Kerry,

Yes, Sara needs to stop by for some debate. I was pleased to see that her first reaction to the article was to attack the motive of The Cato Institute. Here we go again. Let's not even deal with the facts; let's spew fear uncertainty and doubt about Cato's motives so we don't have to face the facts they use to support their argument. Unfortunately for Sara, facts are facts, and they are equally valid no matter who decides to point them out. After all, discounting a fact based on the person who points it out would be discrimination, wouldn't it.

The Cato Institute is widely respected by people on both sides of the aisle in Washington as well as in countless other circles. You can hardly watch a couple of hours of TV news without seeing an interview with someone from Cato. I'm not talking about just Fox here; all of the major news outlets rely on Cato's scholars for analysis. Their research is impeccable and exhaustive, and even though I do not always agree with their conclusions, there is no denying the quality of the information that they provide. Calling them a totally biased conservative "research firm" (I love the scare quotes) shows how truly ignorant Sara is. If she would bother to take look at Cato's web site, she would realize that Cato's positions on a great many issues, including the war in Iraq, differ from that of the conservative mainstream. Sara would do well not to discount such a great organization. I'm sure there's good information on their site that would back many of her opinions. Sadly, all we get from Sara is a criticism of The Cato Institute, a few criticisms of Cato's findings, and some anti-republican rhetoric. She misses an opportunity to point Sue to some data that supports her viewpoint, which leads me to believe there isn't any, or she is unaware of it, which is even worse.

I do agree with her point that capitalism doesn't work as well when you mix in regulation and subsidies, as we are prone to do. We should not, however, accept these regulations as a given, as Sara seems to suggest. The more free we can make the market the greater the chances will be for everyone to find prosperity. This does not have to come at the expense of the environment, although I understand the environmental movement sees capitalism and environmentalism as incompatible. Ironically, The Cato institute has some good data to support the notion that a free economy is a friend to the environment, but don't expect the environmentalists to read, much less quote from, this information any time soon. Emerging from the ideological womb can be soooooo scary.