Dear Capitolisters,

In the pantheon of right-leaning economists, there’s a front row seat for Stanford’s Thomas Sowell. For those of you who don’t know Dr. Sowell, who turned a spry 90 last year and is still going strong, I recommend this recent tribute to some of his most important work, as well as this brand new documentary on his life. For me, two specific Sowell quotes stand out when thinking about public policy and the intersection of politics and economics:

• When evaluating a policy proposal, always “think beyond stage one” and ask “and then what will happen?” (via his Applied Economics)

• “There are no solutions, there are only tradeoffs … and you try to get the best trade-off you can get, that’s all you can hope for.” (via this 2005 interview)