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David Inserra

In recent weeks, a simmering conflict over the censorial practices of the Brazilian courts erupted into open conflict. Reporting from various sources shows how government forces— most notably Supreme Court Justice and President of the Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes—investigated, secretly censored, and arrested Brazilians accused of spreading “fake news” and “anti‐​democratic” misinformation, often with little due process. Social media companies were silenced and punished if they resisted.

In response, X, formerly Twitter, declared that it would not comply with illegal and “draconian” demands before retreating under threat of punishment. While the government has defended itself by claiming it is protecting democracy, its increasingly authoritarian efforts to stamp out what it deems to be misinformation show how censorship is a threat, not an ally, of democracy.

The fuse was lit when journalist Michael Schellenberger released internal Twitter documents from the past several years that described a host of often secret demands made by Brazilian authorities. These included,

Demands by the Brazilian Congress in 2020 to release the private, direct messages of certain users, which Twitter refused to comply with for being against Brazilian law.

Police and prosecutors threatened to arrest a Twitter employee for failing to provide private Twitter user‐​data without a court order, something that other tech companies apparently provide even though it is forbidden by Brazilian law.

A court order demanding Twitter unmask the identity of anonymous Twitter accounts critical of a political figure who was currently under investigation for corruption and had millions of Brazilian reais (several hundred thousand US dollars) seized by authorities. 

A series of court orders in 2021 and 2022 that demanded Twitter reveal the identities of and demonetize accounts supportive of then‐​President Bolsonaro, including Bolsonaro himself, for content or hashtags that criticized the Superior Electoral Court and election procedures as part of a court‐​led investigation into misinformation. Twitter’s lawyers referred to these demands as “mass and indiscriminate disclosure of private users data” that are a “fishing expedition” and “a violation of privacy and other constitutional rights.” 

Other legal demands, often by Moraes himself, to suspend accounts, including those of sitting members of Congress for electoral misinformation. Twitter often pushed back, but in some cases had to comply to avoid significant fines if they did not comply within extremely short timeframes, even as short as one hour. Given that these are often secret orders, social media companies are effectively prohibited by the court from telling users why their content is being suppressed.

Other reporting by Glenn Greenwald noted that this wasn’t some fever dream of the political right in Brazil, and reporters at the New York Times questioned if the militant defense of democracy embraced by the Brazilian high courts was now posing a threat to democracy.

The Times cited an instance where a Whats App chat of eight businessmen in Brazil leaked, in which two suggested that they would prefer any outcome, even a coup, to Lula becoming president. In response, Moraes ordered the homes of all eight businessmen raided, their bank accounts frozen, various records subpoenaed, and certain social media accounts banned.

In another case, Moraes jailed without trial five individuals for their social media posts that he claimed attacked Brazilian institutions. Moraes also suspended the encrypted communication app, Telegram, for refusing to take down and provide information on prominent Bolsonaro activists for spreading misinformation.

And so, after years of growing censorship demands, Elon Musk said X would no longer abide by Moraes’s efforts to silence and expose dissent through often secret court orders and people have no timely or meaningful ability to appeal. Musk condemned the actions of Moraes and said that he would soon publish all the demands made by the judge.

Not keen on having his censorial demands ignored and exposed, Moraes struck back, expanding existing disinformation investigations into criminal ones against Musk himself for obstructing justice, being a member of a criminal organization, and incitement. Such crimes carry sentences of more than ten years. Perhaps due to this threat or concerns for the safety of X employees in Brazil, the company retreated and announced it would comply with the demands of the courts.

While the Brazilian courts already had substantial power in Brazil, many of these recent actions claimed even further powers to the unelected judiciary. Courts are often thought of as being neutral defenders of rights and due process, but Brazil’s courts—and especially Moraes—have claimed a far broader mandate, free from limits of a US First Amendment.

Attacks on the court, government institutions, or the “truth,” not with violence but with words, are taken as personal affronts to the honor of the judiciary that are then investigated, prosecuted, and judged by the courts themselves. Members of the judiciary take it upon themselves to “defend democracy,” as well as coordinate with executive branch officials to suppress the misinformation.

And this doesn’t even begin to cover the censorial actions coming from the Lula government or attempts by his allies to pass legislation that was inspired by the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Such legislation would give significant power to the government to regulate tech companies and hold them liable for “fake news,” effectively unraveling Brazil’s Marco Civil, its core internet law that is comparable to Section 230 of the US Communications Act. When technology companies used their expressive rights to highlight the harms of the legislation, the government demanded the companies justify their opposition to the courts and hit Google and Telegram with threats of large hourly fines and blocking their platforms in Brazil unless they rescinded their statements opposing the bill.

To be clear, electoral violence such as that seen in the storming of Brazil’s capital buildings by supporters of Bolsonaro on January 8, 2023, like any form of violence, is to be condemned and relevant laws fully prosecuted in the courts. But the “crimes” described above by various news sources are mostly non‐​violent, non‐​threatening speech, and much of it took place before the violence of January 8.

