The recent extension of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) through October 3, 2010, is the latest government action in more than a year of bailouts of banks and other businesses.

The Hoover Institution Spring 2012 Retreat began on Sunday, April 22, 2012, with before-dinner remarks by John Stossel, a commentator on the Fox Business Network, where he hosts Stossel, a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues from a libertarian viewpoint. Before joining Fox, he coanchored ABC’s prime-time news magazine show 20/20. He discussed his new book No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails—but Individuals Succeed, which depicts Stossel’s ideas of “what we’re imprinted to believe and what reality has taught [him].” Stossel, in talking about how people are unsatisfied with the government today and how the free market system works better for our society, stressed how “central planning appeals to people” and how we are “programmed to follow the central planner.”

The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Board of Overseers’ summer meeting during July 10–12, 2012.

The program began on Tuesday evening with two dinner presentations hosted by John Raisian. Hoover fellows Daniel Kessler and Michael McConnell discussed “Health Care and the Constitution,” with McConnell beginning by speaking to the current health care situation as affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act and explained the difference between mandates enforced by a penalty versus a tax. Kessler spoke about changing the subsidy formula, Medicaid and Medicare, and the need to “get costs down.”