Paulson’s Testimony, Ken Burns on National Parks and Obama’s Surgeon General Nominee
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testifies before the House Government Reform Committee on his handling of the banking crisis.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns announces his newest film, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
President Obama nominates Dr. Regina M. Benjamin to be the next U.S. Surgeon General.
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1. BUSINESS
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testifies before the House Government Reform Committee on his handling of the banking crisis.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau on Paulson’s high-handed tactics:
“Paulson exceeded his authority as Treasury Secretary on numerous occasions. When the government took over AIG in September, longtime company leader Hank Greenberg was locked out of negotiations, and Paulson replaced AIG’s CEO with Edward Liddy, who Paulson served with on the board of Goldman Sachs when Paulson was CEO. Reports also indicate that Paulson strongly pressured healthy banks to take government money and give the government ownership stakes in the institutions, implicitly threatening negative regulatory actions if they didn’t take the deal.”
2. ENVIRONMENT
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns announces his newest film, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on why government ownership of national parks has actually not been such a good idea:
“As I detail extensively in my book The Really Inconvenient Truths, the nationalization of so much wonderful scenery has led to appalling mismanagement and environmental degradation. When the Parks Service and Forest Service spent hours in 1988 debating whether or not a fire counted as “natural” because it started from a lightning bolt striking a telegraph pole, large areas of Yellowstone National Park burned to ashes. Another park service biologist, Don Despain, saw the flames raging towards his research area and urged them on with the words, ‘Burn, baby, burn.’ These are the tales I can’t imagine you’ll see in Burns undoubtedly beautiful film, but they’re as much a part of the National Park story as the scenery.”
3. HEALTH
President Obama nominates Dr. Regina M. Benjamin to be the next U.S. Surgeon General.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on the central public health question facing Dr. Benjamin:
“[Will] America be better off with more ineffective government programs and bureaucratic entanglement or with greater individual initiative and the services of dedicated and caring health professionals? Do we want more top-down mandates that make the practice of medicine more rigid, or fewer controls and greater freedom for innovation and change? The American health care system does need reform, but an expansion of governmental control and restrictions on private initiative will make it harder, not easier, for Americans to obtain the quality health services they need.”
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