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Jon Hoffman

After a two-week blitz by rebel forces across Syria, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has crumbled, ending nearly six decades of tyranny under the Assad family. Debates over how the United States should proceed in Syria are now front and center for US Middle East policy.

The United States has limited interests at stake in Syria, namely preventing terrorist attacks against the American homeland and avoiding getting entangled in a costly proxy conflict after Assad’s removal. These interests are best protected by withdrawing US troops from Syria and dealing with the emerging government in Damascus at arms-length.

Assad’s overthrow has its roots in the 2011 Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East. Protests erupted in Syria connected with this revolutionary wave. The Syrian uprising was quickly hijacked and derailed by external actors and the emergence of groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS), leading to a yearslong proxy conflict involving the United States, Russia, Iran, Israel, and Turkey that had a devastating impact on the country. As of 2018, it appeared Assad had won the civil war.

He had not. In roughly two weeks, starting at the end of November, opposition forces, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), captured the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and finally, Damascus, forcing Assad to flee to Moscow. Russia, Iran, and various regional militias backed by Tehran had been critical in propping up Assad’s regime. 

However, all of these actors have either been unable or unwilling to save the regime. Russia, preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Iran, facing an economic crisis and chief elements of the so-called “axis of resistance” overstretched and degraded, failed to save Assad this time.

No tears should be shed for Bashar al-Assad. Like his father before him, he was a ruthless dictator responsible for the murder and torture of countless Syrians. The Syrian people deserve to be free of Assad’s tyranny.

At the same time, a healthy dose of caution and realism should be applied to the uncertainties ahead for Syria.

First is the nature of the opposition forces, namely HTS. An outgrowth of al-Qaeda in Iraq, HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (whose real name is Ahmad al-Sharaa) has a long history of extremist behavior, including fighting against US troops in Iraq. Al-Jolani has sought to reinvent himself and HTS, namely by renouncing his ties with al-Qaeda and painting HTS as distinct from the global Salafi-jihadi movement, emphasizing its localized nature. 

HTS desires the establishment of an “Islamic state” inside Syria, but al-Jolani has tried to stress that the group’s agenda remained strictly focused domestically. However, the group is still deeply authoritarian and adheres to a strict form of Islamism. How this manifests itself moving forward—and how the group will react if Syrians reject the creation of an “Islamic state” inside Syria—remains to be seen.

Second is the risk of a reignited proxy conflict inside Syria. Russia, Iran, and Tehran’s regional partners are still consumed by other concerns, though they will likely try to maintain an element of influence inside post-Assad Syria. Arab autocracies across the region—particularly in the Gulf—will be eager to prevent the emergence of a democratic Syria, fearing that it could encourage mobilization across the region and steer developments in a direction at odds with their own respective interests. 

Turkey—which supported the HTS offensive against Assad—is now attacking Kurdish groups in Syria, whom the United States partnered with to fight ISIS, but Ankara views as terrorists.

Israel, too, has already intervened in Syria, immediately invading the country through the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to establish a “buffer zone” in place of the demilitarized buffer zone that was created in a 1974 agreement between Syria and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who also claimed the fall of Assad was a direct result of Israel’s actions against Hezbollah and Iran—stated the agreement was void after the fall of the regime. Further Israeli military action in Syria is not hard to imagine.

The United States has no interest in involvement in another ruinous proxy war in Syria. American interests at stake in Syria are limited. Washington should embrace a pragmatic, hands-off approach. This requires removing American troops from Syria and disavowing further military action inside the country, provided its new government abjures anti-American terrorism.

The United States currently has an estimated 900 troops deployed in Syria, leftover from the Obama administration, with the official mission of combatting ISIS. However, as former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford noted, the “real (but unstated) reason the US is there is to block Iran from using a road coming from Iraq into Syria.” Despite plans by Donald Trump to withdraw troops from Syria during his first administration in the wake of the destruction of the ISIS caliphate, America’s military presence remained, thanks—in part—to efforts by the Pentagon to sabotage a withdrawal. Unsuccessful, Trump then argued the remaining US military presence in Syria was oriented toward oil, claiming, “We’re out of Syria, other than we kept the oil. I kept the oil.” Yet, US troops were left in Syria, and we did not “keep the oil.”

