Richard Epstein on Corporate Welfare

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein's latest weekly column is about corporate welfare: "The libertarian position demands that we examine all government action on a presumption of distrust. In particular, this means that great care should be taken to see that government assets should not be given away to private interests. Rather, they should be transferred through competitive actions that require private parties to pay just compensation to the public treasury for public assets that they buy or lease. In a 1987 article in the Cato Journal, I made the claim that a well-functioning constitution needs to have not only a Takings Clause but also a 'Givings Clause.'"