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Crowdfunding Rules: Four Years Late and Millions Short
Today, Monday, May 16, more than four years and one month after Congress passed and President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Federal Register broke the 30,000-page barrier last week, with new regulations covering everything from baked beans to e-cigarettes. On to the data: Last week, 58 new…
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Senator Vitter Introduces Bill To Enforce Law and Stop Funding of UNFCCC and Green Climate Fund
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EPA Finalizes Methane Rule for New Gas and Oil Production
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Virginia Court Releases RICO 20 Documents from George Mason University
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Obama Administration Decree Usurps Control over Locker Rooms and Bathrooms
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Unpopular Online Gambling Ban Sneaked Into Spending Bill
For more than two years a cadre of congressmen have worked, without any luck, to enact a bill that would create a de facto national…
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Air Traffic Control in Urgent Need of Reform… If Only Critics Could See That
CEI has for years called for air traffic control reforms now being considered in the House. It is critical for the future health of the…
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Small Businesses and Nonprofits Ill-Equipped to Handle DOL’s Overtime Rule
The Department of Labor's overtime rule may be published as early as next week. The rule's "one-size-fits-all" nature is set to harm small businesses the…
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Thomas Piketty’s False Argument for Expanding the Government
Left-wing economist Thomas Piketty is treated like a “rock star” by many progressives for giving a veneer of legitimacy to the economic myths they…
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Regulatory Cost Blowout: Burden Is Triple the Deficit, Greater than Personal and Corporate Income Taxes Combined
The last time the federal government balanced the budget was between 1998 and 2001. But those were days when a $2 trillion federal budget…
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Facebook’s Alleged “Curation” of Conservative News Isn’t the Government’s Business
Facebook is under fire for allegedly manipulating its “Trending Topics” section to reduce the visibility of conservative topics and stories about the social media platform,…
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CEI’s Marc Scribner Discusses TSA Lawsuit on Cato Daily Podcast
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner, one of the petitioners in CEI’s lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration’s final rule on airport body scanners, joined Cato’s…
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Conservatives for Big Government: Air Traffic Control Reform Opponents Have Lost Their Minds or Principles
UPDATE: Diana Furchtgott-Roth has responded. I offer my reply. Right now in Congress, there is a proposal to end a government monopoly, replace…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Dodd-Frank Star Chamber & Fighting Forced Unionism
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Seattle Regulators Go After Rideshare Driver Privacy
Today, I have a column up at FEE.org on the need for classical liberals to make financial privacy as important an aspect of their…
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Ten Thousand Commandments
The brand new 2016 edition of Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr.’s Ten Thousand Commandments report is out now. You can read it here. If you…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
After a slow start, 2016 is back to a normal regulatory pace. The Federal Register is on a nearly 80,000-page pace, and the number of new rules…
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FDA’s Attack on E-Cigarette Will Cost Lives
While the public health goals of protecting consumers from possibly harmful vaping products and preventing kids from becoming addicted to nicotine are laudable goals, this…
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FCC’s Cable Box Mandate: Costly, Illegal, and Unnecessary
Regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) want to dictate how cable and satellite television providers design their so-called “set-top boxes”—a fancy term for…
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The Barack Obama Regulatory State Towers over that of Bush
A glance at the overall count of rules and regulations leads one to suppose regulatory burdens are decreasing. After all, since Obama took office the…
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George Mason University Should Obey Court, Release Public RICO-20 Records
Today, the Virginia Circuit Court in Richmond issued a ruling in our case under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA), Christopher Horner and…
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NYT’s Sensationally Incorrect Headline and Other Climate Notes
The silliest news items are those that belie their headlines, as is the case with a sensational front-page story in today’s New York Times, titled…
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Companies May Scrutinize Employee Activity More under DOL’s Proposed Overtime Rule
