Reducing the accumulated impact of 70,000 annual pages of new regulations—in a Washington incapable of cutting spending—offers real stimulus opportunities. Pruning the regulatory superstate can increase returns to investors, and offer struggling entrepreneurs greater prospects that risky new ventures will succeed. Read more on regulatory reform at CEI.org.
The Code of Federal Regulations has 28 sections on food containers. Metal, glass, plastic, flexible, rigid – if you can put food in it, there are rules for it.
Recent innovations, such as easy-open tabs on cans, have prompted the Department of Agriculture to issue a 13-page update to its food container inspection regulations. If you have some spare time on your hands, you can have a look by clicking here.
New Jersey residents pay the highest state and local taxes in the nation, notes the New Jersey Taxpayers’ Association (NJTA). And what do they get for all that money? For most New Jerseyites, not much more than residents of other states, but for government employees, the benefits are great, according to a NJTA analysis of the state’s public employee compensation.
For example, a police officer who retires with a $105,000 salary after 25 years of service can end up making more…
This morning I read with interest - and amazement - the above headline. Does our president live in the same world that I inhabit? He’s worried about America’s increasing indebtedness and is pushing for a massive expansion of health entitlements (aka wealth redistribution programs) and the cap-and-tax global warming initiatives (aka wealth redistribution programs) and a host of other other wealth-destroying regulatory programs. Yet, he’s worried about America’s growing debt?
Our political system is only now perhaps emerging from a foolish…
The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind are seeking a preliminary injunction in federal court to stop ASU’s plan to use Kindles in place of traditional textbooks. Their objection was based on the point that it is far from easy for a blind individual to access the Navigation Features of this device. And they’re right - the “Home Menu” lists the books stored but that order changes as soon as they’re accessed and that list…
FCC regulators want to provide wider and cheaper broadband access by subsidizing it, raising taxes, and forcing network owners to share their network infrastructure with competitors.
A few things the FCC should consider:
-Subsidies don’t make broadband access any less expensive. They just change who pays for it. In this case, that would be anybody with a phone. Which probably includes you. The great economist Ludwig von Mises observed that “A government can no more determine prices than a goose can lay hen’s…
Over at Investor’s Business Daily, Wayne Crews and I make the case against a Value Added Tax. Policy makers have been flirting with the idea as a way to reduce the $1,400,000,000,000 budget deficit.
We argue that a VAT is:
-Complex; it would require roughly doubling the size of the IRS.
-Untransparent; most VATs don’t show up on receipts the way sales taxes do. Taxpayers are clueless as to how much tax they actually pay.
-Vulnerable to special-interest tinkering; politically incorrect goods are routinely…
Remember the raw oyster ban from a recent Regulation of the Day? I am happy to report a partial victory (hat tip to Jacob Grier).
The ban, due to take effect in 2011, has not been repealed outright. But, in response to public outcry, it has been delayed:
The FDA announced it would commission a study to explore alternatives to reducing the illness vibrio vulnificus, and also do an economic analysis of how the ban would impact the oyster industry.
“Before proceeding, we will conduct…
President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package creates imaginary jobs, while destroying ones in the real world.
Billions from the stimulus are being spent on creating tens of thousands of imaginary jobs in 440 phantom Congressional districts, according to the government’s own web site:
Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist. . . . The web site…
Workers may get violent if their wages are cut. The United Auto Workers union (UAW) has a monopoly and was an anchor on the Big Three U.S. automakers. These two ideas were professed by two labor leaders at the recent Federalist Society Convention in Washington, D.C.
There may be violence, says Damon A. Silvers, Associate General Counsel for the AFL-CIO and Deputy Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. Silvers spoke on last Friday’s panel “Labor: Wall Street, Labor Unions,…
Over at the Washington Examiner’s Opinion Zone, Wayne Crews and I explain why New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s antitrust lawsuit against Intel is a mistake.
