Please join us for Cato Club Naples—a series of exclusive events for Cato Partners whose annual contribution totals $1,000 or more. Our luncheon will feature a discussion with Cato research fellow Erec Smith and New York Post columnist and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind, Rikki Schlott, moderated by Managing Editor of Free Society, Paul Best. They will be followed by Cato Director of Tax Policy Studies Adam N. Michel.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we’re confronting a question the Founders themselves feared: Will our experiment in self-governance survive? Paul Best will moderate a timely conversation with Rikki Schlott and Erec Smith on the fragility of free speech and why it matters now more than ever. From Frederick Douglass’s use of persuasion to expand liberty in the 19th century to today’s campus culture wars, they’ll explore how the open exchange of ideas has been the engine of American progress and how both the left and the right are now undermining it by attempting to silence the other side.

Cato’s Adam Michel will open with a behind-the-scenes look at the fight over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including its unprecedented repeal of major tax subsidies and the tensions it exposed between sound tax policy and accelerating federal spending. Looking ahead, Michel will explain how Congress has set up the next fiscal cliff in just a few years and why proposals such as wealth taxes, higher capital taxes, and tariffs are gaining traction as lawmakers search for more revenue.

Join us for a timely conversation that will frame the fiscal debate as a trade-off between a high-tax, low-growth fiscal system and reforms that strengthen fiscal discipline and support economic growth.