A crusading and unaccountable court that silences, jails, and shuts down individuals, journalists, politicians, and companies for mere “misinformation,” often in secret or with little due process, is a clear threat to liberty and democracy.

Whether it is the current regimes in Turkey and Venezuela, the Russian Tsar, the USSR, and now Putin’s autocracy in Russia, Weimar and Nazi Germany, or countless other cases throughout history, the widespread suppression of speech under the guise of protecting democracy, society, or the government goes hand in hand with rising authoritarianism, government abuse, and human suffering.

While it’s unclear how this current dispute will end, let’s hope that dragging this censorship out into the sunlight will help restore free expression to Brazil. 

John Mueller

Impelled by an overwhelming desire to hunt down those who were responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States launched military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, where it toppled regimes that had little or nothing to do with 9/11 and devolved into extended counterinsurgency wars that resulted in the deaths of more than 100 times as many people as perished on 9/11.

There has been a tendency to see these exercises as misguided elements of a coherent plan to establish a “liberal world order” or to apply “liberal hegemony.” However, the wars of the post–9/11 period have been a glaring aberration. During the quarter century before, the US had pursued a foreign policy that was far more casualty‐​averse.

In recent years, the country seems to have resumed—and even expanded upon—that tradition, a change that may have relevance to policy toward China and Taiwan.

After its war in Vietnam ended in debacle in 1975, the US fell into something that has been dubbed the “Vietnam syndrome.” There continued to be support for the contest against international communism but not for the tactic of opposing it through armed ground interventions.

The most assertive Cold War actions were a military invasion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada in 1983 and an operation to support the anti‐​Soviet rebels in Afghanistan after 1979. Outside the Cold War, the US invaded Panama in 1989 to depose an offending regime, and it led an armed international coalition in 1991 to reverse Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

In all these cases, America’s opponents were hardly formidable. For example, the Iraqi army lacked strategy, tactics, defenses, leadership, and morale, and it mainly fled or surrendered.

Other military ventures Washington pursued after the Vietnam War were even more limited and were mostly carried out not for hegemonic purposes, but for humanitarian ones. For example, in 1992, American soldiers sent to help stabilize Somalia were withdrawn after eighteen of them were killed in a chaotic firefight. And the American military role in a civil war in Bosnia involved little more than supplying aid and advice and, toward the end of the conflict, conducting limited bombing missions.

Overall, this record does not suggest a country that is trying to expand, looking for a fight, crusading for democracy, questing after monsters to destroy, or seeking to act like a “hegemon.”

This comparatively casualty‐​averse military approach would likely have continued but for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In response, President George W. Bush bizarrely proclaimed a need to “rid the world of evil” and launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Actually, neither of these wars was likely necessary. The insecure Taliban regime in Afghanistan might well have proved susceptible to international pressure, and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was unlikely to dominate the Middle East with its ramshackle and unreliable army.

As it became clear just how costly and counterproductive the wars had become, Washington began to shift back to a more cautious military approach, reconfiguring the wars to reduce the US battle death rate. In 2014, it sent troops back to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (ISIS), but local fighters bore the brunt of combat deaths: tens of thousands of people were killed in the five‐​year war, but only twenty were American service personnel.

The US now seems to have fully embraced an “Iraq syndrome,” and it has moved back to a considerable degree of casualty aversion. There is still plenty of spending on the military and on its bases around the world, and economic sanctions seem to have retained their appeal despite little evidence of their effectiveness at changing policy. But there have been almost no American combat casualties in recent years, and GWOT now mostly involves policing and the training of locals.

In fact, casualty aversion may be greater than in the post‐​Vietnam period. For example, there likely will be little support for extended bombing raids or for regime‐​changing military actions. And while support for local Ukrainian resistance to a Russian invasion remains relatively high, there is none for sending US troops.

Although there isn’t much call for major military operations to counter China, a test might come if China attempts to take over Taiwan by military force. If local forces resist effectively, as happened in Ukraine, it seems rather likely that the US will respond in much the same manner as in Ukraine. If Taiwan’s forces fold, however, experience suggests that US troops will not be sent to rescue them.

John Mueller is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. His most recent book is The Stupidity of War.

Patrick G. Eddington

Just shy of one year ago, the public learned that an FBI agent had conducted a query of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 database for information on 19,000 American donors to a congressional campaign, among other episodes of 702 database query misconduct. The revelations, contained in a partially declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion, received massive media coverage and condemnation from House and Senate members across the political spectrum. The facts about these domestic surveillance abuses were not then and are not now in dispute.

Yet despite this clear evidence for the need to require a probable cause‐​based warrant to access the stored communications of Americans under FISA Section 702 (and this Senate floor speech on April 19 by Senator Mike Lee (R‑UT) is a legal clinic in that respect), over the last ten days efforts to mandate such a requirement were defeated in both chambers. The final bill, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (H.R. 7888), was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday, April 20, just hours after a Senate majority stopped every attempt to improve the bill via amendments and passed it by a vote of 60–34.