Such policy incoherence has persisted under the Biden administration, which has maintained America’s military presence in Syria, despite these troops coming under increased attack as a result of America’s support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Over the past 14 months, these troops have been sitting ducks for reprisal attacks from Iran-backed groups in the region. US troops in Syria and Iraq have been attacked in excess of 180 times over the past 14 months, many suffering traumatic brain injuries—as recently as this week—and three killed at the Al-Tanf military base on the Jordanian-Syrian border in January. 

Withdrawing US troops immediately from Syria is of the utmost importance. American military personnel are in Syria without legal authorization or a clear and achievable mission. They represent a remnant of a failed and counterproductive global war on terror and serve as a dangerous tripwire for war with Tehran. Maintaining a US military presence in Syria is not only strategic malpractice but a direct affront to the lives of American troops. It’s time to bring them home.

Washington should also avoid trying to micromanage Syrian politics. Thankfully, the incoming Trump administration appears to recognize the peril here. Discussing events in Syria, President-elect Donald Trump stated, “The United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.” 

Vice President-elect JD Vance echoed this sentiment, claiming “this is not our fight and we should stay out of it,” and that “time will tell” whether groups such as HTS have indeed moderated.

Revolutions often have unintended and far-reaching consequences, and the pragmatic approach outlined by Trump and Vance should guide US policy toward Syria in the months ahead.

The United States should establish arms-length relations with whoever emerges as the head of the Syrian state. But provided the new government does not target Americans, our involvement should end there. As anywhere, Washington’s Syria policy should be restricted to a level commensurate with the (limited) US interests at stake. 

David Inserra

Jeffrey A. Singer

Breastfeeding may have short-term and long-term benefits for both mother and child:

Breast milk transfers many maternal antibodies to the newborn, protecting the baby from infection while the baby’s immune system develops.
Research suggests breastfeeding may reduce an infant’s risk of developing asthma and obesity and may reduce the risk of developing type 1 diabetes by 15 to 30 percent.
It may also reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) by 50 percent.
There is also evidence that breastfeeding may reduce the mother’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and breast and ovarian cancer. 

For these reasons, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Children’s Fund all recommend exclusive breastfeeding during a baby’s first six months and supplemental breastfeeding until a child reaches age two or older. Yet many mothers face painful and frustrating challenges when attempting to nurse their infants. At the same time, numerous pediatricians and other health professionals lack the training and confidence needed to support breastfeeding mothers effectively.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2019, only 55.8 percent of infants in the United States were breastfeeding at six months. Only 24.9 percent were exclusively breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates are lower among certain racial and ethnic minorities. A March 2023 study found, “Overall, 88% of women reported any breastfeeding; Black (77%) and American Indian (82%) women were least likely to report any breastfeeding, compared to other groups (89%–100%).”

Perceiving the lack of adequate professional support for breastfeeding mothers, entrepreneurial mothers with breastfeeding experience established private-sector voluntary programs to train lactation support professionals and set standards for certifying them at various levels of expertise. A group of mothers in Chicago founded the La Leche League International in 1956, which spun off the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners (IBLCE) in 1985. The IBLCE later established the first private, voluntary certification for lactation support professionals, granting them the title of International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). Other private, voluntary certifying organizations arose over time to compete with the IBCLE. For example, the Academy of Lactation Policy and Practice, established in 1999, offers certification as a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) or an Advanced Lactation Consultant (ALC).

Certification and credentialing organizations are important for setting standards and providing helpful quality signals to health care consumers. Government-mandated licensing, on the other hand, restricts new entrants to the field, stifles innovation, and impedes patients’ access.

Unfortunately, in recent years, lawmakers in several states have begun licensing lactation consultants. The National Lactation Consultant Alliance (NCLA), allied with the IBLCE, lobbies to erect such barriers to lactation support professionals. The NCLA website states:

NCLA considers licensure of the International Board Certified Lactation Consultant integral to the provision of clinical lactation care to childbearing families. Licensure of qualified IBCLCs facilitates clinical lactation care that is safe, affordable, risk appropriate, and equitable.

