Turning Down Stimulus Dollars, Legal Malpractice and a “Socialist” President
A group of governors turn down federal stimulus funding for their states, citing the strings attached by Congress.
The Supreme Court rules that drug maker Wyeth can be sued for misuse of a drug by a medical professional even when the FDA has approved both the drug and its safety warnings.
Political observers debate whether President Obama’s policies should be considered “socialist.”
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1. BUSINESS
A group of governors turn down federal stimulus funding for their states, citing the strings attached by Congress.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on why we need to deregulate to stimulate:
“Today’s mounting spending and deficits increase incentives to regulate. The Obama administration seeks input by today on regulatory procedures. It needs to absorb the message that wealth-creating, small business-friendly alternatives to ‘spendulus’ deserve top consideration. Deregulate to stimulate.”
2. LEGAL
The Supreme Court rules that drug maker Wyeth can be sued for misuse of a drug by a medical professional even when the FDA has approved both the drug and its safety warnings.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on how the ruling could lead to an explosion of anti-corporate litigation:
“Already burdened by $8 trillion in new federal spending commitments and the likelihood of higher taxes to pay for bailouts, pork, and welfare, the economy now faces an additional threat: an explosion of litigation. Even liberal Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley can’t stand the Supreme Court’s liberal 6-to-3 ruling in Wyeth v. Levine, which let a patient sue an innocent drug maker for an injury caused by a physician’s assistant who disregarded repeated warnings by the drug maker…The arbitrary litigation fueled by this decision will cost lives over the long run by discouraging medical innovation, notes Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal. Jim Copland and Paul Howard call the counterproductive Wyeth decision “a ‘cure’ worse than gangrene.”
3. POLITICS
Political observers debate whether President Obama’s policies should be considered “socialist.”
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on the socialism that dare not speak its name:
“Call me a stickler for words, but policies that would nationalize entire industries — from airport screening to health care — or socialize risk — from corporate bailouts to subsidized insurance — are socialistic by any sensible definition. You don’t need to embrace an ideology in toto to move in the direction of its vision of society. Furthermore, you don’t need to define an ideology by its most vicious manifestation to recognize elements of it when they appear. There are other strands of socialism beside Soviet-style communism. Ultimately, [the] argument seems to rest on the notion that if you just don’t label something as ‘socialist,’ then it isn’t.”
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