The battle over the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule is heating up. A number of business groups, labor unions, and progressive organizations have met…
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Burning Ivory Is Not the Solution
A few days ago, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to giant pile after giant pile of elephant ivory confiscated from poachers. Some 105…
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Reason’s Bob Poole Sets Record Straight on Air Traffic Control Reform
Reason Foundation Director of Transportation Policy Bob Poole has an excellent article in National Review debunking the myths peddled by a handful of conservatives on the House’s AIRR Act…
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Congress Needs to Halt DOL Regulatory Onslaught
Last week, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) called out recent Department of Labor policies as having a “chilling effect” on the economy. Ryan’s statements were…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Criminal Justice Reform
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EPA Tries to Cover Its Tracks in Texas by Sending 17 Years of History Down the Memory Hole
Background: The Regional Haze rule is a Clean Air Act regulation whose purpose is to improve the view at National Parks. Because it is…
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CEI Sues over TSA’s Body Scanners
Today, CEI, The Rutherford Institute, CEI Vice President Iain Murray, and yours truly filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. Court…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the Federal Register passed the 25,000-page mark, new rules for the week ranged from fluorescent lamps to disaffected youth. On to the data: Last week, 65…
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State Department Tells 28 Senators To Go Pound Sand
The U. S. State Department replied this week to the 18th April letter to Secretary John Kerry from 28 Senators that pointed out that Palestine…
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Power Plant Rule: EPA Defies Stay to Develop Legally Dubious Incentive Program
The EPA yesterday took another step to advance the Obama administration’s flagship domestic climate policy, the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). As Politico…
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Why Is Employee Involvement an Unfair Labor Practice?
U.S. labor law is largely based on the false narrative of an inequality of bargaining power between employees and employers. The theory goes that an…
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CEI Supports Vote to Block Labor Department’s Fiduciary Rule
Today, Congress has the opportunity to block the costly "Fiduciary Rule."…
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CEI Challenges Illegal “Vapes on a Plane” Regulation
Today, CEI, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), and CEI employee Gordon Cummings, as a private individual, filed a lawsuit challenging the…
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Congress Must Pass Email Privacy Act
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) sponsored by Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.). The Competitive Enterprise…
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Wind Energy Industry Suffers Fuel Shortage in 2015
Wind energy can’t compete. Instead, it exists only by the grace of favorable politics. On the supply side, the industry enjoys the federal production tax…
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FSOC Misunderstands Leverage, Threatens Risk Management
The Financial Stability Oversight Council recently released its “Update on Review of Asset Management Products and Activities,” in which it questions “how certain asset…
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The Proliferation of Federal Agency Guidance Documents
Recently we looked at some prominent recent examples of federal agency guidance—costly to-dos for the private sector. Today I wanted to say just a…
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The Chilling Effect of Dark Matter
Here at CEI, we know all about the chilling effect of executive power. We also know quite a bit about the extent to which…
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Bureaucratic Double Jeopardy: Feds Order University of New Mexico to Restrict “Unwelcome” Speech
Even if you convince one bureaucratic agency to leave you alone, another may come along and harass you. The possibilities are endless in an age…
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When Bureaus Attack: Recent Examples of Federal Regulation by “Guidance Document”
In the recent paper “Why Congress Must End Regulation by Guidance Document,” I described the rise of federal agency regulatory dark matter and…
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RealClear Radio Hour: State Budget Maven & Climate Show Trials
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A Diverse Collection of Stakeholders Oppose the DOL’s Overtime Rule, Really
The Huffington Post recently ran a piece entitled, “Who Opposes Overtime Pay Increase, Really?” The author, Harlan Green, publisher at PopularEconomics.com, says, “That’s a…
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TSCA “Reform”: Consensus May Again Prove Toxic