Lawmakers in New Mexico, Oregon, and Rhode Island have barred lactation support professionals from presenting themselves to consumers as lactation consultants unless the IBCLC certifies them, thus granting monopoly status to that certifying body. Massachusetts lawmakers are currently considering such legislation.

In 2018, Georgia lawmakers went further. They banned anyone from offering any level of lactation support services to nursing mothers without IBCLC certification. The law never took effect after a challenge by lactation professionals led the Georgia Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional.

Yet a pattern of improved six-month exclusive breastfeeding rates has yet to emerge among states with licensed lactation consultants.

Some lactation consultants support licensing because the federal government effectively subsidizes it. Federal law requires Medicaid and insurance companies to pay for breastfeeding support only if licensed professionals perform these services. In effect, Congress encourages lactation support professionals to agitate for licensing by offering subsidies if they convince state lawmakers to restrict entry into the profession.

In our new Cato briefing paper, former Cato Research Associate Sofia Hamilton and I describe how the lactation consultant profession arose organically and evolved without government direction or support. We also explain why licensing would reduce innovation and access to lactation support services, particularly in rural and underserved areas. We urge states with lactation consultant licensing laws to repeal them. In states considering licensing lactation consultants, we tell lawmakers, “Don’t just do something; stand there.”

You can read the briefing paper here.

Norbert Michel and Jerome Famularo

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States experienced a much higher rate of inflation than at any time during the prior few decades. Like the prices of many goods and services, the cost of housing rose rapidly, with the median home price increasing almost $100,000. (Figure 1.) Unsurprisingly, many potential homebuyers were—and still are —shocked and upset.

As they have in years past, many politicians have latched on to the anger surrounding the recent housing market turmoil. During the presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “Here’s the thing: we know that we have a shortage of homes and housing. And the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people.” Prior to the election, Donald Trump outlined his own solutions, and now federal officials want to implement a host of policies, ranging from subsidies to selling federal land.

But is the United States really facing a housing crisis? Or a shortage of homes? And should Americans really expect recent federal policy proposals to make housing more affordable?

This Cato at Liberty post is the second in a series that examines these questions. (The first post is here.) While the series presents evidence that the United States is not facing a true housing crisis or shortage, nothing in the series suggests that local officials should refrain from relaxing zoning restrictions and other regulations. Elected officials should reduce rules and regulations to make it easier and less costly for people to live. Additionally, federal officials should end the many demand-side policies that place upward pressure on prices across the nation.

Just as important, nothing in the series ignores that many Americans have taken an economic beating these past few years—real wages have fallen, and prices have not reverted to pre-COVID levels. It is no surprise that so many people have been calling for increased government intervention.

As previously, though, if federal officials answer those calls, it will likely increase Americans’ economic burden. Evidence shows that over the long term, people have overcome the many federal roadblocks that increase the nominal cost of housing, but affordability would be much improved in the absence of those policies.

Fortunately, federal officials have an excellent opportunity to make it easier for Americans to afford housing because the lessons learned from the post-COVID-19 inflationary episode are directly applicable to the housing market. In both cases, federal policies that distort both demand and supply result in harmful outcomes. The housing market is just a microcosm of what can go wrong—and how difficult it can be to fix—when the federal government interferes with markets.

This post looks at the basic data behind the housing affordability issue. It focuses on home price data in both nominal and real terms, and it demonstrates how deceptive long-term price trends can be regarding affordability.

As Figure 1 shows, the median home price in the United States has been steadily increasing since the 1960s, with several notable spikes throughout the period. Focusing on the most recent few decades (Figure 2), home prices exhibited two abnormally large spikes above the trend, once in the years preceding the 2008 financial crisis and again in 2020 surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The spike preceding the 2008 financial crisis stands as a testament to why federal officials should avoid expansive policies such as President Clinton’s National Partners in Homeownership. That effort, a private-public cooperative, set an arbitrary goal of raising the US homeownership rate from 64 percent to 70 percent by 2000. It did so by expanding incentives to borrow and lend, a trend that heavily contributed to the 2008 crisis. The ownership rate climbed to 69 percent by 2004 but then steadily dropped for the next twelve years, reaching 62.9 percent in 2016. It currently stands at 65.6 percent, essentially where it stood in 1979. 