Even worse, H.R. 7888 actually expands the reach of FISA Section 702 by broadening the definition of “electronic communications service provider” in a way that will encompass cloud‐​based storage companies, among others. That provision was condemned even by former Justice Department lawyers who have argued cases before the FISC.

To the extent that there’s any good news for Bill of Rights defenders in this otherwise outrageous and maddening outcome, it is this: we will do this all over again two years from now. For the first time, the FISA Section 702 provision has been extended for only two years—significantly less than the prior reauthorizations in 2012 and 2018.

The question is, will the outcome be any different the next time around?

Unless surveillance reformers change their approach (i.e., shift from a nonprofit‐​based advocacy and public education effort to a method with more political punch), the results may be the same or even worse.

Johan Norberg

Today is Earth Day, an important moment to reflect on our broader responsibilities to the world. How are we really treating the planet and each other?

Very well, thank you.

At least relative to every other period in history and compared to less free societies. I make this case in a new Cato video based on my book The Capitalist Manifesto.

Despite all the horrors of the world, this is the era in history when we have been most successful in increasing human opportunity. In the past 20 years, global extreme poverty was reduced by more than 130,000 people every day and annual child mortality was reduced by more than four million lives. At the same time, we have solved many environmental problems and the richest and freest countries are also reducing their CO2 emission.

Free market capitalism creates growth and innovation because it allows everyone to look for the places where the potential for it might be hiding. And since it relies on the vantage points and creativity of millions instead of a few people at the top, it is our best chance to find ways of adapting to and innovating our way out of unexpected crises, whether it is a pandemic, a war‐​induced shortage or an environmental threat. As I explain in the video, this is why government intervention has such a long and disappointing track record.

So take this day to reflect on the achievements of this remarkable system of limited government and free markets—the best system on earth.

Walter Olson

I’ve got a new piece in the Unpopulist debunking claims that have lately made the rounds that noncitizens vote in large numbers in federal elections even though it is unlawful in every state for them to do so.

I cite audits of the topic undertaken in states like Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina; an extensive 2017 survey of election administrators asking about problems observed in their jurisdictions; the general failure of both law enforcement and private watchdog groups to turn up more than incidental numbers of such voters; the failure of statistical tests of voting patterns to yield results consistent with widespread noncitizen voting; the outcomes of state screening and database matching; and the incentives at work on both sides (potential lawbreakers, and prosecutors and political actors with the means to document fraud). I write:

The claim that illegal voting is swaying American elections is nothing if not sensational. Those who levy sensational charges should bear the burden of proving them. But they haven’t. It’s just assertion after assertion, with no refutation of the considerable evidence to the contrary.

Over the past four years, through a long succession of court cases, audits, and studies, the props have been kicked out from under #StopTheSteal contention one after another: that voting machine tabulations are being hacked, that hordes of dead or nonexistent persons or ineligible felons vote, and on and on. Now we’re on to a claim of massive noncitizen voting that cleverly dovetails with public anxiety over immigration generally.

It’s worth distinguishing claims of massive current fraud from two separate and less implausible claims that also circulate. One is that immigration patterns may affect electoral politics over the long term in an entirely legal way because some share of immigrants eventually achieve naturalization, and because children born here to immigrants eventually grow up into voters. More on this set of issues from Alex Nowrasteh and co‐​authors here and here.

Another claim is that because the US Constitution mandates that congressional representation be apportioned according to “the whole number of persons in each state,” immigrant‐​heavy districts can enjoy representation disproportionate to their number of citizen residents. But as colleague David Bier has pointed out, under current conditions, in which many arrivals head for Republican states and areas, this appears to make little partisan difference. One estimate of the effect of removing unauthorized immigrants from apportionment, should the Constitution be changed to make that happen, would be to reshuffle a handful of seats between states, with approximately no impact on the balance between red and blue states.

I conclude:

Bogus claims of widespread voter fraud, even when they do not stoke hatred and fear of the foreign‐​born, are grossly irresponsible. They exacerbate polarization and malign honest election administrators. Most of all, they undermine public confidence in our election system. The more people believe elections are rigged, the more they are likely to turn their discontents in a direction other than electoral politics. Some will go the passive route of resignation, withdrawing from civic involvements, making themselves the perfect subjects for strongman rule. Others will turn to militia activity or outright violence.

Either way, the consequences for the American experiment in liberal democratic self‐​rule will be unfortunate.

Read the whole thing here.

Marc Joffe

The drama unfolding in Dolton, Illinois may seem irrelevant to those of us who are not among the 20,621 residents of the village immediately south of Chicago. But the controversy around Dolton’s self‐​styled “super mayor” Tiffany Henyard offers lessons about local government accountability that resonate nationwide.

