Daily update for 07/02/09
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Thursday and Friday, July 2 and 3, 2009
Issues in the News
1. TELECOM
The Federal Communications Commissioners meet today under new chairman Julius Genachowski to discuss how the government will regulate wireless spectrum allocation, which will impact mobile devices, cell phones, radio, and all mobile devices. The Competitive Enterprise Institute in June filed comments advising the Federal Communications Commission on how best to proceed with its plan for a national policy on deployment of broadband networks.
CEI Expert Availale to Comment: Ryan Radia on how the FCC should eliminate government barriers that undermine consumer interests.
“The best way the Commission can stimulate broadband is not by imposing new layers of regulation, but by adopting a deregulatory stimulus in which government-created entry barriers are eliminated and costly regulations are reduced. Marketplace investment and private enterprise have driven broadband deployment in the United States, and the Commission would be wise to expand proven, market-driven broadband policies.”
2. POLITICS & CULTURE
A new round of Tea Parties are happening around the country on Independence Day, expressing outrage at the politicians who continue to grow the size and scope of government power at the expense of citizens. CEI’s Michelle Minton will address the Tea Party in Washington, DC on July 4.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Michelle Minton on the true spirit of the Tea Parties.
“The American government seems to be mirroring the 18th century British government; applying discriminatory taxes on businesses, products, and citizens, using appropriated money to prop up preferred companies and failing to protect the freedom of individuals to pursue their own happiness. All the while those in power implicitly and explicitly in some cases attack capitalism, the only system under which individual rights are supreme. It is this attack on free markets and individual rights that citizens must oppose.”
3. ECONOMY
The jobless rate has now hit 9.5 percent, the highest rate in 26 years, the Labor Department announced yesterday, Unfortunately, the global warming energy tax bill passed by the House last week and headed for the Senate will cost more jobs.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst William Yeatman on the fallacy of “green jobs”:
“[Any job] gains would come at the expense of industrial suppliers and users of energy, which would pass along higher production costs to consumers. Demand would plummet, markets would contract and those businesses would have to shed jobs.”
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For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, OpenMarket.org.
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