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Commonsense New Debt Collection Rule from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was passed in 1977, over forty years ago, at a time when telecommunication technology was in its infancy…
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For Better Policy, Congress Should Stop Punting to Executive Agencies
Yesterday the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and Article I Initiative hosted a fascinating panel discussion here in Washington, D.C. about the dynamic relationship between…
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Facebook Libra Highlights Flaws of Fed Foray into Real-Time Payments
More than ten years after the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published the source code for Bitcoin, and after hundreds of other cryptocurrencies have been introduced, Facebook…
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Overhaul Internal Operations at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
One of the most important, yet least visible, changes a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director could make is to reform the internal operations of…
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Introducing Antitrust Basics
Often, a drips-and-drabs approach to learning an issue over a period of time is as effective as a single intense cram session. To that end,…
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Regulators Should Foster Financial Innovation
It is becoming increasingly apparent that financial technology, or “fintech,” like other forms of technology, can drastically improve consumers’ lives. Yet one of the most…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, a Canadian team won the NBA championship for the first time, while an American team won the Stanley Cup. This week brings us…
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Electric Vehicle Tax Credits Not Popular with Americans: Poll
A recent survey conducted for the American Energy Alliance clearly shows that the public does not support congressional efforts to extend or expand federal tax credits for purchasers of…
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VIDEO: How to Become a Federal Criminal
Have you ever made an unreasonable gesture to a passing horse in a national park? If so, you are already a federal criminal. For the…
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Democrats’ Criticism of Department of Labor Overtime Rule Misguided
Overtime regulation has been a hot topic since the Obama administration proposed and finalized a rule that radically overhauled such requirements. Before this rule, which…
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This Summer, Celebrate Lemonade Freedom
There is good news for young entrepreneurs coming out of the Lone Star State, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently signed a bill allowing…
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State Officials, Department of Justice Should Green-Light Sprint-T-Mobile Merger
Yesterday’s filing by ten state attorneys general to block the proposed merger of wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint is the latest threat to the innovations…
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Department of Health and Human Services Needs to Correct Record on Marijuana
Regulators at the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had an opportunity in 2016 to move marijuana into a less restrictive category of controlled substances. This…
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Does Capitalism Destroy Culture?
Capitalism’s critics claim that the pursuit of profit can become like a black hole, consuming all of our attention and energy at the expense of culture.
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Acknowledge Its Unconstitutional Structure
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure is unconstitutional. The agency’s leadership should recognize it as such.
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‘Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change’ Exposes Activist Falsehoods
Climate change is not a hoax, but as a political matter, it is a perpetual pretext for expanding government control over the economy, redistributing wealth,…
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Congress Should Authorize Longer Trailers When Reforming National Highway Policy
In 1982, when Congress designated the National Network—the approximately 200,000 miles of truck corridors that crisscross the U.S.—it also set a 28.5-foot minimum limit on tandem…
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Remove Government Barriers to Promote Efficient Highway Investment
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute released my new report, “Transforming Surface Transportation Reauthorization: A 21st Century Approach to Address America’s Greatest Infrastructure Challenge.” In it, I…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While the administration is so far keeping to its one-in, two-out policy for proposed rules, new trade and antitrust policies are likely to increase net…
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Automakers to Trump: Keep Us Captive to California Bureaucrats
Seventeen automakers, including Ford, General Motors, and Toyota Motor North America sent a letter on 6th June to President Donald J. Trump urging him not to challenge California’s…
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Union Gets Nasty over Natural Gas Pipeline Rejection
Friction between the trade unions that build energy infrastructure and the politicians who routinely block these projects has been growing for the last decade—especially as…
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VIDEO: Free Trade for Economic Development in Developing World
The Cato Institute here in Washington, D.C. recently sponsored a discussion of trade and economic development, emphasizing the role that robust trade has in raising…
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EPA Streamlines Infrastructure Approval Process under Clean Water Act
Making good on its promise in Executive Order 13868 to combat the abuse of section 401 of the Clean Water Act by states seeking to block…
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Bjorn Lomborg and John Christy Shred Climate Alarmism
The latest talking point of progressive politicians, pundits, and activists is that America cannot afford not to spend trillions of dollars to “solve the climate…
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National Donut Day: Eat One for Yourself and One for Freedom
The Competitive Enterprise Institute first started its two-donut campaign back in 2010. There were some formidable issues back then, from childhood obesity to international tensions to the…
