CEI Today: Free market carbon tax?, Senate immigration vote, and #ceigala roundup
Today in the News
CARBON TAX – MARLO LEWIS
The lead article in the summer issue of Regulation magazine, the Cato Institute’s flagship publication, is titled “What is the right price for carbon emissions?” The author is Bob Litterman, a Ph. D. economist who is currently a partner in a NYC-based hedge fund.
These articles were described by someone at Cato as “exploring the case for a carbon tax from a free market perspective.” But I don’t see anything resembling a free market case for a carbon tax being made in Litterman’s article or in the pro-carbon tax comments of Pindyck and Hsu.
Nor can I find anything in Litterman’s background or in the references in his article to suggest that he is a free market economist. He was at Goldman Sachs in high positions for twenty-some years and is a member of the board of the World Wildlife Fund.
SENATE IMMIGRATION VOTE – DAVID BIER
Openmarket.org: E-Verify National ID System Threatens Americans’ Privacy
The Senate immigration bill would create a centralized database with photos of every legal U.S. worker or potential worker. It does this by combining the Social Security database – names, addresses and Social Security Numbers – with passport and state ID photos (p. 1317). The bill incentivizes states to provide photos by offering hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for making them accessible to the federal government (p. 1377).
#CEIGALA ROUNDUP
The Washington Post: The outspoken Kentucky Republican was keynoting the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual gala Thursday when he mocked the “charade” shut-downs of the sequester: Many Senate entrances have been closed, but the Capitol police officers guarding them haven’t been furloughed, he said, just “reassigned.”
K Street Magazine: Annual Libertarian Dinner Gets Shaken, Not Stirred
The outspoken Kentucky Republican was keynoting the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual gala Thursday when he mocked the “charade” shut-downs of the sequester: Many Senate entrances have been closed, but the Capitol police officers guarding them haven’t been furloughed, he said, just “reassigned.”
Breitbart.com: Rand Paul gave the keynote address at the annual Competitive Enterprise Institute dinner Thursday night in Washington DC. The sold out crowd of free market advocates eagerly awaited red meat from the Kentucky senator and they were not disappointed.
Paul began with a full frontal assault on the Obama Administration mocking them as the “Old MacDonald” white House, “You know, here a scandal, there a scandal, every where a scandal.”
Bisnow: Sen. Rand Paul keynoted, drawing laughs for his jabs on NSA, furloughing the Capitol police, and spending hundreds of thousands to discover pizza is the best food to eat on Mars.
Slate: The event’s theme was James Bond (the title of a staff-made spoof video: “Capitalism Never Dies”), and the group’s president, Lawson Bader, sported a kilt in tribute to Sean Connery. Cracks at the IRS and NSA abounded, along with a general air of righteousness.