Calling Intel’s business practices “bribery” and “coercion” is little more than argument by assertion. Rebates and exclusivity deals are normal competitive behavior. Not only is Intel facing increasing competition in its home turf, that small segment is hardly the extent of the relevant competitive market. Intel faces an uncertain future as consumer tastes shift to smaller…
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. These days, it often also contains up to 2% lead to make it more workable. That means it runs afoul of federal standards for lead in children’s toys.
Fortunately, it turns out that children handling toy cars or other toys with brass parts does not raise their lead concentrations to anywhere near harmful levels. No harm, no foul, right?
Doesn’t matter, say regulators. No exceptions.
Toymakers presumably choose brass because it is cheap, durable,…
The Obama administration this week called off bidding on what would have been a union-friendly federal construction project bidding process, in response to a contractor complaint over its inclusion of a project labor agreement (PLA), which would disadvantage nonunion contractors, reports The Washington Times. The bids were for a $35 million contract ot build a Job Corps center in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Under a PLA, an open shop contractor could be required to employ workers from union hiring halls, acquire apprentices from union apprentice…
CEI’s president Fred Smith is featured today in a video interview with InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds - now appearing on Reason’s blog. Fred talks about “moving government out of the way” as impediments to innovative approaches to issues. The interview was based on his recent article in The American Thinker, “GOP should grow the Party, grow the economy, and shrink the state.” As Fred says, GOP must resist pressure to go “Democrat-lite.”
Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe, reports the Washington Post. “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands at 10.2 percent,” compared to “9.7 percent” in Europe. This is the highest rate in more than 26 years, and marks a huge change from the recent past, in which unemployment was double the American rate in much of Europe, such as in France.
Unemployment is at 10 percent in France, which refused to adopt a U.S.-style stimulus…
The Washington Times, “Greedy Autoworkers,” editorializes the overwhelming rejection of the UAW’s proposed labor agreement. Unlike GM and Chrysler, Ford elected to reject the bailout money and benefited from the consumer distrust of our newly nationalized auto sector. Yet, Ford actually went into the black this past quarter. GM and Chrysler, operating as GSEs, are safe from strikes because the government takeover agreement forbids the UAW to strike. Big Government is willing to discipline Big Labor. In the market, odds shift and…
“The Man Who Predicted the Depression,” in Saturday’s WSJ explains von Mises’s interpretation of the business cycle. To Mises, volatility was inevitable with a politically controlled money supply - given to over and under supply of money. The Federal Reserve and central banks generally are political-indeed, the most powerful Government Sponsored Enterprises. When they ease credit via transactions with designated banks, banks in their ambit also view themselves as wealthier, spending and investing accordingly. When credit is tightened, the reverse occurs. …
Warren Buffet, one of the most respected investors in America, recently purchased Burlington Northern, one of the nation’s largest railroads with some 32,000 miles of track. BN like almost all railroads carries coal - lots of it from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to the nation’s electrical power plants. But President Obama and his Green allies are trying to end the use of coal in America. If they succeed, the rail sector will collapse.
Buffet, according to the Wall Street…
In a time when the federal government’s involvement in the economy appears to only grow, it’s encouraging to see at least one industry where the trend may soon move in the opposite direction, even if at the state level. Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell has proposed priviatizing the state’s liquor stores — known as ABC stores, for Alcoholic Beverage Control.
As Garrett Peck, author of The Prohibition Hangover, notes in The Washington Post, this is long overdue. (The op ed is due to…
Today’s American Spectator Online has a piece by CEI VP Wayne Crews and I on curbing Congressional abuse of unfunded mandates. If the term is new to you, unfunded mandates are basically an accounting gimmick that lets government understate how much it costs taxpayers:
rather than fund a new federal job training program through a Department of Labor appropriation, Congress could mandate that all Fortune 500 firms provide, and pay for, such training. The first appears on the federal budget, the…
A new ordinance in Dudley, Massachusetts makes it illegal to own more than three cats without government consent. (Hat tip: Drudge)
Having solved all of the community’s other problems, regulators now have the time to turn their attention to what is apparently a spat between neighbors. One resident is upset that the 15 cats (!) owned by a neighboring woman have been sullying his yard.
I might suggest that Coaseian bargaining might be a better solution than a law.
A fiat decision in favor…
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