The more recent price spike is related to the federal response surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and it coincides with the near-record-high inflation that started in 2021. As Figure 2 demonstrates, this spike in home prices went well above the trend, with the median home price rising from $317,100 to $442,600. 

Given this large and rapid price increase, it is hardly surprising that Americans are concerned about rising home prices, much like they were upset about rapidly rising consumer goods prices. Still, these increases are only nominal, and prices did partly reverse. From October 2023 to April 2023, for instance, the median home price fell from $442,600 to $412,300.

Obviously, this most recent value is still well above the pre-pandemic median home price, so any prospective buyer in the market before and after the pandemic will be particularly unhappy with the higher price. However, it is vital that policymakers do not overreact to short-term price movements because doing so could easily cause home prices to rise even more rapidly.

Regardless, these two large price spikes don’t, by themselves, answer the question of whether homes have become unaffordable over time, much less whether there is some kind of structural problem—a crisis—in the housing market. There are, in fact, many reasons to doubt the crisis story.

Looking Deeper

One reason to consider contrary evidence is that while the US homeownership rate was 64.1 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2019, it was 65.6 percent by the third quarter of 2024. So, while home prices rose, a larger share of Americans now own homes. At the very least, whether homes have become more “unaffordable” over time requires more investigation.

A good place to start investigating this question is to examine home prices in real terms, as opposed to simply nominal price movements. Figure 3 presents both the real (inflation-adjusted) median home price and real median household income. As the figure shows, the increase in real home prices is not as steep as the nominal increase presented in Figure 1 and Figure 2. Still, Figure 3 also shows that real home prices have risen at a more rapid rate than income (recently and throughout the period).

Given this relationship between income and home prices, the idea that homes have become more unaffordable over time may seem like the obvious conclusion. Still, even this relationship does not tell the full story. One important factor to consider is how similar homes are now compared to homes purchased in the 1970s. Another factor to consider is whether the makeup of households is the same.

Both factors are critical to the story because homes have been getting larger, and households have been getting smaller. Put differently, people have been buying larger houses and living in them with fewer people. As Figure 4 shows, the median new home size increased 45 percent, from 1,535 square feet in 1975 to 2,233 square feet in 2023, while the average household size decreased 15 percent, from 2.94 people to 2.51. As a result, the total space per person increased 70 percent from 1975 to 2023.

When the data are adjusted for these changes, the evidence shows that homes have not gotten dramatically more expensive over time. In fact, as Figure 5 shows, homes have become slightly more affordable, even with the most recent price spike. When we hold both the average home size and household size constant, the share of household income spent on new homes has been on a slightly decreasing trend since 1975.

This change likely matters very little to someone coming into the market recently, but the long-term trend stands. Just as important, the federal government implemented many policies during this period that put upward pressure on prices, and housing would have become even more affordable over time in the absence of those harmful policies.

Finally, it is important to note that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans have experienced solid income growth over the past five decades. Income has not been stagnant, and it is not the case that only the well-off did better.

As we demonstrated last year (and mentioned in our new paper), even Americans at the lower end of the income distribution did better. For example, from 1967 to 2023, the share of households earning less than $35,000 fell from 31 percent to 21 percent, and the share earning between $35,000 and $100,000 fell from more than 53 percent to 38 percent. During the same period, the share of households earning more than $100,000 essentially tripled, from 14 percent to 41 percent. (These income figures are in real terms.)

Obviously, these figures do not indicate that every American has done better or that no Americans have had difficulty earning higher incomes. But the idea that most Americans failed to earn substantially higher incomes (in real terms) over the past five decades is wrong. Naturally, this kind of income growth is consistent with Americans seeking—and purchasing—bigger homes with more amenities.

The next post in this series takes a deeper look at whether changing consumer preferences could have increased housing demand during the past few decades.

Norbert Michel

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, speculation escalated that a new Trump administration would try to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government conservatorship. While it seems that the administration is moving in that direction, this new Politico story provides a glimpse at how difficult it will be to release Fannie and Freddie.

