cato institute

Cato Institute

Libertarian think tank that strongly supports very loose borders. Affiliated with the Koch family.

Cato's Dan Griswold was the inspiration for George Bush's anti- and un-American scheme to open the U.S. labor market to the world.

Last modified Sep 7, 2014
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Delusional Alex Nowrasteh thinks "National Sovereignty and Free Immigration Are Compatible" - 04/29/14

At the Koch family-funded CATO Institute, Alex Nowrasteh offers "National Sovereignty and Free Immigration Are Compatible" [1]. Here's why it's wrong. He writes:

"The Kronies": slick libertarian propaganda linked to Koch, and who doesn't reveal that - 01/24/14

[SEE 6/17/14 UPDATE BELOW] "The Kronies" is a series of slick, live action videos that promote a libertarian message. The effort comes complete with not only its own site, but a fake site for the "company" behind the figures, a "Chimera Global Holdings Inc.".

Michael Tanner of Cato, meet reality (immigrants using food stamps to send food back home) - 07/21/13

Per the New York Post (link), some immigrants from Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti buy food in the U.S. which they then send to their relatives in their home countries. Some of them are using food stamps to buy the food, although the article gives no clue as to the number of such welfare queens.

Sarah Jane Glynn of CAP hypes amnesty using studies from Cato, Bush, and the Fed - 07/09/12

In 2010, Rupert Murdoch testified for amnesty using two studies from the progressive Center for American Progress ("CAP").

Fiscal conservatives side with America-denouncing billionaire (Cato, Dan Mitchell, Heritage, Brownfield, Sean Medlock, Daily Caller, HotAir) - 05/11/12

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin recently denounced his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes he'd owe when that company goes public. Hopefully to most people the idea of turning your back on your country [1] to save money would be abhorrent. Of course, many in the fiscal conservative and libertarians spheres think different: patriotism only goes so far.

Cato immigration conference April 26, 2012: let's discredit them (CFR, Lofgren, Jacoby, Federal Reserve, NIF, NFAP) - 03/22/12

On April 26, 2012, the Cato Institute will be conducting an all-day conference ("Is Immigration Good for America?") supporting massive immigration. I urge anyone who'll be in the Washington DC area to attend with the goal of discrediting them as will be described below.

NFAP misleads on skilled immigration (Stuart Anderson, Frank Sharry, National Foundation for American Policy) - 05/25/11

Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy offers "The Impact of the Children of Immigrants on Scientific Achievements in America" [1], which comes to a highly misleading conclusion based on a very small sample. It's also promoted by Frank Sharry's AmericasVoice [2].

Reason TV misleads about green energy - 03/13/11

Reason Magazine offers the misleading video "Tilting at Wind Turbines: Should the Government Subsidize Renewable Energy?" attached below: 1. One of those chosen to represent the Voice of the People is an attractive blonde who says "I don't know much about green jobs, but I'm for it." This is a cheap technique designed to prejudice viewers against such jobs.

Yet another example of Teaparty being useful idiots for the Koch brothers? (Madison union protests) - 02/19/11

Are the tea parties useful idiots for an attempt by the billionaire Koch family to fight unionization in order to increase their profits? The latest example of the Koch family pushing an agenda that helps their bottom line and getting help from the teapartiers in that endeavor comes from the protests between public sector unions and Republican governor Scott Walker in Madison, Wisconsin. I haven't been closely following the issue, but at the very least it's clear that the Kochs are attempting to take advantage of the issue to push their agenda. And, pushing that agenda would help the bottom...

Lee Sherman of Mint cowardly gives in to illegal immigration supporters (Timothy Lee, Megan McArdle, Dave Weigel, Ezra Klein, Max Read) - 06/18/10

Over the past couple of days, the illegal immigration-supporting establishment's junior league flexed their muscles, trying to get the site Mint dot com to delete a post giving statistics about the negative impacts of immigration. And, they won, with Mint editor Lee Sherman (also of Intuit) completely caving with what must be one of the most cowardly apologies ever.

UCLA CAP IPC deceptive study: immigration reform would increase GDP by $1.5 trillion over 10 years - 01/07/10

Earlier today, the Center for American Progress, the Immigration Policy Center, and professor Raul Hinojosa Ojeda of the University of California at Los Angeles released a study making the deceptive and fantastical claim that legalizing all illegal aliens would increase Gross Domestic Product by $1.5 trillion over 10

Ironic: Dick Armey's support for massive immigration leads to more spending, bigger government - 11/12/09

Back in 1995, Tea Parties leader Dick Armey of FreedomWorks spoke at the Cato Institute about various topics including immigration (cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-ja-da.html), and his remarks are incredibly ironic: his immigration policies lead to the opposite of the other policies he claims to support.

Sleazy low-level elitist Arnold Kling has no clue about Tea Parties - 09/15/09

Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute - presumably speaking only for himself - recently smeared the tea parties and showed how clueless he is about who's attracted to their "movement" (econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/09/tea_and_sympath.html). Do they fit the stereotype of being white, small-town, uneducated racists? Not much racism, but otherwise I would say they fit the stereotype enough to make me skeptical that this is an important political movement. This country is becoming more urban, less white, and more educated. At most, this movement could turn out to be the right-wing equivalent of...

9/12: Tea Party march on Washington DC live coverage (Glenn Beck, Freedomworks) - 09/12/09

Later today, one or two million (maybe less) extreme fiscal conservatives will be marching on Washington DC demanding that the government listens to them and their Randroid concerns. And, we'll be there - virtually speaking - offering coverage of this momentous event featuring millions of people throughout the day. Literally thousands of busloads of true patriots - as opposed to the other, non-patriotic Americans - will be bussed in (at their own expense) by FreedomWorks (run by the corporate lobbyist Dick Armey). Hopefully many will be wearing period costumes and playing fifes, since we know...

