Your host Richard Morrison teams up with Jeremy Lott and Josh Barro to bring you Episode 68 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with Saturday night’s healthcare vote in the House, Freddie Mac’s losing bets and a gift card scandal in Charm City. We then move on to Andrew Cuomo’s attack on Intel in New York and Josh tells us why we can expect more tax hikes in the future.

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A new Harvard poll, in a ranking of 13 leadership categories, found Congress and the media ranked 11th and 12th respectively. They probably would have been even lower had there been a category for used car salesmen.

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The Wall Street Journal calls the House version of President Obama’s health care plan “the worst bill ever,” noting that it will lead to “epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting,” and other problems.

At the Atlantic, Megan McArdle, who voted for Obama, explains how ObamaCare will cost much more than promised — at least $150 billion more.  That’s true even if promised cuts to Medicare included in ObamaCare actually take place — but as McArdle notes, even…

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Russ Roberts’ testimony in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is superb. Read it (it’s short). Wall Street deserves plenty of blame for the financial crisis. But Washington deserves more:

When your teenager drives drunk and wrecks the car, and you keep giving him a do-over—
repairing the car and handing him back the keys—he’s going to keep driving
drunk. Washington keeps giving the bad banks and Wall Street firms a do-over. Here are
the keys. Keep driving. The story always…

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Question: What do you get when you combine a $700 billion “stimulus” package, $1.1 trillion in wealth-destroying regulatory compliance costs, a mountainous non-discretionary entitlement obligation, bailouts for large manufacturers, an small army of unelected czars, and a $1.4 federal budget deficit?

Answer: Way too much government!

In a new CEI paper, One Nation, Ungovernable?, Clyde Wayne Crews lays out an agenda for setting America on the path to economic recovery. From lifting burdensome regulations and restrictions on executive compensation to fostering competition and…

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In today’s New York Times, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman preens about intellectual dishonesty while presenting the most intellectually dishonest case about the cost of climate change policies I have seen this side of Joe Romm.  It moved me to do something I have not done for some time, and Fisk the entire article.  Krugman’s words are in italics.

So, have you enjoyed the debate over health care reform? Have you been impressed by the civility of the discussion and the intellectual honesty…

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Some time ago I said that President Bush’s chronically low approval ratings were a good thing. Evidence of widespread skepticism about politicians. Or at least one of them.

This is why I welcome today’s news that 52% of people — a clear majority — have an unfavorable view of Congress. There is still much to do, though. Even after enduring two simultaneous land wars in Asia, record spending, record deficits, a housing crisis primarily of congress’ creation, bank bailouts, cap-and-trade, and cash…

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host Jeremy Lott of the Capital Research Center and special guest Sean Higgins of Investor’s Business Daily for Episode 58 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with a revolt against congressional incumbency, wicked and foolish climate policy and a political sea change in the land of the rising sun. We continue with a technology news interview with Ryan Radia and finish with some fiscally sound Olympic News.

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It looks like things may be moving - slowly — on the trade front.  The U. S. Trade Representative has published a notice in the Federal Register asking for comments on the pending U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.

The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is assessing how and to what extent the free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and the Republic of Korea (Korea) signed on June 30, 2007 makes progress in achieving the applicable purposes, policies, priorities, and objectives of…

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Dana Milbank has a great piece in the Washington Post this week about recent congressional hearings on bottled water. He notes: “The nation is entangled in two wars, a deep recession and a flu pandemic, and the people’s representatives are hard at work investigating the menace of . . . bottled water?” Indeed. This is a silly issue for them to focus on, but unfortunately, their regulations may increase prices of a low-calorie, healthy beverage option.

The same day of the hearings, the…

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The Washington Times ran a great editorial this morning regarding the majority of Congress’s continued refusal to actually read the bills before voting on them.

No simpler requirement for good government could be imagined. When what is at stake is a revolutionary change in the entire organization of 17 percent of the economy - not to mention the delivery of services that could mean the difference between life and death for millions of Americans each year - it is basic common sense to…

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It seemed like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t have guts, despite his super-macho screen image.  Yesterday, however, he wrote to  members of the California Congressional Delegation, the country’s most powerful delegation in terms of the key leadership positions they hold, where he urged them to restore the pilot Mexican trucking program to avert trade retaliation.

Schwarzenegger pointed out how Congress’ termination of the program will hurt the economy and jobs, particularly in California:

. . . we must not allow safety to…

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Welcome to Episode 30 of everyone’s favorite podcast LibertyWeek, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and very special guest Jeremy Lott. We start with the end of the U.S. economy as we have known it: the $790 billion economic stimulus plan and its chilling consequences. We take note of Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s pledge to work for $1 a year and celebrate some good news with Alabama’s plan to legalize beer with a higher alcohol content than most wines.…

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Regardless of your political party or ideological leanings, the notion of the federal government spending $2 trillion, adding to the national debt of nearly $11 trillion already, should make you stop and consider the staggering size of our national tab.

If the irony of using debt-based spending to solve a problem caused by debt-based spending has escaped you, perhaps these fun facts will put things into perspective:

If you spent $1 every second, you’d have to keep spending for 412,000 years to get…

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The House of Representatives has just passed the $800-billion stimulus package which President Obama hopes to make a centerpiece of his administration’s early economic policy. The bill failed to get Republican support, which is a hopeful sign that GOP lawmakers will not seek bipartisanship at all costs. Such an enormous spending bill deserves more debate than it’s gotten.

The Senate should be in no hurry to rush this through.

For more on stimulus, see here and here.

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I have heard several Republican congressional leaders say that the party has learned its lesson from their disastrous losses in the past two elections. From now on, it’s back to being the party of limited government, fiscal discipline, lower taxes, and against pork barrel spending.

Sounds good, but Senate Republicans have blown their first opportunity to demonstrate that they mean what they say. The first bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought to a vote in the 111th Congress…

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For supporters of freedom and markets, the Year of Our Lord 2008 has been close to a disaster. As D:Ream used to sing, things can only get better, surely? Ah, if only…

This was the year that saw two Presidential candidates vying with each other to see who could make the most ridiculous statements on global warming and the financial system (it may be the less ridiculous won). It was a year when one bunch of free-spending economic know-nothings gained complete…

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Apple's 1984 "Big Brother" ad

An article over at Ad Age brings up an angle on the whole auto industry bailout probably not considered much before.  The fact that a yet-to-be-appointed “car czar” will have control over a multibillion dollar advertising budget for the big three.  Under the guise of “oversight,” this would effectively “Create World’s Most Powerful Marketing Exec[utive].”  

The draft rescue plan for Detroit sent to the White House by Congress yesterday calls for the appointment of a “car czar”…

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Jeremy Clarkson on the fall of the British Auto Industry:

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Did the free market cause the financial crisis?  Was it unbridled capitalism?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Taxpayers Union don’t believe for a minute that capitalism caused the financial crisis.  How can we be so confident?  Because capitalism doesn’t exist in the United States, especially in the financial sector.

Nearly every industry in the U.S. finds itself making regular pilgrimages to Washington to seek special favors—subsidies for this or that, regulations that harm competitors or smaller firms, or trade deals that benefit…

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