For those who don’t recall, in 2008 America’s largest government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—recorded combined net losses of $109 billion. That total surpassed the GSEs’ cumulative net income over the prior 40 years, and the federal government placed both GSEs in conservatorship, where they’ve remained ever since.

As Politico explains, some Republicans in Congress are exploring opportunities to release the GSEs as part of a deal that extends tax cuts in next year’s must-pass tax legislation. The idea seems simple because selling the government’s stake in the GSEs would raise money that could help “pay” for extending the tax cuts.

But it’s not so simple for multiple reasons.

First, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) currently views the GSEs as part of the federal government, so releasing them removes a large asset from the federal books. At the very least, the CBO will have to account for whether ending the conservatorship increases or decreases the risk of future outlays for a possible bailout.

Perhaps worse, Congress might have to explicitly state whether the federal government officially stands behind the GSEs’ existing securities. Combined, these securities are worth nearly $7 trillion.

Another major problem is the liquidation preference. This feature of the conservatorship specifies that any funds derived from selling assets must first be used to compensate taxpayers for the bailout, and the GSEs cannot emerge from conservatorship without paying this liquidation preference in full. As former Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Ed DeMarco points out, this feature means that the GSEs would have to raise north of $300 billion to exit conservatorship.

Any reduction in the liquidation preference would be an additional bailout, so CBO will have to score it that way.

Regardless, there’s no lack of irony in these budget-related talks because Fannie Mae was created in 1968 to remove debt from the federal budget. (The Johnson Administration used the 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act to move Fannie’s debt off the federal books.)

The bottom line is that the GSEs have never been truly private companies, and the experiment with Fannie and Freddie has failed miserably. Congress and the Trump administration should craft a plan to release the companies, and any deal should avoid creating smaller versions of the GSEs under new names.

At a minimum, the plan should revoke Fannie and Freddie’s exemption from the requirements to register their securities offerings under the Securities Act of 1933 and provide teeth to the excessive use provisions in their charters.

None of this will be easy, but it is long past time for Congress to end the GSE experiment.

Patrick G. Eddington

In late April 2024, the Congress passed and President Biden signed the most sweeping expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in nearly 20 years. In response to stinging criticism over the law’s increased scope—which even some former Justice Department officials denounced—Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D‑VA) promised that a fix to eliminate the over-broad language in the revised FISA statute would be included in the annual Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA). 

But as WIRED reported in July, pro-surveillance hawks in the Senate conducted a behind-the-scenes campaign to scuttle Warner’s FISA reform effort. As we learned over the weekend, the “Congressional Surveillance Caucus” (my term) prevailed in their fight with Warner.

On Pearl Harbor Day, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (HASC and SASC) released their “compromise” version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which this year includes the IAA sans any reform of the radically broad FISA expansion that became law earlier this year. 

Because this particular NDAA contains some “culture war” related provisions, it’s unclear at the moment whether the House GOP leadership can get the bill passed via the suspension calendar (which requires a bill to get two-thirds of House members voting in support for passage). If not, the bill could be brought up under regular order under a rule which only requires a simple majority for passage. 

Given that HASC and SASC appear to be treating this as a de facto conference report, it’s unlikely the House GOP leadership would allow amendments to the bill under any rule governing floor debate. The bottom line is that if the bill eventually passes as is, the next chance to roll back the expanded FISA statute will be 2025 when the next NDAA and IAA are up for consideration … and you can count on the “Congressional Surveillance Caucus” to fight any reform efforts tooth and nail.

Ian Vásquez and Guillermina Sutter Schneider

Argentina’s President Javier Milei promised to take his chainsaw to regulations when he assumed power a year ago this week. His newly created Ministry of Deregulation began functioning in July, and virtually every day, Minister Federico Sturzenegger announces one or numerous regulatory reforms. 

Getting public spending under control and cutting red tape have been Milei’s two policy priorities this year. His success in shrinking government largesse, balancing the budget, and reducing inflation are well known. Less appreciated is how much he’s been deregulating, so we decided to try to measure that effort. 

We should note that prioritizing deregulation makes sense. A legacy of the corporatist state that Peronism entrenched, Argentina is one of the most regulated countries in the world. On the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom index, Argentina ranks 146 out of 165 countries in terms of regulatory burden.

