Blog
$15 Trillion for… What, Exactly?
In a new study, Cato’s Michael Tanner finds that “Despite nearly $15 trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty…
Newsletter
Senate Vote on NLRB Ambush Election Rule, Free Market Fisheries, and the Cyber Intelligence Bill
Blog
Stimulus Aided the Politically Connected at Massive Cost to Taxpayers
Blog
Today’s Links: April 24, 2012
Blog
A Bad Week For Shuttlyndra Supporters
Two serious blows were struck against the Senate Launch System this week, though based on previous behavior, when knocked down by…
One News Now
New Cars Affordable to Fewer People
From Chris Woodward's column on OneNewsNow: Marlo Lewis, senior fellow for the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI),…
CNET
CISPA Revision Allows DHS Internet ‘Countermeasures’
From Declan McCullagh's article on CNET: Ryan Radia, associate director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that…
CNET
Are We Subsidizing Student Debt Too Generously?
From Jennifer Rubin’s post on The Washington Post‘s Right Turn blog: I went to two critics of the current craze for federal subsidies…
Reason
Building a 21st Century FDA
From Ronald Bailey's article in Reason: Delaying access to new drugs kills people. As Competitive Enterprise Institute general counsel Sam Kazman has…
Reason
Super Mario Talks a Good Game But Italy’s Entrepreneurs Have Lost Out
ITALIAN Prime Minister Mario Monti recently proclaimed “historic” labour reform and even declared the “financial aspect” of the crisis to be over. But don’t pop…
Reason
Senate Judiciary Committee Takes Up Arizona 1070 Law
Reason
Technological Challenges Aside, Is Asteroid Mining Legal?
From Rebecca Boyle’s article in Popular Science: Some space colonization advocates argue that guaranteeing ownership of celestial real estate is a necessary precursor…
Reason
US Airways And American Airlines Seek A Deadly Embrace
As the legacy airlines limp toward oblivion crippled by expensive labor contracts, efficiency-killing work rules, and massive unfunded pension liabilities, word comes that the pilots,…
News Release
Occupy Protest of Wells Fargo is An Attack on Shareholders, Middle Class Investors
Washington, D.C., April 24, 2012— John Berlau, Senior Fellow for finance and access to capital at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, issued the following statement on…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 219: Cat Cafes
In a city as big as Tokyo, there is plenty of room for niche businesses. One niche is the neko café; neko is the Japanese…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 23, 2012
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new rules, 1,675 Federal Register pages, including new regulations for medical exams for commercial drivers, Chilean pomegranates, and springsnail habitats.
News Release
CEI to Score Senate Vote on NLRB Ambush Election Rule
Washington, D.C., April 23, 2012 – This week, the Senate is expected to vote on S.J. Res 36, the Joint Resolution of Disapproval to…
Reason
Supply-Side Critics Offer Only Trickle-Down Inflation
Economics is not called the dismal science for nothing. Many professional economists go to great lengths to obscure simple truths inconvenient to their political masters.
Reason
Ambulance Chasers Feast on Americans with Disabilities Act Claims
From Point of Law: Hans Bader, senior attorney and counsel for special projects with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, comments on a recent New…
Toledo Blade
Believers, Skeptics Stand Ground on Climate Change
From Dan Hopey's article in The Toledo Blade: Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, which has…
Toledo Blade
Conservative Groups Slam House Cybersecurity Bill
From Brendan Sasso’s article in The Hill: Six leading conservative groups urged Congress to re-work the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)…
Toledo Blade
Ambulance Chasers Feast on Americans with Disabilities Act Claims
From Point of Law: Hans Bader, senior attorney and counsel for special projects with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, comments on…
Toledo Blade
Right to Work
Vincent Vernuccio on Right to Work…
Toledo Blade
Labor Union Sues Indiana, Calls Working Alongside Nonunion Employees ‘Slavery’
From David Martosko’s article in The Daily Caller: Competitive Enterprise Institute labor policy counsel Vincent Vernuccio told the Mackinac Center that “it’s insulting to the…
Toledo Blade
Turning Away From the Dollar
European debt problems have kept financial markets on edge during much of the last two years, but it is the debt problem in the United…
News Release
Free Market Coalition: Amend CISPA to Preserve Freedom, Prevent Gov’t Overreach
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2012 — The House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act…
Letters
Free Market Coalition Letter on CISPA
Full Document Available in PDF As public interest groups dedicated to free enterprise and limited government, we applaud bipartisan congressional efforts to…
Newsletter
Farm Bill Sugar Subsidies, Highway Bill, and the Left-Wing Attack on ALEC
Blog
CEI Weekly: Happy Tax Day!
