economic benefits and costs of immigration? What are the economic effects of an "amnesty" for unauthorized workers in the U.S.? What is the demographic impact of immigration in an era of declining birthrates? How easy or difficult is it to immigrate legally to the United States? What is the effect of immigration enforcement on the border and in the workplace? Should we retain the doctrine of birthright citizenship as it has been interpreted in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution? Is immigration incompatible with a welfare state? What kind of reforms of current immigration policy would be most beneficial, and can market incentives be utilized to allocate immigration visas? 8:30 a.m. Registration 9:00 a.m – 9:05 a.m. Opening Remarks Dan Ikenson (http://www.cato.org/people/daniel-ikenson), Director, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute 9:05 a.m. – 9:25 a.m. Keynote Address Tamar Jacoby (http://www.immigrationworksusa.org/index.php?p=40), President and CEO, ImmigrationWorks USA 9:25 a.m – 10:35 a.m. Panel 1: The Economics and Demographics of U.S. Immigration Moderator: Sallie James (http://www.cato.org/people/sallie-james), Cato Institute Panelists: Pia Orrenius (http://www.dallasfed.org/research/economists/orrenius.cfm), Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Ali Noorani (http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/AliNoorani_bio.pdf), National Immigration Forum Barry Chiswick (http://departments.columbian.gwu.edu/economics/people/161), George Washington University 10:35 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. Coffee Break 10:50 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Panel 2: Assessments of the Current U.S. Immigration System Moderator: Ilya Shapiro (http://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro), Cato Institute Panelists: Jim Harper (http://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper), Cato Institute Madeline Zavodny (http://ecademy.agnesscott.edu/~mzavodny/), Agnes Scott College Stuart Anderson (http://www.nfap.com/about/biographies/), National Foundation for American Policy 12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) (http://lofgren.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=32), ranking minority member on the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement 10:50 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Panel 3: Immigration Solutions Moderator: Dan Ikenson (http://www.cato.org/people/daniel-ikenson), Cato Institute Panelists: Ted Alden (http://www.keyschool.org/documents/authorbios/AldenBioA.pdf), Council on Foreign Relations Bryan Caplan (http://www.bcaplan.com/), George Mason University Alex Nowrasteh (http://cei.org/expert/alex-nowrasteh), Competitive Enterprise Institute

Purchase Now (http://www.amazon.com/The-Swing-Vote-Untapped-Independents/dp/0312581777/?tag=catoinstitute-20)Many Americans identify themselves as political independents who vote on the basis of issues and candidates, rather than party affiliation. Linda Killian argues that these independent and swing voters are "the centrist voters who decide elections and represent more voters than those at the conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum." In 2010, self-identified independents swung sharply against the Obama administration and handed the House of Representatives to the Republicans. Nonetheless, given our polarized politics, it is no surprise that these independents, who are "fiscally conservative and socially tolerant," as David Kirby also noted in his papers on "the libertarian vote," might feel overlooked and ignored. How will independents affect the 2012 election? Please join us for an uncommon look at the American electorate.

(http://www.amazon.com/Why-Capitalism-Allan-H-Meltzer/dp/0199859574/?tag=catoinstitute-20)The only economic system that maximizes both growth and individual liberty is capitalism, explains Allan H. Meltzer in his new book. Capitalism succeeds because it is adaptive, not rigid, whereas so much regulation often fails despite good intentions. The author will explain why European welfare states lag behind the United States, the causes of postwar progress and current enormous budget deficits, and why inflation will return. Join us to hear Professor Meltzer's passionate defense of the free market at a time when U.S. citizens seem to lack a shared vision of the way to maintain domestic or world growth. John Mueller will comment on the role of capitalism in human progress.