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Volunteering Violation Vignettes
Did you know it is against the law to volunteer for a for-profit business? The issue has surfaced in a trio of varied settings recently.
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Joint Employer Action Anxiously Anticipated
On July 29, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of the General Counsel set the labor and employment world on fire by authorized complaints…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
In the final week before the midterm election, agencies published new regulations ranging from dairy profits to Japanese oranges. Fittingly, the total number of new…
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ObamaCare Failing to Make Insurance Affordable for Many Americans
The two most important Courts in the land are about to dive into the language and purpose of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the “Obamacare”…
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What Will the SpaceShipTwo Crash Mean for Commercial Space Flight Regulation?
The crash of a test flight of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, which cost the life of one, riveted many around the globe on Friday afternoon.
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Scott Walker Calls Union-Backed Lawsuit a Political Stunt
Big Labor just can’t get its way in Wisconsin.
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NLRB Considers Union Request to Make Removing Unwanted Union More Difficult
It is already an arduous process for employees to remove an unwanted union from their workplace. And now the International Association of Machinists is requesting…
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Soda Makes You Old and Other “Data Mined” Myths
“‘If you torture your data long enough, they will tell you whatever you want to hear.’ Dr. James Mills noted in a 1993 New England Journal…
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How Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Has Grown since President Clinton
In recent five-part series called The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, I took a look at hours of paperwork for various departments and…
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New Jersey’s Driverless Car Bill: One Step Forward, Three Steps Back
Yesterday, the New Jersey Senate Transportation Committee in a unanimous vote reported S734, a bill that would recognize the legality of autonomous vehicle testing…
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Minimum Wages Have Tradeoffs
Minimum wages help some workers, which is why they are so popular. But they aren’t a free lunch. There are tradeoffs. They aren’t always easy…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was business as usual, with new rules hitting the books on everything from political speech restrictions to butterflies to football broadcasts. On to the…
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Sen. Coburn’s Wastebook Highlights Mismanagement of Federal Employees
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released on October 22, 2014, his annual Wastebook that exposes how the federal government fritters away your tax dollars.
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 5: Executive Agency Regulatory Costs
In Parts 1 through 4 of The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup we compiled a basic picture of federal paperwork costs with respect to…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 4: Independent Agency Paperwork Costs
A recent post here at OpenMarket noted the Annual Costs of Independent Agency Rulemakings and presented an annual cost placeholder of $6.14 billion annually stemming from compliance with…
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Education Department Harassment Rules Metastasize through Administrative Fiat
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), where I used to work, today declared that schools can be liable for bullying (or anything else)…
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The Great Unknown – Federal Independent Agencies’ Regulatory Costs
Let’s be independent together! —Herbie the Dentist Elf to Rudolph in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Independent agencies are not subject to Office of Management and Budget…
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Union Lobbyists Collecting Illinois Public Pensions Is Illegal Gift
Recent reports uncover that Illinois taxpayers are funding union agents' pensions.
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Green Exploitation of the Monarch Butterfly
Butterflies offer powerful imagery for environmental groups looking to advance their agendas. After all, who doesn’t want to save these beautiful creatures? Surely green activists…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The federal government took Monday off for Columbus Day, but still managed to pack more than 50 new regulations into a short week. On to…
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Misguided Regulations Threaten Automated Vehicle Innovation
Earlier this week, I appeared on a Cato Institute panel titled, "The End of Transit and the Beginning of the New Mobility: Policy Implications…
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The Tesla File: Government Favors Cut Both Ways
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors has become a fascinating case study in economic freedom in recent years, although the narrative is a complicated one. The…
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Update: Where in the World is Jonathan Gruber?
Today the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell filed the last brief regarding the cert petition now before the Supreme Court. It effectively rebuts each of…
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Farewell to Our Friend, Leonard Liggio
We are saddened to hear our friend Leonard Liggio passed away this morning. Today, the liberty movement has lost an intellectual champion. The Competitive Enterprise…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Even with a mid-term election coming up next month, agencies are cranking out a dozen or so new regulations every workday. The federal government also…
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Cy Pres You’ll Read This
Learn about the state of cy pres law without having to pay for a CLE class! Today, Washington Legal Foundation published a short and useful…
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Unions’ Extensive Influence over Politics Highlights Need for Reform
As the midterm elections approach, it’s interesting to keep tabs on the biggest spenders and the heaviest-hitting activists.
