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Reforming Air Traffic Control Is Key to the Future Health of American Aviation
When we travel by air, the hassles of getting through airport security and delayed flights tend to weigh most on our minds. Few of us…
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U.S. Supreme Court Justices Seem Skeptical of Obama’s NLRB Recess Appointments
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. Their ruling will determine whether the president may…
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Congressional Research Service Misinterprets Monetary History
Last month, the Congressional Research Service released a report on Bitcoin analyzing the structure of the network and its implications, if any, on monetary policy. The…
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Obama Administration Undermines School Safety, Pressures Schools to Adopt Racial Quotas in Student Discipline
Crime rates are not the same across different racial categories, and student misconduct rates aren't, either. The Supreme Court ruled…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
38 new regulations, from job descriptions to Cape Sable thoroughworts.
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Is FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for or against Net Neutrality? Yes
In what the Washington Post referred to as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler's strongest endorsement yet of net neutrality, he said: Public policy…
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CEI Podcast for January 9, 2013: Reining in Sue and Settle with the REDO Act
A bill called the REDO Act, which comes up for a House vote today, would limit a practice called sue and settle. Sue and settle…
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Unemployment Insurance: Congressional Scorecard Update
On January 7, the Senate voted to end debate on the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act S. 1845, sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed (RI-D), which…
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Loss of Economic Freedom Takes a Toll on Small Businesses
The 2014 edition of the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom is set for release next week, and for America, the news…
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Fate of Homecare Providers Rests in the hands of U.S. Supreme Court
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments for Harris v. Quinn. A case that will determine whether a state can force…
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With Declining Membership, Wisconsin Teachers Unions Consider Merger
The the corporate world, mergers are generally considered a sign of confidence, as companies seek to expand their operations. Within organized labor, by contrast, they're…
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Virginia Bill HB 933 Would Increase Excessive Child-Support Obligations by Ignoring Economic Realities
A bill introduced today in Virginia's House of Delegates would increase the state's child-support schedule. The bill, HB 933, would further increase child-support obligations…
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An Ode to I, Pencil, Part 2: I, Computer Mouse — Matt Ridley and Leonard Read Sing the Same Tune
In a speech at a 2012 Google Zeitgeist event, British journalist Matt Ridley gave an evocative illustration of the power of connectivity, reminiscent of…
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Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act, Part 3: Paycheck Protection
In the first installment of “Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act,” the topic was secret-ballot elections and how a private vote in a union…
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CEI’s 2014 Unconstitutionality Index: 56 Regulations for Every Law
Every now and then one sees a cute article like this Los Angeles Times piece lamenting that Congress is "ineffective" because…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
66 new regulations, from school lunches to furnace fans.
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Extending benefits would do more harm
Unemployment insurance extensions in the past five years have kept at least 600,000 people out of the labor force, because people tend to ride a…
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Bogus Rationale for Obamacare Still Being Peddled Even after Study Debunked It
"More bad news for Obamacare and its proponents. A new study from Oregon shows that" expanded Medicaid coverage “increased–rather than decreased–both the number of folks…
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CEI Podcast for January 2, 2014: Rethinking Unemployment Insurance
With unemployment still painfully high more than five years after the financial crisis, Senior Fellow in Labor Policy Aloysius Hogan thinks that re-extending unemployment insurance…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 5: When Regulation Tramples Health and Safety
Act surprised...Show concern...Deny...Deny...Deny. —Anonymous What if anybody in power ever actually paid attention to the body count of federal regulation? We just finished another year…
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Two Cheers for Tapered Quantitative Easing
Over at the Washington Times, I encourage the Fed to taper back the rest of the QE program, and point out that the Fed may…
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The Great Italian Auto Bailout — Courtesy of U.S. Taxpayers
At the beginning of 2014, Detroit may be bankrupt, but they're cheering the five-year-old U.S. auto bailout in Italy. That's because after being the beneficiary…
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2013 Ends with an 80,330-Page Federal Register and 3,659 Final Rules and Regulations
The Federal Register wrapped up 2013 with a third-highest count ever, of 80,330 pages. (The published version contains 80,462 pages but I net out blank…
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No, Legislative Fixes to Obamacare Weren’t Blocked by the GOP
As Obamacare's implementation went badly enough that it was mocked by comedians on late-night TV, a search for excuses began. The result was the now…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
74 new regulations, from non-toxic ammunition to shrimp electronic logbooks.