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Venezuela and Rwanda: A Tale of Two Countries, Different Paths
The 21st century Venezuela is a failure. It failed because it adopted socialism. Paul Larkin, Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, remarked in…
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Corporate ‘Power’ Is Limited and Temporary—Government Power Is the Real Threat
An Axios article today examines for-profit companies taking public positions on controversial political issues, carrying the headline “When companies act like governments.” Reporter Erica Pandey…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Define ‘Abusive’
The Dodd–Frank Act was a mammoth overhaul of financial services regulation. Along with creating an entire new consumer protection agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,…
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SEC’s ‘Regulation Best Interest’ Respects Investor Choice
Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved final rules that comprise “Regulation Best Interest,” which will govern conduct of broker-dealers in their transactions with retail investors. Any…
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VIDEO: Just Say No to a Carbon Tax
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a new video out today featuring Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis which explains why adopting a carbon tax in the United…
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Prevent Another Mortgage Crisis: Let Qualified Mortgage ‘Patch’ Expire
Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its rulemaking agenda for Spring 2019. While there weren’t too many surprises in the agenda, which mainly…
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Regulations Trump Administration Has Eliminated So Far in 2019
The Trump administration promised to roll back red tape. So how goes 2019? The 2019 Spring Unified Agenda of Deregulatory and Regulatory Actions released by the…
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This Month, Take Pride in Abundance and Opportunities of Capitalism
June is Pride Month, when gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other not-straight people celebrate with a variety of events, including activism, parades, and concerts. As…
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Will Antitrust End Trump’s Deregulatory Push?
Revelations that antitrust enforcers have conspired to divide jurisdiction and initiate antitrust investigations into Google and Apple (the U.S. Department of Justice) and Amazon and…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump threatened a new tariff on all Mexican goods, potentially scuttling the NAFTA/USMCA agreement. My colleague Wayne Crews went through the new Spring 2019…
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Study Confirms China Cheating on United Nations Environmental Agreement
A study published in the journal Nature provides further confirmation of illegal production of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) from China.
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California Leads Nation in Gas Prices, Climate Policies a Growing Contributor
The large gasoline price disparity between California and the rest of the country has jumped to nearly $1.20 per gallon. High fuel taxes and stringent clean…
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Addressing the Gender Pay Gap: Culture, Not Legislation
Gender discrimination is a complex problem with a complex solution.
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VIDEO: Ending Police Harassment of Small Business in India
Our friends at the Atlas Network have an excellent new video out about legal reform in India that is helping small businesspeople stand up to…
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Markets, Not Mandates, Best Way to Manage Trash Disposal
Governments around the world often mandate recycling when there’s no market for the materials collected. Oftentimes, markets don’t exist simply because recycling certain materials requires…
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Don’t Let Credit Scoring Kerfuffle Compromise GSE Reform
Just when it seemed that reforming the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was becoming a “third rail” that politicians did not want…
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Trump Threatens up to 25 Percent Tariff on Mexican Goods, Jeopardizes NAFTA/USMCA
Things have been moving quickly on President Trump’s top legislative priority, the NAFTA/USMCA trade agreement. The key was rescinding steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada…
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Corporate Virtue in Eye of Beholder
The main impression I’ve gotten from much recent reporting on the ethical behavior and social responsibility of business is that its value depends greatly on…
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Trump EPA Crosses Important Threshold on Science Policy Reform; Greens Get Political
News coverage would make most people think that Trump administration officials are doing everything possible to undermine environmental protection and human health. One article even…
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Should Drop Flawed Enforcement Actions
While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s role in enforcing consumer protection laws is important, there are times when it oversteps the mark and brings frivolous…
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Liberate Local TV Programming from Price Controls
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing on the state of the media marketplace on June 5 and the debate around reauthorizing The…
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Narrowly Address Fair Lending Requirements to Spare Impact on Small Business
Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to require financial institutions to collect, report, and make public certain information concerning…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last Tuesday, and President Trump and Congress entered Memorial Day weekend at odds on issues…
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Climate Issues Decide Australian Election
Australian voters stunned the pollsters and the experts in the general election on May 18th by returning the ruling coalition of conservative parties to office. Votes are…
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ConEd Expanding Existing Pipeline Capacity Amid Ban on New Construction
We have previously reported on Consolidated Edison’s recent restrictions on new natural gas hookups in the greater New York metropolitan area as a consequence of…
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VIDEO: What Is the ‘Social Responsibility’ of Business?