Measuring regulatory reform is challenging. Argentine government data is sometimes incomplete or vague. How to quantify reform can also be open to judgment. (Does the elimination of various articles of a regulation affecting different forms of economic activity count as one reform or several? What about the elimination of an entire law or its modification?)

The best source on deregulation in Argentina is the deregulation czar himself, Federico Sturzenegger. We used his posts on X and those of his ministry, where deregulations are regularly announced, and cross-checked them on other government websites. We were conservative in our quantification. If one or dozens of articles were eliminated or modified within one law, we simply counted that as one deregulation. (Each law that was deregulated, no matter to what extent, counted as one deregulation.) 

What did we find? From December 10, 2023, when Milei assumed the presidency, to December 7, 2024, there were 672 regulatory reforms. On average, that means that during his presidency, Milei has been issuing 1.84 deregulations per day, counting weekends. Out of the total amount of reforms, 331 eliminated regulations and 341 modified existing regulations.

The heat chart above shows how many regulatory reforms Milei’s government has issued per week over the past year. Milei, in fact, began his administration with a deregulatory bang, introducing an emergency “megadecree” last December that consisted of 366 articles and has continued this drive with the creation of the new ministry. Argentine law allows emergency decrees, which are reviewable by Congress, under certain conditions. Most of the deregulations in the “megadecree” are in force.

In June of this year, the congress passed a massive bill that Milei presented (“Ley Bases”) that gave the president the ability to issue further deregulations for a period of one year. That is the authority under which most of Argentina’s deregulations are currently taking place. (The majority of Milei’s deregulations have since come out in the second half of the year.)

The laws and regulations that Milei has abolished or modified date back well into the 20th century and, in some cases, even further. We found that 12 percent of the laws that Milei deregulated took effect during military dictatorships and 88 percent originated during democracy, including under populist governments of the left. (The chart below is based on deregulations for which we could obtain sufficient information. Some of the laws that were deregulated took effect in the administrations that followed the ones that introduced them.)

Argentina’s deregulation drive covers a wide range of sectors: housing, pharmaceuticals, technology, non-tariff trade barriers, transportation, tourism, energy, agriculture, etc. Some reform has been procedural, affecting a range of areas. For example, Milei has instituted a “positive administrative silence” rule affecting numerous activities by which a requested permission is considered approved if the government bureaucracy does not respond to the request within a determined period of time.

It’s too early to measure the full impact of the deregulations, but there’s no doubt that they are significant given the bureaucratic weight they are lifting. Some indication of that can be seen in the following examples:

The elimination of an import licensing scheme has led to a 35% drop in the price of home appliances and a 20% drop in the price of clothing items. 
The lifting of Argentina’s burdensome rent control system has resulted in a tripling of the supply of rental apartments in Buenos Aires and a nearly 50% drop in price.
The elimination of a floor price of yerba mate, which is widely consumed in Argentina as a tea, led to a 25% drop in its price.

Many other deregulations, whose impact has not yet been measured, could be cited. Argentina has begun implementing an open skies policy that has increased the number of airlines operating there. The government has also lifted regulations that favored the state-owned airline Aerolineas Argentinas, such as the requirement that public employees book their flights on the more expensive state airline or that other airlines cannot park their airplanes overnight at one of the main airports in Buenos Aires. Milei has gotten rid of legally sanctioned hereditary positions at numerous government agencies (yes, you read that right). The government has permitted Starlink and Amazon to provide satellite internet service in the country, providing connectivity to vast swaths of Argentina that until now had no such connection. Etc., etc.

When one of us (Ian) and a colleague visited Sturzenegger and his team at the ministry last month, we were struck by their sense of urgency, professionalism, and commitment to the task. They made clear that their priority was to increase freedom. When reviewing regulations, their first question is not about how to increase efficiency but rather about whether the government should be involved in a particular regulation at all. 

The deregulation team, made up of accomplished economists and legal experts, is up against the clock. During our visit, a countdown sign outside the minister’s office read “237 days left,” indicating the time remaining, according to current law, for the government to continue issuing deregulatory decrees. Argentina is a target-rich environment for the ministry’s work, and it is taking recommendations from the public at large (when the ministry recently set up a web portal to that effect called “Report the bureaucracy,” it received more than 1,300 entries within the first eight hours). The biggest challenges are doing as much as they can with the time remaining and prioritizing regulatory reform, which is sometimes informed by large differences in Argentine versus international prices.