The problems in Dolton are more likely to occur in states that have an excessive number of governments and poor oversight. But Dolton’s story also illustrates the potential for citizen journalists and engaged residents to push back against corruption and misgovernance.

Voters elected Henyard mayor of Dolton despite media reports that she rented a house to a Section 8 tenant that was uninhabitable due to mold. Since taking office she has been accused of financial improprieties, using the police to harass local businesses, and using her position to retaliate against residents and employees. A majority of voters supported a recall effort against Henyard, but the election was struck down by state courts.

Over the last several months, Henyard has sparred with four of the six town trustees, who recently hired former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to investigate Henyard’s alleged improprieties. Last week, the FBI delivered multiple subpoenas to Dolton’s village hall indicating the existence of a federal investigation.

Under Henyard’s leadership, Dolton has fallen two years behind in producing audited financial statements and is failing to provide periodic financial updates to trustees. Many vendors have complained about non‐​payment, and a leasing company threatened to repossess some of the town’s police vehicles earlier this year.

This situation developed in an environment of proliferating local governments with limited state oversight. Illinois has more local governments than any other state. The existence of more government entities obliges residents to vote for more elected officials and to monitor their actions. In the case of Dolton, residents pay taxes to the village, as well as a park district, a public library district, a water reclamation district, a forest preserve district, a mosquito abatement district, multiple school districts, a community college district, Thornton Township, and Cook County. That is a lot of local government entities for taxpayers to both fund and track, if they wish to demand accountability.

Tiffany Henyard holds elected office in both the village and township, allowing her to collect two salaries.

Robust state oversight of local governments could substitute for citizen involvement but that does not seem to be available in Illinois. As I’ve discussed previously, North Carolina established a powerful Local Government Commission that oversees municipal debt, intervenes in distress situations, and can even dissolve poorly functioning municipalities. Ohio also has very active local oversight through its State Auditor’s office.

Illinois has a mechanism for local government intervention, but it can only be triggered by a vote of the municipality’s governing body, and, for smaller communities like Dolton, a two‐​thirds majority of officials must ask for state involvement.

Unless and until Illinois consolidates local governments and/​or empowers a state agency to monitor and proactively intervene in distressed entities, it will be up to citizens and the media to hold local officials accountable. The collapse of local newspapers in the internet era appears to bode poorly for this remedy, but in Dolton’s case we have seen an encouraging trend.

In addition to frequent coverage from Chicago newspapers and broadcast media, several YouTube creators have been focusing on the situation in Dolton. “Hannibal is Hungry,” a YouTuber “uncovering scams and frauds in the realms of money, media, and society” has devoted multiple live streams to the issue providing commentary, interviews, and coverage of village board meetings. Nate the Lawyer, who focuses on “Comics, Pop Culture, Life, and Law” has also devoted multiple extended videos to events in Dolton, using his legal background to provide informed commentary. Other channels devoting multiple videos to Dolton include Actual Justice Warrior and Pink Book Lessons.

The ability for a single individual to use inexpensive social media platforms to bring attention to local political issues is proving to be a game changer in Dolton. These YouTubers can earn income from advertising on their videos and from interested viewers who can provide support on Patreon and through super chats, real‐​time comments viewers make during a livestream accompanied by donations.

Livestreams of Dolton trustee meetings have shown that several residents are well‐​informed, articulate, and passionate about the village’s financial crisis. Perhaps because they are aware that hundreds or thousands of social media consumers will see their interventions, these active citizens are taking full advantage of opportunities to provide public comment at each meeting.

It remains to be seen whether the Dolton formula can work elsewhere. Henyard is an especially flamboyant and photogenic politician, begging the question of whether YouTubers can generate audience interest for more bland instances of political malpractice. If they can, citizen journalists on YouTube and other platforms may be able to replace local newspapers, providing citizens with a new source of government accountability.

Daniel Raisbeck

In June of 2022, a slight majority of Colombian voters elected Gustavo Petro as president. To say that they ignored numerous warning signs would be an understatement.

Petro began his public life in the late 1970’s as a member of the M‑19, the bloodthirsty urban guerrilla group that—among its many acts of terrorism— stormed the Ministry of Justice in November of 1985, held its magistrates and hundreds of employees as hostages, and ultimately caused the violent death of 111 people.

In 1994, a mere two years after the M‑19’s final official amnesty, which coincided broadly with the introduction of a new constitution in 1991, Petro—then a congressman—invited Hugo Chávez to Bogota, where he hosted him for over a week. At the time, Chávez himself had been recently amnestied, having been sentenced for leading a failed and bloody coup attempt in Caracas in 1992.

Reflecting on his time with Chávez in the Colombian capital, Petro said: “We found an ideological understanding in the fight against corruption and in the Bolivarian discourse.”

Chávez became president of Venezuela in 1999. By 2003, Petro was boasting to a Colombian magazine, which described him as “one of Chávez’s closest advisors on the new model being implemented in Venezuela,” about the country’s change of tack. “We are in a transitional stage,” Petro said, “from a neoliberal model to one that I would call ‘neo‐​populism.’”