Napolitano immigration meeting: you weren't represented (vast # of loose borders groups, Obama/Janet anti-287g) - 08/20/09

Earlier today, Janet Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security held a closed-door meeting with a group of what she calls "stakeholders" (dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1250792978709.shtm) but was actually a vast pantheon (see below) of far-left, racial power, corrupt business, and in general loose borders groups all of which want some form of comprehensive immigration reform, aka amnesty. There were at least 98 participants in the meeting, and none of them represent your interests or the interests of the great majority of American citizens. Why exactly they'd hold the meeting isn't clear;...

CATO promotes financial gain from illegal alien amnesty, ignores massive non-financial costs (Peter Dixon, Maureen Rimmer) - 08/14/09

Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer of the CATO Institute have a study promoting the supposed economic benefits of comprehensive immigration reform aka amnesty ("Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform", freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-040es.html). As with other "economic" studies, theirs isn't really based in economics in that they're ignoring all the costs of what they promote: A policy that reduces the number of low-skilled immigrant workers by 28.6 percent compared to projected levels would reduce U.S. household welfare by about 0.5 percent, or $80 billion...

"Tea Parties": an astroturfed Koch family movement (FreedomWorks, Instapundit, Rick Santelli) - 02/28/09

[SEE UPDATE 2 BELOW] Now I know why Rick Santelli disgusts me: the "Tea Party" stimulus protests may be an astroturfed project of the wealthy Koch Family (called "the Kochtopus", see this).

20,000 U.S. military troops to help with "homeland security" in U.S. by 2011 - 12/01/08

Spencer Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson of the Washington Post offers "Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security" (link), which is currently being linked by Drudge: The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts,...

Melinda Zosh lets Jason Riley/WSJ engage in logical fallacy, Michael Barone spout nonsense - 06/23/08

Melinda Zosh is an "intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia", and she offers "Today's Illegals 'Not Different, Just Newer'" about a talk that Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal (author of "The Case for Open Borders") gave at the CATO Institute (lin

Mexico-linked ACLU: immigration raids are "terrorizing communities" (Joanne Lin) - 05/22/08

Joanne Lin, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union - an organization collaborating with the Mexican government to possibly sue the U.S. government - on Monday appeared at a meeting of the Appleseed Foundation and said, in reference to local police playing a role in immigration enforcement under the 287g program: "Local law enforcement has been given the green light to engage in racial profiling... Massive immigration sweeps are terrorizing communities across the country, including those who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents and other lawful workers... It's always been the...

Notes from the Nick Gillespie/Matt Welch/Reason Magazine alternative universe (everyone's a libertarian!) - 03/21/08

The brain trust of Reason Magazine, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, offer "Where the votes are". The laugh-a-minute article tries to pretend that the libertarian vote means something:

Bush's original "guest" worker scheme revealed - 03/28/07

In this video segment from 2004, Margaret Spellings [1] described how Bush's original "guest" worker scheme would be open to *everyone*, specifically mentioning nurses, teachers, and high-tech workers. In brief, president Bush wanted to open (most of) the U.S. labor market to the world, including (previously) middle-class occupations. Oddly enough, the Democrats completely failed to highlight Bush's disastrous, anti- and un-American plans during the 2004 elections. If they had, John Kerry would be president today.

Charlie Norwood on CATO's latest anti-American proposal - 06/28/05

For future reference comes this statement from Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA): A CATO Institute-sponsored report intended to discredit efforts to secure the U.S. border has instead bolstered findings that immediate deployment of troops in support of the Border Patrol is the only means of stopping the current hordes of illegal immigrants invading U.S. territory.

"Sens. Cornyn, Kyl Prepare Massive Guestworker Plan" - 05/27/05

Paul Egan of FAIR reports on a Senate immigration hearing attended by John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ).

Tamar Jacoby on the Kennedy-McCain mass amnesty - 05/14/05

Tamar Jacoby has issued the following statement: We the undersigned applaud the introduction today of Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act... [etc. etc...] The signatories include: Lee Culpepper (last mentioned here; works for the National Restaurant Association and is Chairman of the National Immigration Forum) Jack Kemp Grover Norquist Rick Swartz: And then there's the National Immigration Forum, the umbrella organization for high-immigration political advocacy, which works closely with sympathetic Republicans. But NIF is not like the conventional lobbying coalitions that...

"Dogmatic Libertarians: Over the edge." - 01/19/05

I already posted this inside another post, but this May 9, 2002 column deserves its own post: ...Near the end of the NRO article Griswold [of the Cato Institute] insists that he is not for "open borders," but his record suggests otherwise. A story in the Christian Science Monitor (August 30, 2000) by Scott Baldauf is particularly revealing. Baldauf describes a new project of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Border Patrol that specifically targets highly sophisticated criminal smuggling rings that employ infrared scopes, two-way radios, and computer databases. The project goes...

"Why conservatives must not vote for Bush" - 09/10/04

From the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow (link): George W. Bush presents conservatives with a fundamental challenge: Do they believe in anything other than power? Are they serious about their rhetoric on limited, constitutionally restrained government? ...A few high-octane speeches cannot disguise the catastrophic failure of the Bush administration in both its domestic and its foreign policies...

Bush "guest worker" program to be "open to any type of employee" - 01/27/04

Mark Krikorian writes about a Cato Institute panel on the Bush/Fox Amnesty (nationalreview . com/comment/krikorian200401260938.asp). Of particular note are the remarks made by Margaret Spellings, "assistant to the president for domestic policy, and point person for the president's immigration proposal":