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Cato Podcast

Cato Institute

4785 episodes

2 days ago

Each week on Cato Podcast, leading scholars and policymakers from the Cato Institute delve into the big ideas shaping our world: individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Whether unpacking current events, debating civil liberties, exploring technological innovation, or tracing the history of classical liberal thought, we promise insightful analysis grounded in rigorous research and Cato’s signature libertarian perspective.

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News Commentary

All content for Cato Podcast is the property of Cato Institute and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Each week on Cato Podcast, leading scholars and policymakers from the Cato Institute delve into the big ideas shaping our world: individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Whether unpacking current events, debating civil liberties, exploring technological innovation, or tracing the history of classical liberal thought, we promise insightful analysis grounded in rigorous research and Cato’s signature libertarian perspective.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Show more...

News Commentary

Episodes (20/4785)

Cato Podcast

How Fuel Economy Rules Made Cars Bigger, Pricier, and Less Safe

Intended to save fuel and protect consumers, CAFE standards have instead penalized efficient small cars, subsidized trucks and SUVs, and created a de facto electric-vehicle mandate. Cato's Chad Davis, Brent Skorup, and Peter Van Doren trace how decades of regulatory layering have increased vehicle manufacturing costs, reduced affordability for consumers, and locked automakers into an endless cycle of policy reversals.

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2 days ago

40 minutes 29 seconds

Cato Podcast

Social Security’s Popularity Problem

A new Cato survey reveals that Americans overwhelmingly support Social Security while fundamentally misunderstanding its structure, finances, and long-term viability. Romina Boccia and Emily Ekins explore how myths about personal accounts, proportional benefits, and trust-fund solvency shape public opinion — and why ignorance makes meaningful reform politically elusive.

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1 week ago

33 minutes 9 seconds

Cato Podcast

The Global Freedom Slump

Cato's Ian Vásquez and the Fraser Institute's Matt Mitchell walk through the 2025 edition of the Human Freedom Index, documenting a worldwide decline in economic, civil, and personal freedoms that began before the pandemic and sharply accelerated after it. They explain how populism, authoritarian emergency powers, trade restrictions, and speech controls have left nine in ten people living in less free societies, and why the recovery remains uneven and fragile.

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1 week ago

35 minutes 58 seconds

Cato Podcast

Better Care for Billions Less: Fixing Medicaid’s Long-Term Care Incentives

Cato's Michael Cannon and the Center for Long-Term Care Reform's Stephen Moses examine how Medicaid’s long-term-care eligibility rules let middle- and upper-middle-class households shelter assets and shift costs onto taxpayers, driving up spending and lowering quality for the poor. Drawing on Moses’s new Cato paper Better Long-Term Care for Billions Less, they explain how perverse incentives, generous exemptions, and weak estate recovery undermine private planning and inflate a program already consuming one-third of Medicaid’s budget.

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2 weeks ago

45 minutes 11 seconds

Cato Podcast

Strategy Without Strategy: Inside the New NSS

The Cato Institute's Katherine Thompson and Josh Shifrinson join Justin Logan to dissect the most contentious passages of the National Security Strategy, including its warnings about European “civilizational erasure,” its revived Monroe Doctrine instincts, and the absence of military escalation language on China. The discussion weighs whether this NSS truly reflects restraint and realism or simply refines old habits under a new rhetorical wrapping.

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2 weeks ago

39 minutes 24 seconds

Cato Podcast

Repeal Day: Alcohol Prohibition and the Hypocrisy of the Drug War

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.

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3 weeks ago

31 minutes 4 seconds

Cato Podcast

NIH's Lost Mission

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.

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3 weeks ago

37 minutes 15 seconds

Cato Podcast

Superabundance at Thanksgiving

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.

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4 weeks ago

36 minutes 7 seconds

Cato Podcast

Energy Realism: Climate Policy Meets Actual Economics

Cato's Chad Davis and Travis Fisher examine the gulf between symbolic climate pledges and the real-world complexities of energy use — from EV carbon costs to fossil-fueled resilience against natural disasters. They argue that the “climate homicide” narrative misreads the data, and that abundant, affordable energy remains humanity’s greatest defense against climate risk.

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1 month ago

37 minutes 34 seconds

Cato Podcast

The Disaster Aid System: How FEMA Rewards Risk

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.

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1 month ago

29 minutes 22 seconds

Cato Podcast

The Shutdown That Solved Nothing

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.