According to a story in Bloomberg BNA, a final vote on legislation to reform the nation’s chemical law—the Toxic Substances Control Act—may be imminent. The…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new final regulations in 2016 passed the 1,000 mark on Friday. Last week’s new rules cover everything from semipostal stamps to vapor…
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175 Countries Sign Paris Climate Treaty at UN Headquarters on International Mother Earth Day
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Give Job Seekers a Break: Get Government Out of the Licensing Business
Public policy easing union organizing is not an economic cure-all, and really wouldn’t help at all—no matter how many times union-backed politicians say so (see…
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Labor Department’s “Persuader Rule” Gives Unfair Advantage to Unions
The Department of Labor’s “persuader rule,” which is set to go into effect on Monday, April 25, will give unions a new tool to…
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Easing Union Organizing Won’t Fix the Economy
Most progressive policy makers view labor unions as the panacea that would address the problem of stagnate wages and disappearing middle class. A proposal to…
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The Senate Must Confront the President on the Paris Climate Treaty
On Friday April 22, Earth Day, the White House will purport to commit the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. The Obama administration claims…
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Free Market Road Show: The Sharing Economy
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CEI to AG Walker: Withdraw Un-American, Unlawful Subpoena or Expect a Fight
Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute responded to U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, who recently sent us a subpoena demanding we turn over…
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The Devil, the Details, and “Consensus” for “TSCA Modernization”
For some reason, there’s always near “consensus” when Congress passes environmental laws that later become controversial (for data, see my study from 2008 on…
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The Treaty Not to Be Called a Treaty
The recent Paris Climate Agreement is clearly a treaty, but like the fable of the emperor’s new clothes, few people are willing to incur…
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Employment Lawsuits for Thee, But Not for Me
The New York Times loves legislation that restricts employment-at-will, and it loves to increase penalties for employers who don’t hire and promote in…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Obamacare & Massachusetts Tax Revolt
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Federal Agency “Guidance Document” Disclosure Gaps Show Congress Is in the Dark on Regulatory Overreach
In “A Quick and Dirty Inventory of Federal Agencies' Significant Guidance Documents,” I provided, well, a quick and dirty table depicting “significant” (usually, not always,…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As the number of new regulations in 2016 threatens the 1,000 mark, new rules cover everything from rural broadband to flatfish. On to the data:…
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Oregon Court Declines To Dismiss Children’s Crusade Climate Lawsuit
Late last week, Judge Thomas Coffin, U.S. Magistrate for the District of Oregon, rejected motions by industry groups to dismiss a lawsuit by a group of…
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Business Leaders Mount the Barricades
This has been a good week for capitalist backbone. As Kim Strassel discusses in the Wall Street Journal today, we’ve seen two high profile…
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California Court’s Indefensible Defense of Dysfunctional Education Policies
A California appeals court yesterday restored a series of education policies that harm students by making ineffective teachers extremely difficult to fire. The court…
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The Truth about the Trade Deficit
This election cycle the issue of the trade deficit has been a topic of great debate, with front-running candidates suggesting that the deficit is an…
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A Quick and Dirty Inventory of Federal Agencies’ Significant Guidance Documents
Much is written by many on federal agency regulations’ expansion and costs. Beyond those, guidance documents, memoranda, notices, and other regulatory dark matter…
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CEOs Confront Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric
Another CEO of a big American company has spoken up about the charge that he and his employees are “destroying the moral fabric” of…
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NLRB Puts Stamp of Approval on Harassment in the Workplace
Around 80 years ago, Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to bring stability to labor relations in the private sector. The current iteration of…
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Pay Gap Myths Spread Around Equal Pay Day
In the lead up to Equal Pay Day this month, supporters of more federal pay regulations promoted myths about the pay gap between men and…
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Who Died and Made Dodd-Frank Regulators Gods?
