Today, government poses many new threats to individual freedom and the virtues needed for its preservation. Unfortunately, career politicians, an ever-expanding government and massive regulatory constraints dominate American political life. Catos government and politics studies are dedicated to bringing the ideals of individual liberty, civil society, limited government and citizen legislators back to the forefront of American political life.

Cato's research on telecommunications and information policy advances a vision of free minds and free markets within the information policy, information technology, and telecommunications sectors of the American economy. Cato scholars work to address the many contentious public policy concerns and debates surrounding these important sectors, including privacy, identification, data security and the information economy; regulation of traditional telecommunications, Internet network management, and electromagnetic spectrum; and intellectual property issues such as copyrights and patents.

Cato's entitlement research demonstrates that consumers are better off when they, and not the government, are in charge of how their money is spent. This applies to health care, Social Security, and other areas where the government currently controls the dispersal of our tax dollars. In particular, Cato has been a longtime advocate of deregulating the health care industry, so that consumers can afford the health care insurance and treatment of their choice, and privatizing Social Security.

Cato's foreign policy vision is guided by the idea of our national defense and security strategy being appropriate for a constitutional republic, not an empire. Cato's foreign policy scholars question the presumption that an interventionist foreign policy enhances the security of Americans in the post-Cold War world, and maintain instead that interventionism has consequences, including the formation of countervailing alliances, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and even terrorism. The use of U.S.

History has shown that monetary stability — money growth consistent with a stable and predictable value of money — is an important determinant of economic stability. As capital markets become more sophisticated, they are simultaneously more crucial to the functioning of a complex economy and more difficult for policymakers to understand. Cato's analysts study the workings of the capital markets, the value of free flows of capital, and the burdens imposed on markets by regulation.

Cato's energy and environment studies are devoted to explaining how energy markets work and promoting policies that leave questions regarding energy consumption, environmental standards, market structure, and technology to the market rather than government planners. Cato is committed to protecting the environment without sacrificing economic liberty, and believes that those goals are mutually supporting, not mutually exclusive.