News Release
Coalition Urges Congress to Address “Outdated, Wasteful” Sugar Program
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 9, 2013—As Members of Congress prepare to mark up provisions for the 2013 Farm bill, a coalition of consumer, taxpayer, and policy…
News Release
A Big Day for Transparency on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 9, 2013 — Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee took a brave and principled stand for transparency on…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 8, 2013: The Debate over Undocumented Immigration
CEI Immigration Policy Analyst David Bier is critical of a new Heritage Foundation study that estimates that giving legal status to America's undocumented immigrants would…
Blog
Europe’s “Green Energy” Initiatives Don’t Want Your Help
As European renewable energy initiatives seek to radically reform their means of energy production, it would make sense that it be done in the most…
Blog
Youth Unemployment Is at Highest Sustained Level Since World War II
Real youth unemployment is at 16.1 percent, the highest sustained rate since World War II. As the non-partisan youth advocacy group Generation Opportunity notes,…
Blog
Ohio Deserves Right-To-Work
Right-to-work has been sweeping the country like a glorious fever (symptoms include swelling opportunity and dangerous spikes in liberty), even seizing brows in deep-blue union strongholds like…
Blog
‘Life of Julius’ shows how unions kill jobs, hurt workers
Many people realize that unions can hurt the workers they claim to represent. For example, the United Auto Workers union drove labor costs up for…
Blog
Government Gives Students Lifelong Lesson— In Debt
Jodi Romine is just your typical 26 year-old. Like most students, Jodi took out a student loan so that she could afford university in hopes…
Blog
John Locke’s Response to Heritage: Don’t Blame Immigrants for Fiscal Problems
Washington's largest conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, has released a study that suggests legalization for illegal immigrants will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars over the next…
Blog
First Amendment Menace: Obama Administration to Expand Americans with Disabilities Act over Websites?
Can websites be forced to change to accommodate the disabled -- by using "simpler language" to appeal to the "intellectually disabled," or by making…
Blog
Update in Apple MagSafe settlement Ninth Circuit appeal
CCAF filed an opening brief in October; after many delays in the briefing schedule, we filed our reply brief in April. Details at…
Forbes
A Supreme Court EPA Decision That Could Cost Taxpayers $21 Billion Per Year
Is the Clean Air Act so badly flawed that it will cripple environmental enforcement and economic development alike unless the EPA and its state counterparts…
Forbes
Why Are Social Security Cards Still Easy To Fake?
Libertarians oppose such cards for a variety of reasons, one of which is the impact on businesses, according to David Bier, an immigration policy analyst…
Forbes
Online sales-tax bill faces web of opposition in U.S. House
But Jessica Melugin, an adjunct policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., public-policy group, said that would place an unfair burden on…
Forbes
Conservatives Must Reject the “Poor Are Parasites” Narrative
When Mitt Romney made his comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes and were supposedly “dependent on government,” many conservatives rightly…
Forbes
How The Federal Reserve Became History’s Biggest Bad Bank
Every time a plane crashes, a team of engineers and aviation experts jump into action, methodically reconstructing the event to determine the cause—whether mechanical failure,…
Blog
Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Star
America will be celebrating this July with parades and fireworks. That’s right, the Twinkie is back! The private equity firms Metropoulos & Co and Apollo…
Newsletter
CEI Today: Internet sales tax, apples and pesticides, and European austerity
Blog
Conservatives Must Reject the “Poor Are Parasites” Narrative
When Mitt Romney made his comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes and were supposedly “dependent on government,” many conservatives rightly…
Blog
The Doctor Is In, America: Get With the Estonian Program
Don’t let the optimism surrounding last month’s job numbers fool you. The unemployment rate’s decline from 7.6 percent in March to 7.5 percent in…
Forbes
What we learned about immigration reform yesterday
Not a single right-leaning think tank rose in defense of Heritage’s anti-immigration study. The American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, the Competitive Enterprise…
Roll Call
Congress Must Rein In Expensive ‘Sue and Settle’ Tactics by EPA
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Competitive Enterprise Institute scholar William Yeatman recently shed some light on how the EPA uses the sue and settle…
Real Clear Markets
The GOP Has a Blurry View of Free Markets In Medicine
Bad ideas and special interest politics don't ever die in Washington, D.C. They get re-introduced in the next Congress. Earlier this month, Rep. Larry Bucshon,…
Study
Separating European Austerity Fact and Fiction
Full Document available in PDF Rarely a week goes by without mention in the media of European governments’ failure to restore economic…
Blog
How Online “Marketplace Fairness Act” Could Tax Your 401(k)
Today, the Senate likely will pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would force online retailers to collect sales taxes for states in which purchasers reside. Most have heard how this…
Blog
Historian: Housing Nominee Mel Watt Helped Spawn the Subprime Crisis
In the Daily Caller, historian and presidential biographer Charles C. Johnson writes that “Housing nominee Mel Watt helped create the…
Blog
Obama: A Sweet Pension for Himself, But Not For America’s Savers or Investors
In The Washington Post, Allan Sloan points out that while President Obama wants to cap American citizens' IRAs at $3 million or substantially…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
62 new regulations, from the federal flood insurance to California olives.