Milei and Sturzenegger have their work cut out for them. But what they are accomplishing is more than most thought could be done in such a short period of time. Their deregulations are increasing economic freedom, reducing opportunities for corruption, creating greater transparency in government, helping to formalize the informal sector, stimulating growth, and setting an example for countries around the world to follow.

*Guillermina Sutter Schneider is a data scientist and information designer and a coauthor of the Human Freedom Index. This article draws partially from “Desregulacion: Argentina vs. Estados Unidos,” by Ian Vasquez (November 20, 2024) and “Argentina’s Escape from Kafka’s Castle,” by Guillermina Sutter Schneider (December 5, 2024).

Marc Joffe

The baseball club formerly known as the Oakland A’s has begun an odyssey that should ultimately take it to Las Vegas in the late 2020s. But the team may need to shake down Nevada taxpayers for even more money before finishing its journey. Professional sports, in which wealthy owners employ well-compensated players to compete in front of disproportionately affluent crowds, may seem like the least eligible business for taxpayer-funded government largesse, but somehow the subsidies keep coming.

Until the early 20th century, US stadiums were normally funded privately. But in 1928, Cleveland, Ohio voters approved a $2.5 million bond measure to fund the construction of Cleveland Municipal Stadium, kicking off the Depression-era trend toward publicly funded construction. Although the stadium was part of a failed effort to attract the 1932 Olympics, it soon became the home of the MLB Cleveland Indians and later the NFL Cleveland Browns. The facility was demolished in 1995, only 64 years after it opened, a fact that throws cold water on the notion that big municipal infrastructure projects are generational investments benefiting residents far into the future. Instead, stadiums rapidly become obsolete, necessitating either replacement or costly makeovers.

Such was the case with the Oakland Coliseum, which opened in 1966, became the home of the A’s in 1968, and was considered obsolescent long before the A’s finally left in 2024. The Coliseum and adjacent Oakland Arena have been encumbered by municipal bond debt throughout their entire existence.

Oakland hopes to finally extinguish the debt and plug its large FY 2025 budget deficit by selling the site to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group. However, there are doubts about whether this transaction will be completed. These doubts contributed to Fitch Ratings’ decision to downgrade the city two notches from AA- to A.

After extended negotiations with Oakland officials over a new stadium site, the A’s management walked away from the negotiating table and declared its intention to move. Their first stop is a small stadium in West Sacramento, California, which they will share with the San Francisco Giants’ AAA team for at least three years. That stadium, now known as Sutter Health Park, was also built with municipal bond proceeds. But, to the credit of Sacramento-area local governments, that debt can only be serviced with stadium proceeds, leaving taxpayers (at least theoretically) off the hook.

The move brings some drawbacks to the “no-longer Oakland” A’s. The minor league facility is very small by major league baseball standards, limiting attendance to only about 14,000 fans. Further, because the A’s are new to Sacramento and are staying temporarily, they may not be able to cultivate a dedicated fan base. As a result, they may struggle to sell out those 14,000 seats once the novelty effect wears out over the first few home games.

The small stadium and unfamiliar community will likely cement the A’s standing near the bottom of MLB stadium attendance. For the 2024 season, the A’s ranked dead last in attendance, with an average of 11,528 fans coming to its home games.

Depressed ticket and concession revenue will hurt the team’s financial performance as it prepares to move to its permanent new home in Las Vegas. Forbes reports that the A’s lost $11 million in 2023 despite its relatively low payroll, and it is reasonable to think that the losses will continue during the franchise’s time in West Sacramento.

Nevada and Clark County lured the A’s to Las Vegas by offering to contribute $380 million to the cost of building a new domed stadium near the Las Vegas strip. The 33,000-seat facility was originally expected to cost a total of $1.5 billion to construct, but the budget has now escalated to $1.75 billion due to inflation and added amenities.