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1 month ago

32 minutes 16 seconds

Cato Podcast

Don’t Do It, Mr. President: The Prospect of a US War in Venezuela

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

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1 month ago

31 minutes 36 seconds

Cato Podcast

The Supreme Court’s $300 Billion Tariff Showdown

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-way

https://www.cato.org/blog/why-three-cato-trade-scholars-filed-amicus-brief-us-supreme-court

https://www.cato.org/commentary/striking-down-tariffs-wont-hurt-anybody

https://www.cato.org/legal-briefs/trump-v-vos-selections-learning-resources-v-trump

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1 month ago

39 minutes 22 seconds

Cato Podcast

What a Long Shutdown It's Been

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, 2025

Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman, "End Obamacare’s Welfare for the Wealthy COVID Credits," Cato at Liberty Blog, October 23, 2025

Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman, "Welfare Digest | End the ACA Subsidies for the Well-Off," Debt Dispatch, October 22, 2025

Romina Boccia and Ritvik Thakur, "Debt Digest | Remove Obamacare Regulations Instead of Extending COVID-era Credits," Debt Dispatch, October 14, 2025

Romina Boccia, "Shutdown Theatrics Just Distract Us from the Real Problem: Obscene National Debt," New York Post, October 2, 2025

Romina Boccia and Ritvik Thakur, "Debt Digest | Let Obamacare COVID Credits Expire," Debt Dispatch, October 2, 2025

Romina Boccia, "Thoughts About the Government Shutdown," Cato at Liberty Blog, October 1, 2025

Romina Boccia, Ritvik Thakur, and Ivane Nachkebia, "Debt Digest | Government Shutdown Is Likely," Debt Dispatch, September 8, 2025

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1 month ago

34 minutes 1 second

Cato Podcast

The $650,000 Question: How Steel Protectionism Fails

For 60 years, the U.S. government has protected the steel industry through tariffs, quotas, and Buy American mandates. Yet steel costs remain among the highest globally, and protectionism has extracted a staggering price: $650,000 in economic damage for every steel job saved, and 75,000 manufacturing jobs lost in 2019 alone. Cato's Clark Packard and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon investigate why protectionism failed and what market-based solutions would actually work.

Show Notes:

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/steeled-protectionism

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1 month ago

38 minutes 11 seconds

Cato Podcast

Five* Types of Innovative "Schools"

School choice isn’t just about choosing different schools—it’s about unbundling education itself and trying new things to get kids excited about learning. Cato scholars Neal McCluskey and Colleen Hroncich envision a future where adults educated through innovative institutions bring diverse perspectives to workplaces and communities.

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1 month ago

40 minutes 49 seconds

Cato Podcast

Political Pressure and Monetary Policy

Both Republicans and Democrats pressure the Fed toward different agendas, revealing deeper institutional problems. Norbert Michel and Jai Kedia argue that broad discretion and an inflated view of the Fed's influence enable mission creep and capture regardless of who holds power. The solution? Congressional legislation establishing clear rules.

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1 month ago

32 minutes 26 seconds

Cato Podcast

Feeding AI's Energy Appetite

Travis Fisher and Jennifer Huddleston discuss how outdated energy policies created barriers to new generation just as AI data centers began demanding unprecedented amounts of power. They imagine a path forward using free market policies in both AI and electricity to create previously unimaginable levels of human flourishing and prosperity.

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2 months ago

29 minutes

Cato Podcast

Peace President?

President Trump is taking a victory lap for brokering peace in Gaza—while simultaneously escalating the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and launching airstrikes against suspected cartel boats. Our panel assesses Trump’s Nobel ambitions, celebrates this year’s actual Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Justin Logan, "The Case for Withdrawing from the Middle East," Defense Priorities, September 2020.

Ian Vasquez, “Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan Champion of Freedom, Wins the Nobel Peace Prize,” Cato at Liberty blog, October 10, 2025.

Ian Vasquez and Marcos Falcone, “Liberty Versus Power in Milei’s Argentina,” Free Society, October, 2025.

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2 months ago

47 minutes 17 seconds

Cato Podcast

Protecting Immigration Enforcement Officers and the Constitution

According to recent government data, immigration enforcement has become a much more dangerous job. David Bier and Patrick Eddington discuss the policy tradeoffs driving these numbers, previous administrations' efforts at mitigating mass immigration, and how to craft a more just, effective and safe immigration policy.

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2 months ago

32 minutes 3 seconds