The Politics of Booze, Challenging Obamacare and “Paycheck Fairness”

1. BUSINESS

Beer wholesalers have been throwing massive amounts of money at Washington.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Michelle Minton on how the industry is lobbying for regulations that hurt their competitors.

“Why would alcohol distributors want states to discriminate against out-of-state producers? The answer is simply: they want vineyards, distillers, and brewers to have to depend on the middle man wholesalers (aka distributors).”

 2. HEALTHCARE

A federal judge in Virginia allows the state’s lawsuit against Obamacare to proceed.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans Bader on how there is a strong legal case against Obamacare.

“Virginia’s lawsuit only raises federalism-based objections to ObamaCare. There are other constitutional problems not raised in its suit. The healthcare legislation also contains potentially unconstitutional racial preferences for minority applicants, and lower standards for treatment of patients in predominantly-minority institutions. These drew criticism from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Law professor Rob Natelson has raised additional constitutional objections to ObamaCare’s individual mandate.”

3. LEGAL

The Obama Administration wants to pay workers the same amount, even if they didn’t do equal work.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans Bader analyzes the “Paycheck Fairness Act.”  “The Obama administration wants to force employers to pay some people equal amounts for doing unequal work, through a deceptive bill known as the Paycheck Fairness Act. ‘Male supermarket managers with college degrees couldn’t be paid more than female cashiers if the college degree for the manager wasn’t consistent with “business necessity,”’ says economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth. The bill would also radically increase damage awards for what it labels as ‘discrimination.’”