Eventually, under Chávez’s price and currency controls, food and basic goods in Venezuela became scarce. So too did Petro’s public statements about the Chavista model. “Neo‐​populism,” it turned out, had been a euphemism for old‐​fashioned socialism. And Petro tried to distance himself from the consequences that he had helped bring about. While running for president in March of 2010, he tweeted:

“We are socialists of the 21st century and Chávez is a 20th century socialist. I don’t expropriate the workers’ property.”

But Petro later deleted said tweet.

When Chávez died in 2013, Petro, who was then the mayor of Bogota, attended his funeral in Caracas. At the time, Petro claimed that Chávez had been “a great Latin American leader.” On Twitter, he posted a photograph of a supermarket shelf full of goods, adding a denial that food was scarce in Venezuela, as it had already been for some time.

During his stay in Caracas, Petro spoke to Telesur, Venezuela’s state‐​run media agency, of his initial encounter with Chávez. According to the Bogota mayoralty’s website, Petro said that, in 1994, he and Chávez had sworn to carry out “a Bolivarian integration” of Latin America. “We pledged to fight for that goal,” he said.

Nonetheless, in the run‐​up to the 2018 presidential election, which Petro lost, he once again tried to downplay his close ties to Chavismo. Petro continually claimed that, since he opposed all future oil exploration in Colombia, his economic policies had nothing to do with Chávez’s model for Venezuela, which was oil‐​dependent. 

Petro’s radical, even apocalyptic, environmentalist rhetoric helped him to win the 2022 election. His not too subtle pivot from traditional statist to climate change alarmist went largely unopposed. Petro’s political rivals, the news media, and center‐​left opinion leaders meekly allowed him to change the axis of political debate.

It fell to a foreign journalist, Mexico’s Jorge Ramos, to provide the only memorable exception. In a 2018 CNN interview, Ramos asked Petro whether he thought that Chávez had been a dictator. After eluding the question for around 40 seconds, Petro said: “I think that international politics is sharply divided by the issue of climate change.” The following exchange ensued:

Ramos: “No, no, no. Was Hugo Chávez a dictator or not, Mr. Petro? […] We can talk afterwards about climate change if you would like.”

Petro: “Hugo Chávez was elected by the people several times.”

Ramos: “Do you think that Chávez was a dictator?”

Petro: “I think that there was no doubt about his elections according to the information I have.”

Ramos: “But you have not answered me whether Chávez was a dictator or not. [Ramos proceeds to quote Petro’s 2013 tweet praising Chávez as a great leader] A great Latin American leader? He had political prisoners, caused many deaths, censored and controlled all news media. Is that a great political leader?”

Petro: “I think that Chávez died and, since his death, a part of Venezuela admires him and another part does not admire him.”

Ramos: “But you, Mr. Petro […] Many Colombians fear that you will do the same.”

Petro: “I cannot do the same for two fundamental reasons. First, because what I propose for Colombia is to separate the economy from oil and coal….”

Ramos: “But you have not wanted to answer me. It is very simple. For you, was Chávez a dictator or not?”

Petro: “I think that he was elected by the people.”

Petro eventually admitted—with an evident lack of conviction in his body language—that the Venezuelan regime had become authoritarian, but only under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, and that Cuba’s statist economy harmed democracy. But Ramos’s pushback had exposed his rhetorical tactic: to claim that Venezuela’s economic and humanitarian collapse was not due to Chávez’s socialist policies, which Petro had celebrated and promoted, but rather to the primacy of the country’s oil industry.

Hence, Petro claimed that his center‐​right opponents, who did not intend to shut down oil exploration and production in the country, were the true proponents of Chavismo in Colombia. Not Petro himself, the one Colombian politician who had helped to bolster Chávez’s power in Venezuela.

Petro got away with his sophistry. Also with his claim that, despite earlier statements about the supposed need to change the constitution, he did not plan to summon a constitutional assembly if elected, as Chávez had done in Venezuela in 1999. Thus, leading politicians and opinion leaders of the center‐​left allowed themselves to be convinced that Petro was a democrat and, as such, represented no menace to Colombia’s republican institutions. In other words, Petro was no Chávez. Nor was Colombia, South America’s longest‐​running democratic republic, as institutionally weak as Venezuela had been when Chávez took over.

A pillar of this theory was the formidable opposition that Petro could face from Congress, where Petro’s party did not hold a majority. But this overlooked the longstanding Colombian tradition of a pro‐​government Congress, whose members are always susceptible to the patronage of a powerful presidency.

Indeed, as Petro was preparing for his inauguration, he formed a coalition not only with the center‐​left Green Party. It also came to include the Liberal Party, a member of the Socialist International since the 1990’s, the nominally center‐​right Party of National Unity, and even the Conservative Party. The formidable opposition theory collapsed even before Petro was sworn into office.

