The Reason Roundtable

Historian and entrepreneur Thaddeus Russell has a bone to pick with American higher education. It's not simply that maverick opinions that stray from a liberal-progressive orthodoxy get squashed in classroom discussions and tenure decisions. Russell says the federal Department of Education effectively manages an accreditation system that controls the number and character of elite institutions by insisting that "serious" colleges and universities have dorms, dining halls, and a whole host of things completely unrelated to higher learning.

As the founder and proprietor of the online Renegade University, the fight is both personal and practical for Russell, whose 2010 book, A Renegade History of the United States, offers up one of the most original and provocative readings of the American experience. "People who operate on the fringes of society," says Russell, "who have operated against social norms...have opened spaces that were later occupied by the mainstream and established things that we now take for granted." In his telling, it's not august statesmen and high-minded citizens but the pushers, prostitutes, and outliers who have enabled the radical lifestyle, cultural, and political freedoms we take for granted.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Reason's Nick Gillespie, Russell, who holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia, talks about discovering the Austrian School of economics only long after he left the academy, why actual Marxists hate postmodernism and why libertarians should love it, the insidious nature of America's Protestant work ethic, and how the Democrats are reviving the Cold War.

"I got a lotta problems with you people; now, you're gonna hear about it!" So barked George* Costanza's dad Frank 20 years ago this week, in a classic episode of Seinfeld that introduced the country to Festivus, an alternative and heretofore private December holiday created by Daniel O'Keefe, the father of Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe. Now recognized as occurring on December 23, Festivus includes a simple aluminum pole, Feats of Strength (which involves wrestling the head of the household to the ground), and most famously, the Airing of Grievances.

It is that last activity which wraps up our special year-in-review Reason Podcast, featuring myself, Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Peter Suderman. But SPOILER ALERT: My grievance, originally aimed in the general direction of sellout fiscal conservatives who have ballooned the federal deficit and debt once back in power, turns at the last minute toward Nerdpants Suderman (pictured), who beginning at the 50-minute mark of this podcast decides to direct his Festivus animus at the makers of The Last Jedi for reasons he could not elucidate without IMMEDIATELY SPOILING THE MOVIE FOR ME AND ANYONE LISTENING. His response to a man who A) does not review movies professionally, and B) has young children? "You basically missed the spoilers deadline." The monster.

The episode, however, focuses mostly on the big stories of 2017—the elephant in the room, the world's undercovered horrors and triumphs, the transformation of music-delivery systems, the last wheezing gasps of the 20th century, and (obviously) the aliens that will swallow us whole in 2018.

"Fifteen million able-bodied adults on government welfare would have a better chance at economic betterment if they were taken off welfare."

That was the proposition debated at the most recent Soho Forum debate, held on December 11 at New York's Subculture theater in the East Village. Sponsored by Reason and moderated by economist Gene Epstein, the Soho Forum is a monthly, Oxford-style debate series that explores issues of particular interest to libertarians.

At the December 11 event, the Foundation for Government Accountability's Tarren Bragdon defended the proposition while Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress opposed it. As an Oxford-style debate, the audience (including those watching via Reason's Facebook live stream) voted before and after the debate, with the winner being the person who moved more people to his or her side. It's a lively conversation that features audience questions toward the end.

The next Soho Forum takes place on January 16 and features the proposition that "selfishness is a virtue." Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, will defend selfishness and Gene Epstein will move from moderator to debater in opposing the resolution. Moderating the debate is Fox News' chief legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. Tickets for the event are $18 ($10 for students) and must be purchased in advance. To buy tickets, go to https://thesohoforum.org

"The tree of hope has to be watered with the blood of young journalists," Katherine Mangu-Ward says on today's Reason Podcast.

Was Reason's editor in chief talking about entitlement reform? The new Star Wars movie? Paul Ryan? All of the above? You'll have to listen below to find out.

The episode, also featuring myself, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie, starts with an extended treatment about what's good in the GOP tax reform package likely to be signed into law this week, continues on with an extended generational clash about whether will he/won't-he-be-retiring Speaker Paul Ryan has ever been worth a tinker's dam when it comes to fiscal responsibility, and ends with a flurry of unfortunate Star Wars impersonations.