The A’s owner has assured Nevada lawmakers that he can take on the added costs, and the contractual agreement between the team and the new Las Vegas Stadium Authority appears to strictly limit the taxpayer contribution to $380 million. However, given the team’s financial status and the owner’s previous machinations in Oakland, one has to wonder whether he will attempt to extract further concessions if construction costs escalate further.

But regardless of whether the taxpayer damage is limited to “just” $380 million or goes higher, officials in Las Vegas and beyond should consider the academic research on stadium subsidies. As economists John Charles Bradbury, Dennis Coates, and Brad R. Humphrey concluded in their 2023 study of stadium subsidies:

The extensive body of research on the economic impact of stadiums demonstrates that professional sports venues generate limited economic and social benefits, which fall far short of the large public subsidies they typically receive. Stadium subsidies transfer wealth from the general tax base to billionaire team owners, millionaire players, and the wealthy cohort of fans who regularly attend stadium events. Despite the widespread consensus among economists that stadium subsidies represent poor public policy, state and local governments continue to subsidize venue construction with funding that now routinely exceeds $1 billion per new facility.

We can only hope that politicians and voters elsewhere will listen to this wisdom.

Jeffrey Miron

Are libertarians pro-union or anti-union?

Neither.

Libertarians hold that government policies should neither favor nor oppose unions. Employees should be free under the law to organize, request collective bargaining, or go on strike; and employers should be free under the law to fire employees who join a union or strike, or to hire replacement workers, or to move their operations to other states or countries. Thus, the libertarian perspective is not about unions per se but about government policy toward unions.

Assuming competition in the labor market, union protections imply higher wages but less employment than at the free-market wage. Thus, union protections distort economic activity. If employers have monopsony power (the ability to keep wages low because few firms hire a particular type of labor), then union-elevated wages potentially increase economic efficiency. Yet the degree of monopsony power in the United States appears to be modest, and nothing guarantees that government protection of union power will occur mainly in monopsonistic industries. Union power can also raise wages above the free-market level, thereby reducing efficiency even in the presence of monopsony.

Further, in the same way that monopoly prices incentivize the entry of new firms that undercut these prices, monopsony incentivizes the entry of new firms that offer more attractive wages and benefits to top employees. For instance, local taxi services were historically monopsony employers. Uber and Lyft, however, carved out major stakes in ride-hailing markets by providing drivers with better wages and the option to drive without leasing.

Thus, the libertarian position on monopsony power and union policy parallels the libertarian position on market power and antitrust policy. In neither case do libertarians insist that private arrangements are perfect, but that is not the right question. It is, instead, whether government intervention improves efficiency, and the libertarian assessment is that it does not.

This article appeared on Substack on December 8, 2024. Jonah Karafiol, a student at Harvard College, co-wrote this post.

Ivan G. Osorio

Fred L. Smith, Jr., founder and long-time leading light of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), recently passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by family and friends. Fred’s place as a prime mover—or perhaps, a force of nature—in the libertarian movement is well known. Founding CEI out of his and his wife Fran’s apartment in 1984, he built the organization into a major font of ideas for market-friendly regulatory reform that carries on his work today.

Fred’s passion for ideas went beyond intellectual exercises. He was always interested in how ideas mattered to people’s lives. In his work, that translated into applying the ideas of liberty to public policy in practical and principled ways by reaching people on their own terms. “People don’t care what you know,” he’d often say, “until they know you care.” 

I walked into that atmosphere he created when I joined CEI two decades ago as an editor before joining Cato last year. From editing a monthly newsletter, I managed to build CEI’s publications program into a major component of the institute, all thanks to the opportunity I got from Fred.

My experience wasn’t unique among those who worked with Fred. He cared about liberty because he cared about people. Like Julian Simon—after whom CEI named its famous award—Fred saw people as the ultimate resource, and he applied that belief in how he ran CEI. He was always curious to hear everyone’s opinions (even, or especially, when he didn’t agree) and saw potential in everyone who worked with him at one time or another. Fred’s curiosity extended beyond his work. He thought everyone, no matter where they came from, had a story to tell.

Most of all, though, being around Fred was, well … fun. True to his Louisiana roots, which he held dear, he believed in the freedom to Laissez les bon temps rouler.