Cato Podcast

Updated: 02 Oct 2025 • 4764 episodes
www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast

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 episodes

The federal government shuts down as the Supreme Court returns. Our panel looks at the Trump team’s plan to use the shutdown for mass layoffs —and previews a new Supreme Court term packed with big fights over tariffs, emergency powers, and the future of “independent” agencies. Featuring: Ryan Bourne, Gene Healy, Thomas

46 min
00:00
46:40
No file found

Will congressional inaction lead to a government shut down? Do shutdowns halt the government in its tracks, and if not, who decides what stays and what goes? What does it mean for President Trump -- or the rest of us?   Cato's VP for Government Affairs, Chad Davis, in conversation with Patrick Eddington, senior fellow

43 min
00:00
43:28
No file found
25 Sep 2025 • EN

Doing It the Hard Way

FCC chair Brendan Carr’s “easy way or hard way” threat to TV broadcasters lit a censorship firestorm this week. Our Cato panel digs into the government's jawboning, broadcast licensees' “junior-varsity” First Amendment rights, and whether it’s time to scrap the FCC altogether. Plus, the latest on AI regulation and the

45 min
00:00
45:25
No file found

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce joins Jennifer Schulp and Cato's Norbert Michel to discuss how government financial surveillance has eroded Americans' constitutional privacy rights through tools like the Consolidated Audit Trail. Peirce advocates for principles-based regulation that protects individual financial privacy

35 min
00:00
35:20
No file found

Are Americans becoming dangerously tolerant of political violence? After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, our Cato panel looks at trends in public opinion, past episodes of political terrorism, and new risks to free expression. Plus, Milei’s electoral setback in Buenos Aires province—what now for Argentina's libertarian e

45 min
00:00
45:31
No file found

When Syracuse University forced its social work faculty to partner with a for-profit corporation that takes two-thirds of online tuition revenue, professor Kenneth Corvo began investigating where student money actually goes in higher education. His findings reveal a systemic problem across American universities: more a

31 min
00:00
31:01
No file found