By November of 2022, Petro’s coalition had already approved a tax law that raised rates on formal sector employees and businesses, reinstated a national wealth tax, introduced a sugar tax (which falls most heavily upon the poorest in society), and forbade mining companies from deducting royalty payments from their income taxes. Petro’s “tax reform” really meant hefty tax increases (although this was already the norm in Colombia well before Petro came to power).

More recently Petro has garnered support from the Liberal Party and from Conservative senators for his sabotage of the private pension system. Petro aims to end workers’ ability to choose between the private and public pension alternatives for their mandatory retirement savings; the private system consists of individual retirement accounts, whereas the public version is an unsustainable, pay‐​as‐​you‐​go system that is subsidized through the national budget. Workers in the formal sector are currently free to choose between both models. Petro seeks to force all workers into the state‐​run system, leaving private funds as a voluntary alternative for those earning over three times the minimum wage. 

Liberal and Conservative politicians are supporting Petro’s statist pension scheme despite their parties’ official exit from the government. Petro’s original, “National Agreement” government only lasted until the first half of of 2023, when it dawned on the political class that Petro truly intended—as he had said all along— to uproot private sector involvement in the healthcare sector.

Last March, Congress refused to approve Petro’s bid to expand state control of the healthcare system at the expense of private health insurance companies. Petro’s government responded by taking control of the administration of one of the largest private insurance companies, which manages the health funds of 5.7 million members. Petro also announced that it was time to summon an extralegal constitutional assembly since Congress could not “rise to the challenge” of implementing his agenda in full.

When it came to healthcare, the opposition finally became formidable. And Petro moved to make it futile. Analysts had failed to consider that, when push came to shove, Petro did not intend to respect constitutional protocols.

While the current constitution allows the creation of a new constitutional assembly, it requires both chambers of Congress to vote in favor by a majority, followed by the approval of the Constitutional Court and a majority of voters in a plebiscite, after which an election to choose the assembly members must take place. But Petro says that none of these requirements are necessary to change the constitution.

Petro argues that the “constituted” power that emerged in 1991 has been corrupted, while the “constituent” power is “the people,” which he claims to represent. “The constituent power is not summoned,” he said in an interview. “It is the people, which summons itself to decide the country’s fundamental questions. That is the constituent power.”

Petro has hinted that “the people” will express their support for a new constitution through a series of cabildos or town hall meetings that the government will summon across the country.

He thus claims that he can bypass Congress, the courts, and the need for a legal plebiscite to usher in a new constitution. Its pillars, Petro says, should include “the struggle against climate change” and “the decarbonization of the economy.” This implies a constitutional mandate for Petro’s ongoing war against Colombia’s hydrocarbon industry. Petro’s constitution also would include “a monetary policy that prioritizes employment and production.” That is, a takeover of the nominally independent central bank.

Petro’s attempt to create a new, statist constitution is reminiscent of Hugo Chávez’s own methods, replicated by Latin America’s “21st Century Socialists” Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Like Petro, who implies that Colombia’s 1991 constitution is obsolete, Chávez affirmed that the Venezuelan constitution was “moribund” when he was sworn in as president.

But even Chávez’s opponents admitted that, in 1999, his constitutional convention “began as a democratic process that in its origins did not involve the rupture of the previous political regime.” Petro, on the other hand, is attempting a full rupture with the established order. He aims to bypass all existing checks and balances to his power.

Petro’s plan is more akin to Nicolás Maduro’s spurious constitutional assembly of 2017, which nullified the power of the National Assembly, where the opposition held a majority since its victory in the election of December, 2015. In that sense, the commentators who still claim that Petro is no Chávez are correct, albeit for none of the reasons they put forth (such as the strength of Colombian institutions).

Rather, Petro’s contempt for the rule of law is arguably greater than that of Chávez during the initial stages of his rule. Then again, whereas Chávez sought to conceal his true intentions during his campaign for the presidency in 1998, Petro campaigned while offering Chavista recipes openly. There were, for instance, his threat to expropriate specific companies, his ambiguity on his intention to change the constitution, and his defense of Marxist doctrine, such as the labor theory of value.

In 2022, a small majority of Colombian voters acted against their better judgment and allowed Petro to hold power. A large majority is now firmly opposed to his government. The question is whether the republic itself will withstand Petro’s imminent constitutional onslaught.

Ian Vásquez

For more than 30 years, I and a number of my Cato colleagues have been travelling to Argentina, where we have participated in countless meetings, media appearances, and public events organized by local think tanks or Cato itself. We have been close observers of what may be the most politically erratic country in the most politically erratic region of the world, and we’ve been active participants in its public policy debates and in Argentina’s classical‐​liberal movement. Prominent Argentine thinkers such as Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr., whom President Javier Milei cites as his intellectual mentor, and Martin Krause, are long‐​time Cato adjunct scholars. (See this essay by Daniel Raisbeck on the history of Argentina’s classical liberal tradition—the longest and richest in Latin America—and how it has influenced the current political moment.)