Recently I was in the audience for an interesting panel discussion, hosted by the Federalist Society, on corporate social responsibility. Should corporate managers only work…
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Federal Railroad Administration Withdraws Proposed ‘Featherbedding’ Train Crew Rule
Today, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released a draft notice indicating that it will be withdrawing a 2016 proposed rule that would have required trains…
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Regulatory Costs of Anti-Property Approaches to Environmental Concerns
Environmental regulations transfer substantial wealth and can be subject to the same political failure and regulatory pork-barreling that characterize economic regulation—perhaps more so, given the…
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Reform Fair Lending Laws to Uphold Rule of Law
The CFPB’s new director, Kathleen Kraninger, assured the Senate Banking Committee in her confirmation hearing that she was committed to upholding the rule of law.
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Chain Stores Are Part of Civil Society Too
I recently reviewed the book “Alienated America” by Washington Examiner editor Timothy Carney, and I’d like to return to one of the observations he made…
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Costs of Loss of Anonymity in Administrative Surveillance State
The ability of citizens to communicate privately and to retain anonymity if desired are foundational rights slipping away in the regulatory panopticon of the administrative…
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Tariffs Slow Investment, Threaten Retail Industry
Large U.S. companies slowed their investment in the first quarter of 2019, largely because of ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. This is…
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Regulators Should Rescind ‘Small-Dollar’ Loan Rule
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most controversial regulators in Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 2010 under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street…
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Regulatory Costs of Blurring Corporate and Government Roles
In keeping with the tradition of ignoring political failure in service of the administrative state, the economic and social effects of GSEs, or government-sponsored enterprises,…
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Focus Ride-Hailing Policy on Consumer Benefits, Not Protecting Competitors
As we pointed out last year when New York City attacked Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing firms by imposing an interim supply cap, politicians fighting…
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Federal Communications Commission Wisely Steps out of Way of Sprint/T-Mobile Merger
Today the Federal Communications Commission signaled it will likely vote to approve the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile.
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Costs of Antitrust Regulation and Institutionalization of Raising Competitors’ Costs
Antitrust policy is corporate welfare, a prominent illustration of how regulation, not just spending, enables and encourages transfers of wealth by force.
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REVIEW: ‘Honorable Business’ by Prof. James Otteson
I wrote up some initial impressions about the new book on business ethics, “Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society,”…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Game of Thrones finale aired last night, though the show’s less-plausible Washington spinoff appears set to continue indefinitely, and with a rather larger budget.
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CEI Petitions EPA to Correct 2009 Endangerment Finding
The Competitive Enterprise Institute on May 13th filed a request for correction under the Information Quality Act (IQA) that asks the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using or…
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Another Day, Another Blocked Pipeline into New York
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on May 15th rejected a natural gas pipeline that would have brought supplies into the state via New York…
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Trump Mostly Removes Steel, Aluminum Tariffs against Mexico, Canada: Barriers Still Higher than in 2017
The Trump administration is mostly lifting its steel aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, effective 48 hours from today’s announcement. But metal tariffs will remain higher…
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VIDEO: Cheers to Food Truck Freedom
Congratulations to mobile food vendors Benny Diaz and Brian Peffer—and their attorneys at the Institute for Justice—for scoring a victory for freedom of food commerce…
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Credit Card Interest Cap Would Create Consumer Credit Bread Lines
Last Thursday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) teamed up to introduce a bill that only two democratic socialists could have dreamed up.
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Alice Rivlin, 1931-2019
Some economists do more than teach classes and write books. Alice Rivlin, who passed away this week, was proof. She was the first director of…
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New York Times Runs Stealth Anti-Vaping Ad as Op-ed
Readers of The New York Times deserve better than advertising masquerading as righteous opinion writing. While reporters at Times get credit for exploring and exposing…
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Good and Bad of Government’s Debt Collection Proposal
Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a much-anticipated proposal to revamp the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), a forty-two year old…
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White House Uses Discredited Complaints Tactic against Social Media Companies
My colleague Wayne Crews has already slammed the White House for a first step towards government regulation of online speech in its “tech bias” complaints…
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Boeing Pushes 100 Percent Tariffs on Airbus
Boeing, fresh off a victory in restoring the Export-Import Bank’s full lending authority, is floating the idea of a 100 percent tariff on Airbus aircraft…
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Regulators Find Uber Drivers to Be Independent Contractors
Determining the proper legal worker classification for an individual has become an arduous task. A major reason for the difficulty is a patchwork of federal…
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Australian Government Tempts Mortgage Crisis
It seems that Australia’s political parties are suffering from collective amnesia. After spending the earlier half of the year criticizing banks for abrogating their responsible…
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Can Trump Save Your Air Conditioner from the Deep State?