Blog
An America of Inequalities
Increasingly, ordinary people get prosecuted for trifles, while politically connected people get a pass for the exact same crime, or far worse behavior. A whale-watcher…
Blog
No, Paranoid Progressives, the Koch Brothers Had Nothing to Do With Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” Law
In primitive societies, people blame their misfortunes on witchcraft and other imaginary phenomena. The American Left blames the Koch brothers for everything, with equally little…
Blog
Regulation Roundup
Alpaca tax breaks, IRS seeks power to confiscate tax delinquents' passports, and more.
Blog
Today’s Links: April 20, 2012
Toledo Blade
“Structuring”: Who Can Get Away With It, and Who Can’t
From Overlawyered: P.S. The Supreme Court, in a majority opinion by Justice Ruth Ginsburg [Ratslaf v. U.S., 1994], admirably “interpreted the ‘willfully’ element…
Toledo Blade
Dick Durbin’s Backward Approach to FDA Reform
It is a tragedy when a patient suffers or dies because the drugs that could help him are simply not available. In recent years, the…
Blog
ALEC Unfairly Demonized Over “Stand Your Ground” Laws
The pro-free-market American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is under fire for its support of self-defense laws, known as "Stand Your Ground" laws. It began after…
Blog
The Tax Man Cometh — and Taketh
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 19, 2012: Right to Work Laws and Compelled Speech
Indiana is becoming a right to work state, which means unions will no longer be able to force workers who don't want their representation to…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 19, 2012
Toledo Blade
Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
What is free speech? Is it the right to speak out and give money to causes, politicians and push ideas? Is it the ability to…
Toledo Blade
Sugar Program Isn’t Sweet for Consumers or the Economy
Don’t look now, but here comes the farm bill, one of those catch-all legislative behemoths littered with wasteful programs and supported by entrenched special interests.
Washington Examiner
A Free-Market Solution for Fisheries
When humans first shifted from hunting and gathering to agriculture thousands of years ago, the establishment of private property rights yielded enormous benefits to natural…
Washington Examiner
Keystone and the Troubling Growth of NIMBYism
A constant theme of the 2012 election season has been the national bewilderment over President Obama’s initial decision to veto the Keystone XL oil pipeline,…
Blog
What the Redskins Can Teach Loudoun County
Proponents of Phase II of Dulles Rail often appeal to the notion that having a metro station marks a community as significant. Metro seems to…
Blog
FDR on FDIC
Robert Samuelson’s column (April 8, 2012) discussing President Franklin Roosevelt’s reservations about the longer term implications of Social Security should not be surprising. In…
Blog
How to Fix U.S. Water Policy? Less Government, More Market Pricing
Late last week I received an invitation to testify in the Water and Power Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Natural…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 18, 2012
Washington Examiner
Letter to the Editor: Helping Those With Disabilities Secure Employment
James Bovard rightly criticizes the Obama administration for seeking to force many businesses to adopt hiring quotas for disabled applicants. Such quotas not only raise…
Washington Examiner
Profit Shouldn’t Be an Alien Concept
From The Gulf Coast Business Review: Although Star Trek fans are not alone in thinking it would be fun to take a cruise…