Javier Milei’s rise to the presidency on a mandate to implement a classical‐​liberal paradigm shift and revive the tradition that made Argentina one of the richest countries in the world a century ago offers us a significant opportunity to promote the ideas of liberty. That’s why we are pleased to cosponsor a major conference in Buenos Aires on June 11–12 with Argentine think tank Libertad y Progreso: “The Rebirth of Liberty in Argentina and Beyond.”

President Milei and leading liberals from around the world will come together to discuss specific policy reforms to limit power and expand individual liberty. Speakers will also discuss the record of classical liberalism and its grand narrative of unprecedented progress across the whole range of human well‐​being indicators.

Argentina is a cautionary tale for the United States and other rich countries because of its fall in the 20th century from prosperity to poverty as it abandoned liberalism. Elsewhere, we have discussed the political sea change that Milei’s rise promises (see here, here, here, here, and here, for example). But at a time when so many countries around the world are moving away from liberal democracy or strengthening authoritarianism, the importance and relevance of Argentina’s reform efforts extend beyond that country and even Latin America.

We hope you can join us in Buenos Aires for what we think will be a timely and stimulating event. For more on the conference and how to register, see here.

Colleen Hroncich

Catholic schools are known for many things—quality academics, character formation, a family‐ friendly atmosphere, teaching self‐​discipline, and more. They aren’t necessarily known for innovative instructional approaches. But Holy Family Catholic School in Jacksonville, FL, could help change that.

In many ways, Holy Family is a pretty traditional school. Children are in regular grade levels based on their age, they are in classrooms with normal desks and teachers who are instructing them, and classes change at regular intervals. But within that traditional framework, the school has adopted a program called D.E.N.S., Differentiation, Enrichment, and Needed Support, to meet the individual academic needs of students. The D.E.N.S. program aims to maximize student potential by helping them grow and thrive academically, which will build confidence and pave the way for future success.

I was fortunate to tour Holy Family in February, so I got to see firsthand how the D.E.N.S. program operates. Lauren May, Director of Outreach at Florida’s Step Up for Students, was my tour guide. She said the school is full, with 25 kids in a class, so pulling kids for individual and small group work lets them provide that personalized help.

For D.E.N.S., she explained, “they look at test scores and they get teacher feedback, and they pull kids based on whether they’re above or below grade level. Then they work with them on specific subject areas or goals.” She told me about one student she knows who was in the 30th percentile at the beginning of the year and by December was in the 90th percentile.

Jennifer Webster is one of the learning support staff members who runs the D.E.N.S. program. She explained that the program uses a push in/​pull out system. For children who are struggling a little bit, learning support “pushes in” to the classroom and works with small groups to help them on specific topics. Children who are struggling more are “pulled out” to work with them individually or in small groups separate from the large group lessons. The support is most intense in grades K‑3, with the goal being to get the children on track so they won’t need as much help in later grades.

It’s not only struggling students who receive individual attention at Holy Family. There’s also an enrichment program to help challenge students who are above grade level. In grades two through five, Jennifer and her colleague Amy Galloway pull students out once a week to do activities that go beyond the classroom curriculum. In middle school, the teachers incorporate enrichment activities in their classes.

Florida has one of the most robust school choice landscapes in the country, with every child eligible for an education savings account that can be used for private school tuition and a variety of educational expenses. Most students at Holy Family receive a scholarship, which helps the school afford to offer the D.E.N.S program. As these programs continue to expand, more schools may follow Holy Family’s lead in offering such individualized support for students.

Ryan Bourne

As I outlined in “Five Fiscal Truths,” the United States faces an alarming fiscal outlook characterized by historically high budget deficits, high accumulated debt levels, and the prospect of further debt escalation driven by an aging population and elevated interest rates. But some people look at the same budget numbers and yet remain relaxed about the country’s fiscal situation.

So here are three economic arguments I present in my new policy analysis for why policymakers should reduce deficits now, even if a fiscal crisis doesn’t appear imminent.

1. As Insurance against an Acute Fiscal Crisis in the Future

If the United States ever did face a fiscal crisis in the future, it would bring financial and economic chaos. Historically, fiscal crises come slowly and then suddenly; they represent sudden changes in investors’ perceptions about their prospects of being repaid. This could be triggered by an unexpected event—such as a war, another pandemic, or a major recession—substantially worsening the debt outlook. Or it could simply reflect changing sentiment about the country’s existing trajectory.

If investors were to lose confidence in the federal government’s ability to repay its debts, they would demand sharply higher interest rates. A sharp surge in bond yields would feed directly into a higher deficit, with extra borrowing then driving up yields further in a so‐​called fiscal doom loop. Eroding investor confidence, heightened macroeconomic uncertainty, and a growing sense that the government might eventually lean on the Federal Reserve to print new money to fund the government (risking higher inflation) would result in steep declines in the dollar as money flees from dollar‐​denominated assets.