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BPA Research Funding Linked to Researcher Bias?
The number of studies that have appeared in the news during recent years on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is staggering. Few substances undergo such scrutiny.
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A Pen and Phone Strategy to Shrink Government
President Obama is right that Congress doesn’t do much. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. But the pen and phone strategy Obama proposed…
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The Economist: Interchange Fee Caps Benefit Large Retailers at Consumer Expense
Surprise! Price controls lead to unintended consequences—including transfers of wealth to parties who lobbied for those controls. That’s the actual – and unsurprising – result…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 2: Billions of Dollars and 13,000 Lifetimes Annually
Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and…
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Where in the World is Jonathan Gruber?
The Obamacare insurance exchange rule is being challenged in four cases, and each one of them has been active over the last two weeks. The IRS…
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Super PAC Attacks Kochs on Civil Rights, Endorses “Urban Renewal” Policies that Harmed Minorities
Last week, Alternet posted yet another bogus smear on the libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. It has since been reposted by Salon.com. The…
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New Employment Data May Give Clues to Why Recovery Is Stuck in First Gear
The good news for workers is that the labor market is growing and the economy shows signs of improvement. The unemployment rate is down to…
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See Me at San Francisco Crowdfund Banking and Lending Summit
My colleague Wayne Crews’ Forbes column Monday explained “How Entrepreneurs Can Speak Out About the Cost of Regulation,” but noted sadly that “businesses that never form…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 1: Big Bucks for Pencil Pushers
The more restrictions and prohibitions are in the Empire, the poorer grow the people. —Lao-Tzu When it comes to red tape and federal paperwork,…
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CEI Awards Pro-Worker Senators
Senators with 100% Labor & Employment Scorecard Ratings Honored at Hill Event…
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CalPERS: It Came from Sacramento
“Heads I win; tails you lose.” That essentially sums up the relationship the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) has long enjoyed vis-à-vis the Golden…
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How Will the Future View the “Temples” of Eco-Theocrats?
While vacationing in Germany recently, I noted many beautiful and now largely untenanted churches. Elegant, majestic against the sky, they are potent symbols of a…
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Results of “Cash for Appliances”
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (commonly called "the stimulus"), a $300 million program to subsidize consumer purchases of energy-efficient appliances called…
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Oral Argument in Pearson v. NBTY, Inc.
Are you trick-and/or-treating in downtown Chicago this Halloween? If so, visit the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to watch oral argument…
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Federal Government Granted $157 Million Subsidy to Government Unions in FY 2012
When someone is paid to perform services, it should not be considered volunteer work.
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Must Every Product in the World Be Safe Enough for Children?
The New York Times reported Friday on the David-and-Goliath battle of businessman Shihan Qu, the last of the rare earth magnet renegades. Mr. Qu’s…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Federal Register topped the 60,000-page mark on Friday, and is on pace for the 6th-highest page count in its 79-year history. Along the way,…
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Journalists Called Out for Bad Reporting on Consumption Data
Being a journalist is not an easy job; it demands fast paced and high volume production. For those “wonk” journalists tasked with analyzing data-heavy reports…
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Opening Brief in Gascho v. Global Fitness Holdings
Candy corn, pumpkin pie, egg nog . . . no wonder that three months from now we’ll all be joining gyms. So let’s inaugurate the…
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Is Driving to Work in Decline?
Over at The Washington Post's Wonkblog, urban affairs reporter Emily Badger has a post up on the recently released U.S. Census Bureau American Community…
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Moody’s $2 Trillion Public Pension Shortfall Estimate Highlights Need for Better Pension Accounting Practices
In a new report, Moody’s estimates the nation’s largest pension funds face a $2 trillion taken together. That’s a lot of money. But as significant…
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Cyanide, Tylenol and How Free Markets Make You Safer
Today is the anniversary of one of the most significant food and drug related events in recent memory. Often discussed in college business classes these…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A busy week ended with a flourish, with Friday’s Federal Register alone containing 28 final regulations and 542 pages.