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A New Year of Regulation: Obama’s Record-Setting Federal Register
[caption id="attachment_72593" align="alignleft" width="168"] Duly Enacted Laws vs. Unaccountable Regulation. The Federal Register runs wild. The federal government spends heavily; it also regulates heavily.[/caption] The Federal…
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CEI Podcast for December 26, 2013: The Year in Review
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Target Breach — Are Dodd-Frank “Swipe Fee” Price Controls to Blame?
Target wants you to know it is oh-so-sorry for any inconvenience its data SNAFU (as OpenMarket is a family blog, please look up the…
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Union Spending against Right-to-Work Efforts
According to an Associated Press report, several states are eyeing labor law reforms to end the practice of forcing employees to pay union dues as…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
71 new regulations, from charitable donations to video programming for the blind.
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Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act, Part 2: Union Recertification
In Part 1 of "Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act," the focus was on the ERA provision that mandates secret-ballot elections and how a…
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Volcker Rule Overshoots Wall Street to Hit Utah
You might think after the disastrous debut of HealthCare.gov and thousands of insurance cancellations, those who call themselves progressives might just have a little humility…
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BLS Data: Government Workers Miss Work 50 Percent More than Private Sector Workers
A blog post at buyhappiness.net cites recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data and reports that in 2012…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 4: The Costs of Poor Regulatory Sausage Making
In the first installment of “Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs,” the focus was the loss of liberty in…
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CEI Podcast for December 18, 2013: The FDA Goes after 23andMe
The Food and Drug Administration recently banned 23andMe, a genetic testing service, from marketing its product to consumers. CEI Executive Director and Senior Fellow Gregory…
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Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act, Part 1: Secret Ballot Elections
In November, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Tom Price (R-Ga.) introduced the Employee Rights Act, a bill that strengthens federal labor law to protect…
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IRS Threatens to Curb Criticism of IRS and Bureaucratic Wrongdoing by 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Groups
The IRS recently proposed rules “limiting political speech" by nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups. In Orwellian fashion, the proposed rules seek to redefine non-partisan, non-election-related criticism of government abuses as…
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NLRB General Counsel: Guidance on Micro-Unions is Coming
Last Friday, at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Manhattan, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel Richard Griffin said the Board…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
56 new regulations, from toddler beds to eagle permits.
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BPA Junk Science Headaches
Could your affection for bottled water be responsible for your bout with migraines? Apparently so, if you believe the latest headlines about the chemical…
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Minimum Wage Increases Harm the Young, Unskilled, and Less Educated
Minimum wage increases eliminate some jobs. Real world examples abound. As a business owner explains: The minimum wage kills jobs. End of story. I am…
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CEI Podcast for December 12, 2013: The Affordable Care Act’s Marriage Penalties
The Affordable Care Act's subsides and tax credits are structured in such a way as to cause thousands of dollars worth of penalties for many…
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GOVERNMENT UNIONS BROKE – AND NOW MUST FIX – DETROIT
Government unions broke Detroit. And unions – over their most stringent objections – are going to play a significant part in fixing it.
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The Volcker Winter Storm — Bad Rule, Worse Implementation
On a snowy day in Washington, several federal agencies packed some mean regulatory snowballs that will most likely overshoot their supposed destination of Wall Street…
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Volcker Rule Curbs Useful, Profitable Proprietary Trading, Not Risky Lending
The government just approved a regulation called the Volcker Rule to curb proprietary trading by banks -- even though such trading did not cause the financial crisis,…
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Driving the Market out of the Marketplace of Ideas
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NLRB Ambush Elections Coming Soon
Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board's savvy legal maneuver takes the labor agency one step closer to finalizing its ambush election regulation.
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Busybodies in Congress Prepared to Re-Prohibit Voice Communications During Flight
After two decades with a ban on the books, the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider allowing transmitting mobile devices on aircraft. On…
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Sugar — Congress’ Favorite Sweetener
The sugar lobby’s sweet contributions and their day-in-day-out lobbying means broad bipartisan support for continuing the U.S. sugar program in the 2013 farm bill, as…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
95 new regulations, from mad cow disease to falconry federalism.