1. ECONOMY 

Two-hundred economists dispute President Obama’s claim that
there is “no
disagreement” about the need to expand government spending to jumpstart the
economy.

CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Policy Analyst Cord
Blomquist on the newspaper ad listing the
objections of the 200 economists: 

“We at CEI disagree [about the alleged
need for federal stimulus spending] and, as it turns out, we’re not
alone.  The Cato Institute’s ad includes the names of 200 economists who
oppose the ‘stimulus’ package.  Among them are towering intellects like
James Buchanan, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1986 for his work on how
politicians’ self-interest and non-economic forces affect government economic
policy.  How appropriate.” 

2. ENVIRONMENT

Former Vice President Al Gore testifies in the Senate on global
warming and subsidies for alternative energy.

CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on Gore’s personal stake in the issue: 

“Former Vice President Al Gore has
warned that we need to examine the financial interests of people in the global
warming debate. Fair enough. What we discover in looking at the policies that
Mr. Gore advocated in his Senate testimony is that they will make him and his
friends extremely wealthy at the expense of consumers, who will be stuck with
skyrocketing energy prices.” 

3. BUSINESS

The Securities and Exchange Commission brings its first fraud
investigation relating to the Troubled
Assets Relief Program (TARP) financial bailout.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on why the bailout
legislation itself might
be unconstitutional: 

“…[if]
the bailout was just a big slush fund for the Administration to dispense with
as it chooses, then the bailout law itself was unconstitutional, since it
conferred unbridled discretion in the hands of the President to do whatever he
wanted with it.  The Supreme Court ruled in the Schechter Poultry case that giving the
executive unchecked discretion violates the constitutional separation of powers
between different branches of government, by giving the president essentially
legislative powers.” 

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