Cato Podcast

The Cato Institute's Jeff Singer and Michael Fox mark Repeal Day by examining how alcohol prohibition and the modern drug war share the same destructive logic: criminalizing peaceful people, fueling black markets, corrupting law enforcement incentives, and empowering violent traffickers. Drawing on real-world examples of overdose deaths, civil forfeiture, and policing excesses, they argue for a consistent, liberty-based framework that treats drug users with the same legal respect afforded to alcohol consumers.

Cato adjunct scholars Terence Kealey and John Early join Ryan Bourne to discuss the pair's new Cato working paper Mission Lost: How NIH Leaders Stole Its Promise to America. Kealey and Early detail how the National Institutes of Health's shift from financing mission-led research to funding basic science has reduced its effectiveness in improving Americans' health, all the while crowding out cutting-edge commercial science, and funnelling taxpayer dollars to a range of questionable projects.

Is your Thanksgiving dinner more or less affordable this year? Human Progress's Marian Tupy joins the Cato Institute's Ryan Bourne to discuss the political battle over affordability, the long-term costs of high inflation, and how time-prices show most goods becoming more abundant over time. Plus, the pair discuss human progress developments and why they are both thankful for the USA.

FEMA was meant to help only when disasters exceeded state capacity. Yet today it functions primarily as a national subsidy machine, encouraging development in floodplains, bailing out wealthy coastal states, and shifting costs onto taxpayers far from the danger zones. The Cato Institute's Dominik Lett and Chris Edwards discuss how well-intentioned federal aid has created perverse incentives, bureaucratic delays, and a long tail of spending that continues decades after storms like Katrina.

Romina Boccia, Michael F. Cannon, and Adam Michel break down the 43-day government shutdown driven by demands to extend temporary Obamacare subsidies for upper-income households earning well into six figures. The trio examines how the stalemate exposed deeper structural problems: runaway entitlement growth, perverse state incentives, a fragile food stamp and air-traffic control system, and a federal budget process unable to handle partisan deadlock.

The Cato Institute's Justin Logan and Brandan P. Buck unpack the Trump administration’s shifting justifications for military action in Venezuela, from fentanyl and cocaine interdiction to Monroe Doctrine revivalism. They explore the legal and strategic risks of invoking war powers under dubious pretenses, warning that the push for regime change could repeat the mistakes of Libya and Iraq while doing little to solve the hemisphere’s drug or governance problems.Show Notes:https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dont-do-it-mr-president/https://www.theamericanconservative.com/when-peace-through-strength-means-war-is-peace/https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-military-cant-solve-fentanyl-crisis

Can a president tax Americans at will under the guise of a national emergency? The Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome and Brent Skorup dissect the high-stakes Supreme Court battle over Trump’s “fentanyl tariffs,” the broadest assertion of trade power in modern U.S. history. They explore how the case could reshape executive authority, revive dormant constitutional doctrines, and determine whether Congress or the White House truly controls U.S. trade policy.Show Notes:https://www.cato.org/blog/emergency-tariff-refunds-theres-easy-way-very-hard-wayhttps://www.cato.org/blog/why-three-cato-trade-scholars-filed-amicus-brief-us-supreme-courthttps://www.cato.org/commentary/striking-down-tariffs-wont-hurt-anybodyhttps://www.cato.org/legal-briefs/trump-v-vos-selections-learning-resources-v-trump

Romina Boccia joins Nicholas Anthony to discuss how the shutdown centers on demands to extend subsidies for earners making well above median household income—all the way up to $500,000 annually. Federal workers and SNAP recipients have been offered up as political collateral for a deal that would cause an unprecedented $1.5 trillion in additional deficit spending—all while we continue trucking toward a fiscal cliff.Show Notes:Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman, "Food Stamp Shutdown Reveals the Fragility of Federal Welfare," Cato at Liberty Blog, October 30, 2025Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman, "End Obamacare’s Welfare for the Wealthy COVID Credits," Cato at Liberty Blog, October 23, 2025Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman, "Welfare Digest | End the ACA Subsidies for the Well-Off," Debt Dispatch, October 22, 2025Romina Boccia and Ritvik Thakur, "Debt Digest | Remove Obamacare Regulations Instead of Extending COVID-era Credits," Debt Dispatch, October 14, 2025Romina Boccia, "Shutdown Theatrics Just Distract Us from the Real Problem: Obscene National Debt," New York Post, October 2, 2025Romina Boccia and Ritvik Thakur, "Debt Digest | Let Obamacare COVID Credits Expire," Debt Dispatch, October 2, 2025Romina Boccia, "Thoughts About the Government Shutdown," Cato at Liberty Blog, October 1, 2025Romina Boccia, Ritvik Thakur, and Ivane Nachkebia, "Debt Digest | Government Shutdown Is Likely," Debt Dispatch, September 8, 2025