Testimony on Jobs, Corruption, and a Contraception Mandate
Today in the News
JOBS & THE ECONOMY – JOHN BERLAU
Today’s Testimony Before House Subcommittee
With unemployment still stubbornly high and the economy still in tenuous shape, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade is seeking answers to those problems, launching the first in its series of hearings entitled, “Where the Jobs Are.” Wednesday’s hearing features John Berlau, Director of CEI’s Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs.
“Of all the regulations out there facing entrepreneurs, among the most important are those affecting access to capital,” Berlau explains in written testimony submitted to the subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Berlau notes recent research showing that firms less than five years old are responsible for nearly all net job growth. Yet these are the very firms hit by crushing regulations that make it very difficult to raise capital by going public.
FOREIGN BRIBES VS.DOMESTIC INFLUENCE PEDDLING – BILL FREZZA
Forbes.com:Making Sure Corruption Remains “Made In America”
If the U.S. government really wants to use its influence to get the world of global business to operate on a level playing field, instead of terrorizing American corporations for doing in Rome as do the Romans, perhaps it should run training sessions for foreign governments on how to construct a legalized system of influence peddling as subtle and backhanded as the one we have here. I sat in on such a training session in the winter of 2008 run by the venerable K&L Gates LLP, the nation’s ninth largest law firm, which boasts on its website of its ability to “seamlessly integrate lobbying and regulatory implementation.”
OBAMA CONTRACEPTION MANDATE – HANS BADER
There are a number of misconceptions about the Obama administration’s recent rule requiring employers’ health insurance policies (including those of religious schools and hospitals) to cover contraceptives and certain abortifacients. First, as a commentator notes, it’s not true that states in general already require such coverage. Second, it’s just not true that the Obama administration’s rule must be legal because it is supposedly modeled on state insurance rules in states like California. Under basic principles of federalism, there are things that states can require, but the federal government, which has only enumerated powers, cannot.