Blog
Southwest Drink Voucher objection
I’ve previously discussed the problems with the Southwest Drink Voucher coupon settlement, and CCAF attorney Melissa Holyoak is representing a class member objecting…
Washington Times
Nutritious apples, poisonous claims
Eat fewer apples, strawberries and grapes, and more corn, onions and pineapples, and you'll protect yourself and your children from "toxic" pesticides, according to the…
Reason
Democratic Nativist (Yes, Such a Creature Exists) Strikes At Nikki Haley
Every good liberal knows that GOP is the party of bigoted, narrow-minded “knaves and fools” that is in every way morally inferior to the noble…
Reason
To Grow, The U.S. Economy Needs More Low-Skilled Immigrant Workers
Recently introduced legislation to tackle immigration reform has elements that should satisfy both liberals and conservatives–namely, strong border security metrics for conservatives and a pathway…
Reason
US Senate approves Internet sales tax
Opposing the bill are several trade groups and Internet companies, including TechAmerica, the Financial Services Roundtable, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, eBay, Etsy, the Information Technology…
Spectator
The Busch Doctrine: Tilting For Windmills
The job creation claims rest on two obvious premises: the viability of wind energy and economic efficiency of government investments in it. The first point…
News Release
CEI Slams Senate Vote on Marketplace Fairness Act
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2013 – Senators crossed a dangerous line today when they voted to approve the dubiously named Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 743),…
Orange County Register
Lost lives the real costs of regulator overreach
Every once in a while, one encounters the perfect example of the folly, naivete and hubris of an ivory-tower academic. A case in point was…
Blog
Anti-Immigration Group: “They’re Taking Your Jobs!”
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the close-America’s-doors lobby group, has a facile new study that purports to show “there really are no jobs…
Blog
Poisoned Apple: Unions Taint NYC’s Economy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s recent video “The Life of Julius: How Unions Hurt Workers” demonstrates how unions lead to higher taxes. Many scoffed at this…
Blog
What Are the National ID Implications of the Senate Immigration Bill?
1. ID standards: The bill requires all employers to check photo IDs of all employees they hire—any employee who fails to present a photo ID…
Blog
Fraley v. Facebook
Lots of class members forwarded me their notices in this settlement, which is likely to pay the class zero; if it pays anything, it will…
The American Spectator
Financial Experts: Dodd-Frank Exacerbates Instability
These were the standout insights from a panel discussion hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on April 11. The gathering focused on the Financial…
News Release
CEI Unveils Original Cartoon Series: Unions vs. The Johnsons
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2013 – Organized labor exerts a pernicious influence on the economic lives of all Americans, even those who don’t belong to…
Online Media Daily
Watchdogs Ask Court to Reject ‘Sponsored Stories’ Settlement
Online Media Daily discusses the Center for Class Action Fairness' objection to the settlement deal in the Facebook privacy case. The law firm Center for…
Blog
CEI Podcast For May 2, 2013: Small Business Owners Sue Over IRS Obamacare Power Grab
Small business owners and individuals in six states, with help from CEI, are suing the IRS over what General Counsel Sam Kazman calls a flagrantly…
Legal Brief
CEI v. EPA Region 9 – May 2 Complaint
Full Document Available in PDF 1) This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, to…
Blog
The Costs Of Union Shareholder Activism
Is shareholder activism a good or a bad thing? That depends on what any given resolution seeks to improve the company's performance, and thereby increase…
Legal Brief
PPACA Complaint
A group of small business owners (and individuals) in six states are suing the federal government over an IRS regulation imposed under the Affordable Care…
Online Media Daily
Obamacare Gets New Court Challenge
Opponents of the health-care overhaul have filed a new lawsuit Thursday against the federal government on behalf of four individuals and three employers in the…
Human Events
Business Owners Sue IRS Over Obamacare Mandate
“Agencies are bound by the laws enacted by Congress,” said Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). “Obamacare is already an incredibly massive…
The Hill
Lawsuit claims IRS illegally implementing key part of ObamaCare
“ObamaCare is already an incredibly massive program. For the IRS to expand it even more, without congressional authorization and in a manner aimed at undercutting…