Cato Events Podcast

Welcoming Remarks

James A. Dorn, Vice President for Monetary Studies, Cato Institute

Keynote Address

Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Full Event: https://www.cato.org/events/39th-annual-monetary-conference

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Do the nation’s highest officers, including the president, have a right to lie, no matter what damage their falsehoods cause? Does freedom of expression protect falsehoods? If so, are lies by candidates and public officials protected? And is there a constitutional path, without violating the First Amendment, to stop a president whose persistent lies endanger our lives and our democracy?

Perhaps counterintuitively, the general answer to each question is “yes.” Drawing from dramatic court cases about defamers, proponents of birtherism, braggarts, and office holders, Ross reveals the almost insurmountable constitutional and practical obstacles to legal efforts to rein in public deception. She explains the rules that govern the treatment of lies, while also demonstrating the incalculable damage that presidential mendacity may foster.

Falsehoods have been at issue in every presidential impeachment proceeding from Nixon to Trump. But, until now, no one has analyzed why public lies might be impeachable offenses, and whether the First Amendment would provide a defense. Noting that speech by public employees does not receive the same First Amendment protection as the speech of ordinary citizens, Ross proposes the constitutionally viable solution of treating presidents as public employees who work for the people. Charged with oversight of the Executive, Congress may—and should—put future presidents on notice that material lies to the public on substantial matters will be deemed a “high crime and misdemeanor” subject to censure and even impeachment.

Please join us for a lively discussion of an issue that could not be of greater importance.

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In 2014, the United States and 17 other countries began negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to create an Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA). The aim of these talks was to remove or reduce tariffs on important environmentally friendly products such as wind turbines, solar panels, and energy‐​efficient technology. An EGA would allow for freer trade in green products, which would increase global access to environmentally friendly goods. Formal negotiations grew to involve 46 WTO members, representing 90 percent of global trade in environmental goods.

But negotiations on the EGA have stalled since 2016, when negotiators encountered trouble defining what would be included in the list of covered goods. Controversial additions to the list by China prompted European Union resistance to the deal, and the Trump administration decided against pushing for the resumption of EGA talks. President Biden should call for a return to negotiations and for negotiators to resolve difficult questions, such as what should count as an environmental good, whether services should be included, how broad the EGA should be, and more.

Please join us at 12:00 p.m. on Monday, November 8, for a discussion featuring U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D‑WA), Maureen Hinman, and Cato’s James Bacchus and Inu Manak.

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What explains the explosion in growth and prosperity that humanity has experienced in the past couple centuries? Why did that process take root more readily in some places than in others, and how can its spread be encouraged? Professors Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Haber will provide separate accounts. McCloskey will contest standard economic explanations and describe the key role of liberal ideas, ideology, and ethics in producing the conditions for human flourishing. Haber will explain how differing ecological factors influenced social organization centuries ago, conditioning subsequent paths of economic growth and institutional development. Charles Calomiris will lead the conversation, exploring the extent to which these views are complementary, the reach of their explanatory power, and how the social sciences and politics should think about the mainsprings of human progress.

The discussion will be based on new research papers that McCloskey and Haber presented at an academic colloquium at the Cato Institute as part of Cato’s Exploring the Role of Freedom in Human Progress project. This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

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When the state offers money, licenses, or other benefits (such as reduced sentences) with “strings” attached, that’s a powerful method of government control. The federal government increasingly uses this method to induce states, localities, and private parties to submit to conditions of its choosing. And yet this formidable power can enable it to sidestep vital limits that would otherwise apply to its authority. For example, it can secure submission to rules that it would lack the constitutional power to order directly or that would otherwise be subject to the checks and balances of the political process.

Courts and lawyers have brought to bear on this problem the theory of “unconstitutional conditions,” but in Purchasing Submission, renowned legal scholar Philip Hamburger argues that a broader critique is needed if we are to protect liberty and rein in the danger of arbitrary power. Please join us for a lively discussion of a new book by one of today’s preeminent constitutional thinkers.

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