Warned, you have been.

With Republican tax reform almost a sure thing, the nation is poised to experience the most sweeping and significant changes to the tax code since the late 1980s. But are those changes—including lower corporate and individual rates, reductions in some longstanding deductions, and almost certainly trillions of dollars in new national debt—good from a libertarian perspective.

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the CATO Institute, likes most of what he sees on the corporate side of reform. But when it comes to individual tax policy, he tells Reason's Nick Gillespie, "It's basically reassembling deck chairs on a really messy and horribly complex system."

Edited by Ian Keyser. Music by _ghost, lisenced under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 US.

Tax reform bills have been approved by both the Republican-controlled House and Senate. Most observers believe the different versions will be reconciled into legislation representing the most thoroughgoing and consequential changes to the U.S. tax code since the late 1980s.

To get a sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly of tax reform (there's plenty of each) Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Grover Norquist, the longtime head of Americans for Tax Reform and arguably the most influential activist over the past 30 years when it comes arguing for lower taxes.

"Intellectual honesty isn't just refraining from lying," says UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh in the newest Reason Podcast. "It's mentioning the arguments against you and explaining why you think that they're mistaken, as opposed to just omitting them, hoping that the audience isn't going to catch on."

Volokh is the founder of The Volokh Conspiracy, "one of the most widely read legal blogs in the United States" and "has more influence in the field—and more direct impact—than most law reviews." The blog is written by mostly libertarian and libertarian-leaning law professors and court watchers, so we're excited as hell at Reason to now be hosting the Volokh Conspiracy on our website. It will remain editorially and intellectually independent from Reason, though all of our readers will find much of interest and value in its content, which ranges from in-depth yet accessible glosses on the most important legal cases of the moment to disquisitions on pop culture.

In a wide-ranging interview about The Volokh Conspiracy, Volokh discussed the site's aims, why he thinks the government is sometimes right to force business owners to serve customers they don't like, and his high opinion (so far) of Donald Trump's appointments to the federal judiciary.

At some point, a person becomes numb to weird headlines emanating from this White House, but boy, does this one just scream out "2017": "Trump calls for the Washington Post to fire Dave Weigel."

Also on today's show: Is abortion a good reason to vote for Roy Moore? Did Al Franken get a raw deal? Can the feds smother bitcoin? And should we go ahead and genocide the Ewoks?

The Supreme Court's docket is jammed with important cases if you care about individual liberty and limited government, none more so than Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, which pits religious expression against anti-discrimination laws, Carpenter v. United States, a case with massive implications for warrantless surveillance and tracking, and Christie v. NCAA, which challenges the ability of the federal government to "commandeer" state officials.

In the latest Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Senior Editor Damon Root, the author of the widely praised Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court, about significance of these cases and their likely outcomes based on recent oral arguments. Root also analyzes how new Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch is likely to influence the decisions and how Donald Trump's picks for the federal judiciary are shaping up.

One of the most-controversial parts of Republican tax reform is the Senate's proposal to sharply limit the amount of mortgage interest homeowners can deduct from their taxes.

Under current law, homeowners can deduct interest on mortgage loans of up to $1 million for two houses, plus interest on home equity loans worth another $100,000. That deduction currently costs the federal government about $70 billion in foregone revenue, making it one of the biggest "tax expenditures" in the federal budget. The Senate tax bill would reduce that by allowing taxpayers to deduct the interest on $500,000 of mortgage debt on a single residence.

But even that lower level is too much of a giveaway, says Anthony Randazzo, the director of economic research at Reason Foundation. He notes that countries such as Great Britain and Canada don't allow deductions for mortgage interest and yet have higher home-ownership rates than the United States, that the deduction increases the price of houses, and that only about 20 percent of tax filers take the deduction. It is, in his analysis, a classic case of special interests—the housing trade, realtors, and existing homeowners—extracting a concentrated benefit while spreading the cost around to relatively poorer and less-powerful people.