Who Actually Pays Federal Taxes?

Consumer prices are up 28% in six years and inflation is accelerating again. Cato's Ryan Bourne, Jai Kedia, Colin Grabow, and Stephen Slivinski unpack Cato's new Handbook on Affordability and the macroeconomic and supply-side reforms that could actually help. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The top 10% pays 60% of all federal taxes, the bottom 20% pays effectively nothing, and last year's tax cuts added new complexity. Cato's Chris Edwards and Adam Michel unpack the numbers and make the case for real reform. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary this week to campaign for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, hailing him as a defender of Western civilization. Cato's Ryan Bourne sits down with Johan Norberg to discuss Orbán’s actual record in government: weakened checks and balances, crony capitalism, and social policies that have fallen short of Orbán’s ambitions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trump's executive order challenges 150 years of birthright citizenship law, hinging on four words in the 14th Amendment. The Cato Institute's Tommy Berry, Dan Greenberg, and David Bier unpack the constitutional stakes and what the justices signaled at oral arguments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Davies’s new book, The Great Realignment, argues that the key political divide of the past century — markets versus state control — is being displaced by a new aligning issue: nationalism, sovereignty, and collective identity versus cosmopolitanism and globalism. Cato’s Ryan Bourne talks with Davies about why today’s biggest political fights seem less about tax and spending and more about borders, culture, and who governs, how these non-economic conflicts still have deep economic roots, and what this new alignment persisting would mean for libertarians and economic policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TSA agents are staying home; airport lines are hours long, and Congress still cannot agree on a DHS funding bill. The Cato Institute's Pat Eddington and Chris Edwards say this is a consequence of tying aviation security to the federal budget; a mistake other high-income countries do not make. With high failure rates in covert screening tests and a long trail of civil liberties abuses including secret watchlist criteria and a mass domestic passenger surveillance program, the case for privatizing airport security is stronger than ever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Massachusetts is weighing a ballot initiative that would cap rent increases at the rate of inflation with no vacancy decontrol, one of the most stringent rent control regimes proposed in the country. Cato's Ryan Bourne and Jeff Miron walk through why economists are nearly unanimous in opposing rent control: it shrinks rental supply, degrades housing quality, and tends to benefit longer-term, higher-income tenants rather than the low-income renters it claims to help. As Cambridge's own history shows, the policy doesn't just fail to solve the affordability problem; it actively makes it worse.We want to hear from you! Please share your thoughts in a 3-minute anonymous survey to help us refine our programming at Cato.org/PodcastSurvey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Newport Beach and along California's state beaches, government-created monopolies have effectively banned independent surf instructors from earning a living, with one instructor fined $40,000 after an undercover sting operation. Stephen Slivinski, Caleb Trotter of Pacific Legal Foundation, and Cato's Tommy Berry explore why First Amendment claims may be the sharpest tool available for fighting back against occupational protectionism. If these cases succeed, the precedent could crack open economic liberty litigation far beyond California's coastline.We want to hear from you! Please share your thoughts in a 3-minute anonymous survey to help us refine our programming at Cato.org/PodcastSurvey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cato’s new media fellow, Rikki Schlott, joins Ryan Bourne to talk Gen Z: how social media shaped them, why online life has made young people both more anxious and more persuadable, and how the socialist left and the alt-right have each found fertile ground. They discuss the strange incentives of the attention economy, what Mamdani and other online political entrepreneurs get right, and whether libertarian ideas can be made to resonate with a generation raised on algorithms.We want to hear from you! Please share your thoughts in a 3-minute anonymous survey to help us refine our programming at Cato.org/PodcastSurvey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A 30-day DHS shutdown hasn't slowed ICE or Border Patrol, because nearly $170 billion in One Big Beautiful Bill funding keeps them running with minimal transparency and almost no congressional oversight. Cato's Dominik Lett and David Bier break down how the shutdown exposes a deeper dysfunction: both parties have turned spending into a ratchet, growing the government they want while refusing to review what the other side built. The appropriations process isn't just broken; Congress has quietly agreed to stop fixing it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.