CEI Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. CONGRESS

Lawmakers prepare to vote on a major new farm bill.  

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Scholar Fran Smith on the new taxes being proposed:

House floor debate on the 2007 Farm Bill – H.R. 2419 – began at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, with a contentious beginning focusing on a last-minute approach to funding expansions of nutritional and food stamps programs to the tune of $4 billion.  To fund those programs on a pay-as-you-go basis, foreign firms with U.S. operations would be taxed.

2. TRADE   

U.S. officials urge Congress to renew “fast track” authority to speed trade negotiations.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Free Enterprise Scholar Doug Bandow on the need to get free trade negotiations back on track:

 Support for free trade long has transcended party politics in America. But that era officially ended with the expiration of presidential ‘fast track’ negotiating authority at the end of June. Lest the U.S. give up on its effort to continue liberalizing the international economy, the Bush administration and Congress need to work together to renew what is formally known as trade promotion authority (TPA).

3. FINANCE

Corporate accounting regulations mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 mark their fifth anniversary.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on the legacy of Sarbox:

…now, a law is robbing investors of their rights to place their money in stocks that carry risk but also have potential for great returns. This law’s prescriptive mandates are making it more difficult for companies of the size that Home Depot, or even Wal-Mart, were in 1982 to raise money in America’s public capital markets. Even if someone were to come back from the future to 2007 with stock market data through 2032, he just might come up empty-handed if looking for growth companies with the successful returns for investors of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Why? Because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.

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