Higher interest rates would squeeze private‐​sector investment and would cause financial turmoil by wreaking unexpected havoc with asset values. The federal government would find it very difficult to finance its core obligations, and the only way to avoid leaning on the Fed to print money would entail rapidly closing deficits with deep austerity cuts to government spending, large tax increases, or both.

A fiscal crisis thus inevitably ends with some combination of a default, sharp and painful austerity, or high inflation. True, the country could always meet its nominal debt obligations in its own currency by printing money (though relying on the Fed to acquiesce would undermine central bank independence). Yet the result would be a sudden burst of damaging inflation and shot credibility in bond markets. These risks might be small, but they are real.

Despite the unsustainable nature of the federal finances on current policies, markets clearly haven’t concluded that the US government is insolvent yet. Inflation expectations don’t show signs that people expect the Federal Reserve to fund the government anytime soon either. However, fiscal crises are unpredictable. Ratings agencies have woken up to the United States’ budget outlook and the lack of political interest in mitigating the flow of debt.

Furthermore, modeling from Penn Wharton suggests that the United States has two decades to stabilize the national debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP), after which no combination of tax hikes or spending cuts would prevent an explicit default or an implicit one (with debt monetization).

Deficit reduction today can thus be somewhat of an insurance against the tail risk of a genuine fiscal crisis occurring, with all the disruption that would bring.

2. As Insurance against Bad Policy Stemming from a Fiscal Crisis, Real or Perceived

Undertaking deficit reduction now, rather than waiting for a crisis, is also prudent because policymaking during panics can itself be economically destructive. If we were to experience an acute fiscal crisis, politicians might reach for measures like wealth expropriation to ease the inevitable cocktail of defaults, rapid deficit reduction, and higher inflation. That erosion of property rights would undermine people’s willingness to save and invest in the United States.

Even if a full‐​blown fiscal crisis doesn’t occur, we regularly see that sudden panics lead to policies being adopted that can do long‐​term harm. We saw this in the Great Depression (with extensive industrial policy and price and entry regulations); in the Great Recession (which exacerbated the demand for government bailouts during downturns); and with the reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic (where all sorts of unevidenced social restrictions were imposed).

On tax and spending policy, too, waiting until there’s a perceived emergency can lead to bad decisions. In Europe, governments resorted to tax‐​rise heavy deficit reduction programs in the 2010s, which evidence from the late Alberto Alesina showed were more harmful to output and debt levels than equivalent spending cuts would have been. In other countries, spending on genuine public goods investment was cut, while inefficient government programs and distortive welfare systems were largely protected. Policy changes that cut investment spending and raise taxes can undermine longer‐​term growth.

It makes sense when certain unforeseen emergencies occur to allow debt to rise and then smooth the path of deficit reduction over a long period. This helps stabilize marginal tax rates and protect incentives to work and invest. However, maintaining the capacity to do this relies on being confident that such shocks won’t themselves induce a fiscal crisis. That requires running balanced budgets or smaller deficits during stable periods. With unemployment at historic lows and total spending growth in the economy still above its pre‐​pandemic trend, now is a good time to deliver deficit reduction over a number of years. Doing so can help avoid more abrupt changes in taxes or spending during crises.

3. Because High Debt Is Associated with Slower Economic Growth

Even if you think I’m overly worried about the risks or costs of a fiscal crisis, empirical studies consistently demonstrate a negative correlation between high government debt levels and economic growth. Economist Jack Salmon has shown that a large existing body of research suggests that a debt‐​to‐​GDP ratio of around 80 percent seems to be a threshold beyond which government debt can be a big drag on growth. The United States has already surpassed this threshold.

To be clear: crossing some arbitrary threshold doesn’t automatically lead to disaster. This type of threshold analysis also got a bad rap after the work of economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart presenting a similar result was found to contain a coding error that exaggerated the negative relationship between debt and growth. Yet even those who critiqued that work admitted their own analysis still showed that the mean GDP growth rate tends to be a percentage point lower for countries with debt‐​to‐​GDP ratios above 90 percent compared to those with debt‐​to‐​GDP ratios in the 60–90 percent range.

That may sound inconsequential, but an economy growing at, say, 2.5 percent per year will double in size every 30 years, whereas one growing at 1.5 percent per year will take about five decades to double.

There are clear theoretical mechanisms through which very high debt may cause this slower growth. Extensive government borrowing, by competing with the private sector for funds, can push up interest rates and crowd out private investment. Debt can fund wasteful and destructive economic activity or government transfers that harm work incentives, undermining the potential productive capacity of the economy. If government debt gets very high, it also raises the prospect of much higher taxes or debt monetization and high inflation, each of which has a range of harmful costs on economic efficiency.

Even aside from the simple budget math I outlined in “Five Fiscal Truths,” deficit reduction would thus help mitigate three risks: of a harmful fiscal crisis, of bad policymaking during a perceived fiscal emergency, and of high debts weighing on economic growth.