It happens every spring—on the first hot day, homeowners switch on their air conditioners that have sat idle since September, cross their fingers, and pray…
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Trade War State of Play: China, USMCA
If President Trump’s trade war has a single takeaway, it is this: Raising tariffs is an ineffective bargaining strategy. When the U.S. raises its tariffs,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for breaking up the company; CEI’s Iain Murray and Kent Lassman explain why that’s a bad idea. CEI also released…
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‘Forefront of Opportunity and Abundance’—Sec. Pompeo’s Remarks to Arctic Council
On May 7th in Finland, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participated in the eleventh Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council. The meeting “ended without…
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VIDEO: Report Card on Regulatory Reform
Earlier this week I had the good fortune to spend some time at the historic Mayflower hotel here in Washington, D.C. attending the Federalist Society’s 7th…
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Bloomberg Reporter Justin Bachman Gets Duped by TripAdvisor Front Group
I wrote back in November 2018 of the false, scurrilous, ad hominem attacks on Competitive Enterprise Institute Adjunct Fellow Fran Smith’s appointment as consumer representative…
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Breaking up and Regulating Facebook: Unfair, Un-American, Unacceptable
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, former publisher of The New Republic, argues in a long essay for The New York Times that the company should be…
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Hearing Discusses Boosting Union Coercive Powers
Democrats in Congress are pushing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act H.R. 2474, which seeks to strip workers of long-held protections and bolster…
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Pop Federal Trade Commission’s Dangerous Facebook Trial Balloon
Facebook is reportedly negotiating a settlement with a powerful regulatory agency that would impose a new corporate structure, increase liability for one or more executives,…
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CEI Leads Free-Market Coalition to Dispel Passenger Facility Charge Myths
Today, CEI and seven other free-market organizations sent a letter to members of Congress aimed at dispelling myths circulating about the airport passenger facility charge…
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Re-Prioritizing Regulatory Reform
The 2019 edition of Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State is out now.
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Don’t Let Facebook Team up with Big Government to Censor the Web
Facebook’s expulsion of several controversial figures from its platform last week is an example of a company managing its own private property to what it…
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Trump Administration Ends Homecare Providers Dues Skim
Since 2000, state governments have diverted $1.4 billion from homecare providers and handed it to labor unions, according to the Freedom Foundation. For over a…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Not one, but two potential Federal Reserve Board nominees withdrew from consideration last week, and economic growth and unemployment remained in excellent health. Meanwhile, with…
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Trump Threatens New China Tariff with May 10th Deadline
On Sunday, President Trump announced via Twitter that if he does not approve of the results of this week’s U.S.-China trade talks, he will enact…
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Extinction Rebellion Heats Up UK Climate Ambition (or Rhetoric)
Spurred by David Attenborough’s global warming documentary, Extinction Rebellion protests, and homilies by teen activist Greta Thunberg, the United Kingdom became the first nation on Earth to…
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Congressional Democratic Leaders Meet with President on Infrastructure Bill
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other congressional Democrats met with President Trump on April 30 to discuss an infrastructure package.
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House Passes Bill to Keep U.S. in Paris Climate Treaty
The House of Representatives on May 2 passed a bill that would prevent President Donald Trump from withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate treaty. Eighteen…
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Ex-Im Bank Revival?
Next week the Senate is expected to vote on new board members for the Export-Import Bank, which gives favorable financing terms to foreign governments and…
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House Democrats Introduce Union Gift Bag Bill
The Protecting Workers’ Right to Organize (PRO) Act puts the interests of labor unions over workers. Each provision of the bill either grants unions greater…
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The Economic Illiteracy of a 36 Percent Interest Rate Cap
Earlier this week, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on a draft bill that proposes to set a national 36 percent annual percentage…
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Republican Study Committee Releases 2020 Budget Proposal
Congress is supposed to pass an annual spending budget, though it rarely gets around to it. Instead, the government is usually funded through a mashup…
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Costs of Unequal Treatment of Citizens by Abandoning Negative Rights for a Positive Rights Framework
To many classical liberals (or libertarians), it is primarily the individual’s right of self-defense that is delegated to a government. We cannot unilaterally commence the…
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CEI Leads Coalition Urging Surface Transportation Board to Withdraw Proposed Switching Rule
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) led a coalition of 20 other free market organizations urging the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to withdraw a harmful…