AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies will host Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter for a timely discussion of U.S. defense budgets, of the changing strategic landscape in the U.S. and the force that this landscape demands.

At this event, Alan Viard will present the X tax proposal while James Mackie of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute will offer commentary.

The Obama administration is suing to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Lawyers at the Department of Justice argue that the marriage of the second and fourth largest wireless carriers will reduce competition. It is clear from the complaint filed by the government that the lawyers at DOJ do not fully understand the present state of wireless competition.

Syria has always been among the Middle East's most repressive regimes. Any hope that Bashar al-Assad would usher in reform were naïve to begin with, the stuff of diplomats' fantasies. The question of what might come after Assad is a difficult one for American diplomats who have spent far more time trying to engage Assad and his functionaries than in reaching out to the Syrian opposition.

Canada's government-financing operation looks superior to the one in the United States in candor, as well as credit performance, as it achieves equivalent home ownership levels.

Alex J. Pollock makes several considerations and suggestions on how to properly use annuities in retirement finance.

The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan is now an officially designated terrorist organization, a status that will make it easier to prosecute individuals involved with the organization.

As if commandeering the banking, finance, and auto industries were not enough, a couple of weeks ago the Obama administration decided to throw a bomb at modern antitrust law.