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…
The Motion Picture Association of America has come out against net neutrality… sort of. In its filing with the FCC[PDF] late last week, the MPAA reminded the commission of the importance of content companies in driving new infrastructure technologies, and claims that protecting these content companies (i.e. forcing ISPs to filter out file-sharers) is vital for the future health of the internet.
It would seem fair to speculate that file sharing, contrary to the both the MPAA’s and the RIAA’s earlier…
TorrentFreak reports that a new “network-aware” version of the BitTorrent protocol is being beta-tested. The new client, µTorrent 2.0 or µTP, will be able to regulate its own bandwidth usage (”throttle” itself) to avoid interference with other applications. According to a BitTorrent spokes person, the network-friendly redesign will slow uploads if congestion is detected on a network, but should leave download speeds unaffected in most cases.
The new client also has a feature that will enable users to stop all downloads if…
Net Neutrality’s opponents are fighting back. Last week it was John McCain’s “Internet Freedom Act,” and yesterday, Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a house version of the bill that would prohibit the FCC from imposing any regulations whatsoever on the internet or internet service providers. From her press release:
“The internet is the last truly open public marketplace. Its openness is the key to its efficiency and success. Not all public spaces need to be regulated spaces. Indeed, federal regulation has a long history…
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…
Here’s my letter published in the Oct. 25th edition of the Boston Globe responding to an editorial advocating the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency:
Your editorial, “To Fix Financial System, Protect Consumers First”, claims that a Consumer Financial Protection Agency will prevent a “recurrence” of the “financial pathology” that caused the banking crisis. But the source of that “financial pathology” was bad government policy, and your editorial calls for more of it.
Government subsidized toxic mortgages through entities like Fannie Mae and mandated…
If you sell poultry or livestock, it’s a good idea to weigh them first. Makes it easier for buyer and seller to agree on a fair price.
For some reason, seven sections of the Code of Federal Regulations (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) deal with the use and maintenance of the scales used to weigh the animals, the people operating them, proper procedure, and finally, weighing the animals again.
Is this really a federal matter? If so, what…
Sit back and think for a minute about what man has the potential to create. Think about the magnitude of our achievements in just the last century. Life expectancy has doubled. Population has sextupled. For the first time in history, famine is primarily a political phenomenon, not a natural one. The human mind is capable of creating limitless, endless wealth.
Unfortunately, the human mind is nearly as adept at preventing that wealth from being created. Sacramento, California is home to some…
Michael Masnick at Techdirt offers up another incidence of government inconsistency in light of the FTC’s blog-watching rules, reminding us that “clinical research on drugs isn’t even remotely trustworthy, as it all-too-often seems to involve doctors who have serious conflicts.”
Doctors with conflicts-of-interest, who push and promote certain drugs while receiving all kinds of goodies from pharmaceutical companies, seems, at the very least, like a more justifiable place for regulators to stick their noses (although there’s definitely an argument to be made…
Many, if not all, people depend on government employees to be positive role models for their children. They can give kids something to which to aspire; to show what they can be if they only work hard and stay in school. To give us all a walking, talking example of a life well lived.
It is in that spirit that Executive Order No. 13513 prohibits federal employees and contractors from texting while driving while on duty.
As the Order reminds us, “With nearly…
Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration, working with the Institute of Medicine, has been considering a change in the regulatory status of salt. The FDA cannot currently restrict the amount of salt that can be added to processed foods, and the proposed change would allow them to do so.
Advocates of the proposed regulation, like former FDA commissioner David Kessler and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, argue that reducing the sodium in foods would improve people’s health…
The lawyers at the US Department of Justice must be getting bored around the office. This week, antitrust regulators launched an investigation of IBM’s business practices. The probe was launched after the Computer and Communications Industry Association (which represents several of IBM’s competitors) filed a complaint against IBM, claiming that it has abused its dominance in the computer mainframe market.
This marks the third time in the last sixty years that IBM has had the antitrust dogs on its trail. In 1956…
Kahlua contains 20% alcohol in 49 states. But in Ohio, it is 21.5%. Weird, huh?
Turns out regulations are the reason. My friend Jacob Grier pointed me to an article showing that Ohio groups alcoholic beverages into two categories: wine/beer and spirits. Any beverage below 20% alcohol is in the wine/beer category and can be sold in grocery stores. Anything above 20% is classed as a spirit and can only be sold in state-run liquor stores.
Drinkers often mix Kahlua with spirits such as…
In the interest or saving trees, the legacy of Mr. Whipple (please don’t squeeze the Charmin!) could be a thing of the past. The greens have already succeeded in taking away well-functioning toilet bowls, why not soft toilet paper? Michael Fumento notes today on his blog how the greens want to ban soft toilet paper (see Washington Post story). Instead, we will only be able to buy toilet paper made with recycled materials, which might make fine-toothed sand paper feel smooth in comparison.…
In today’s Politico, I take a look at one of the 397 new regulations in the House version of cap and trade legislation. If the bill passes, almost all homes for sale would be required to undergo an environmental inspection. The home cannot be sold until it is up to code.
One unintended consequence could be the end of fixer-upper homes.
Another would be lower home ownership rates. Which, of course, directly contradicts of decades of federal policy.
Shovelnose sturgeon population figures are healthy. Why does the Fish and Wildlife Service want to list it as a threatened species, then? Because it looks like the pallid sturgeon, which is currently listed as endangered.
The case for regulatory sunset provisions is inadvertently made by an entire chapter in the Code of Federal Regulations devoted to lawsuit rules for the Y2K computer bug from nearly a decade ago.
In Jersey City, New Jersey, the school district is requiring students to “sanitize their hands when they walk into the class in the morning, before and after lunch, and after each restroom visit.” That’s a requirement. As in, not optional. The district will be providing hand sanitizers at a cost of about $100,000.
Want to be a barber in Nevada? You’ll need to get a license first. One of the requirements is a chest X-ray, of all things. And a blood test.
More onerous is the 18-month apprenticeship under a licensed barber, which requires its own license – plus another chest X-ray and blood test.
Occupational licensing regulations are rarely in place to benefit consumers. Their primary purpose is often to limit competition by putting up barriers to entry. Why do this? Because keeping the…
Until last Friday, it was illegal for certain producers to sell or import U.S. No. 1 grade “Creamer size” (long and skinny) Irish potatoes. Creamer size potatoes are identical in taste, texture, and weight to their stouter, rounder counterparts.
In the Idaho-Eastern Oregon growing region, this led to over $7 million worth of potatoes to go unsold. That’s a lot of uneaten meals. Hopefully the USDA will repeal similar aesthetic restrictions on other types of food. It is bad policy to keep…
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