Meet the new deities. They apparently sit on the Financial Stability Oversight Council and other regulatory agencies, especially those created by the Dodd-Frank banking “reform”…
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Union Bosses Order Verizon Workers to Strike
Today, union bosses ordered 36,000 Verizon workers on the east coast to strike. Nearly all of these employees, 99 percent, service the Verizon…
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Congress Should Strip the FCC of the Power to Regulate Broadband Prices
The U.S. House of Representatives will soon vote on a bill known as the “No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act.” Just as…
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If You Build It, They Won’t Come: The Failure of Field of Dreams Transit Planning
Following decades of excessive local government fare regulation that led to a terminal decline in the private mass transit industry, government began taking over the…
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CEI Will Surmount Crimethink Persecution
Feisty, aggressive, unwavering, and sometimes unconventional—all terms I heard prior to joining CEI last week as president. The descriptions were spot-on. But before the first conversations ended,…
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PBGC’s Perverse Incentives Undermine Multiemployer Pensions
For years, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency that insures private sector defined benefit (DB) pension plans, has been severely underfunded below…
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Our Take: The Climate-Related Subpoena
Since CEI was subpoenaed on April 8 for a decade’s worth of work from 20 years ago, many have asked “Why?” and “How?” Here is…
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Obama’s 7 Years of Regulation Easily Outstrip Bush’s 8
Annually, despite ups and downs, the number of federal rules and regulations tops 3,400. While the overall rule counts in the Federal Register and…
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What Others Are Saying about CEI’s Climate Change Subpoena
Since CEI was subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands on April 8, 2016, for energy and climate work from 20 years…
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Federal Minimum Wage: The Case of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is in crisis and drowning in debt. Now it looks like the island’s Development Bank, set up to raise living standards in the…
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Netflix’s Throttling Scandal: Possibly Illegal, But Not an FCC Matter
As one of the chief agitators behind the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) controversial effort to regulate Internet service providers like public utilities, Netflix has long portrayed…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Enterprising Africa & Entrepreneurial Allure
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How to Address Income Inequality
Over at the Foundation for Economic Education, Iain Murray and I give a short preview of our two forthcoming CEI papers on income inequality…
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Ed Snider: Farewell to a Business Legend
Today is a sad day for fans of capitalism and Philadelphia sports alike. Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and sports industry legend Ed Snider passed away over…
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Minimum Wages Tradeoffs: Are They Worth It?
Minimum wages help some workers, but only at other workers’ expense. Whether or not these tradeoffs are worth it is for each individual to decide.
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California Minimum Wage Hike Could Cost State Taxpayers $10 Billion
California’s legislative analyst projects that the recent increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour will cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more a year in…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Another Friday meant another 699-page Federal Register, which now exceeds 20,000 pages on the year. The big news is a fiduciary rule for retirement planning, but…
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Obama Administration Releases New Climate Scare Report
The Obama administration last week released The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The 333-page report “significantly…
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Wisconsin Judge Rules that Workers’ Wages are Unions’ Property
On Friday, April 8, a Wisconsin judge handed unions a surprising victory—surprising because of the argument behind his decision.
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Attorney General’s Climate Investigation Subpoenas CEI
The attorney general of the U. S. Virgin Islands, Claude E. Walker, has subpoenaed the Competitive Enterprise Institute for a stunningly wide array of documents…
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RIP Merle Haggard
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State-Sponsored Slavery and the Destruction of Small Businesses
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Attorneys General Launch Intimidation Campaign with Subpoena against CEI
Days after CEI criticized investigations of Exxon by State Attorneys General over its speech related to climate change, CEI was hit with a subpoena demanding…
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Is GE a Capitalist Good Guy or a Corporate Bad Guy?
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post, hitting back against charges that his company is “destroying…
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Air Traffic Control Reforms Will Give Us Modern Technology, Not Union Giveaways
Guest Post by David Grizzle Former Chief Operating Officer and Chief Counsel, FAA As the former chief operating officer and chief counsel at the…
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Building a Better Society with a Better Mousetrap
Last night, the Smithsonian American Art Museum here in Washington hosted a fascinating book event featuring a presentation by Alan Rothschild, co-author of…
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Final Fiduciary Rule: Dave Ramsey May Get Relief, But the Rest of Us Don’t
While the final rule may have been less severe, it still won’t keep middle-class savers from losing access to brokers and insurance agents.
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Illinois Pension Reform that Can Pass State Supreme Court Muster
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. That seems like such a simple concept that it shouldn’t need stating, but in the area of public…
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Senate FAA Bill Betrays Free Market and Fiscally Conservative Principles
Last month, I wrote about why everyone should be disappointed by the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill: it fails to include key air traffic control reforms contained…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Scandinavian Bliss or Myth?
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Obama Unveils Fiduciary Rule this Week, Putting Middle Class Investors in a Bind
Today, the Labor Department plans to unveil new regulatory restrictions on 401(k)s and IRAs. That means less access to financial advice and fewer options for…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The week ended with precisely 800 new final regulations on the year, with new rules covering everything from chairs to obesity. On to the data:…