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New Joint Employer Standard Hurting Business of All Sizes
Recently, the business community aired their grievances about the National Labor Relations Board’s new joint employer standard in the form of briefs from Microsoft and…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Futurism and Genius
This week’s guests share a contagious, limitless optimism about our technological future and individual achievement.
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Congress Fights Back Against DOL Attack on Flexible Work and Small Business
Congress may have missed an opportunity to defund the Department of Labor’s overtime rule via the appropriations process, but they have not given up the…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The 2016 Federal Register will surpass 40,000 pages next week, and is on pace to exceed 85,000 pages for the first time in its 80-year…
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Are Anti-Science Obama Administration Policies Fostering Zika?
Former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey, who chairs the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, says the Obama administration is fostering Zika’s spread through anti-science…
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Building on the Optimism of “Uber-Positive” Attitudes
There’s a new resource for understanding the state of play between politics and developments in the sharing economy, the pleasantly slim volume by the Manhattan…
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Lawsuit Challenges Education Department Overreaching in College Discipline
A lawsuit was filed yesterday challenging a 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter in which the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights ordered many of the nation’s…
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Wireless Net Neutrality: You Were Warned
Hundreds of people have been burrowing into this week’s D.C. District Court of Appeals 2-1 decision giving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) everything it wanted…
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FCC Cannot Rewrite Federal Law to Regulate the Internet
By upholding the entirety of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Open Internet Order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has sanctioned the…
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Obama’s Central Planning for Preschools Is Overreaching
A June 13th Washington Post article touts a recent document issued jointly by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services that announcing that…
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Diana Furchtgott-Roth Still Mistaken on Air Traffic Control Reform
A lonely critique from the center-right of air traffic control corporatization appeared on MarketWatch making a series of incorrect and misleading claims. I have previously…
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Happy Magna Carta Day
801 years ago today in a peaceful meadow in England occurred the first act of the American Revolution.
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Why Shouldn’t the Energy Department Run the Entire Economy?
New Energy Department standards for dehumidifiers promise massive benefits. Depending on which set of numbers you prefer (the link goes to the Energy Department’s own…
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CEI Support for Rep. McHenry’s “Fix Crowdfunding Act”
Today, the House Financial Services Committee will likely be voting on Rep. Patrick McHenry’s Fix Crowdfunding Act, a much-needed expansion of the bipartisan Jumpstart Our…
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Congress Must Rein in FCC on Net Neutrality
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the FCC’s 2015 “Open Internet Order” in US Telecom Association v. FCC.
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Huge Questions Remain in Brexit Debate
It is now looking as if the June 23rd vote on whether Britain will leave or remain in the European Union is too close to…
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“Open Internet” Ruling Will Encourage ISPs to Block Content
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “Open Internet Order” which purports to implement “net neutrality”…
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Proposed Soda Tax a Bad Deal for Philadelphia Residents
This Thursday, Philadelphia’s city council is set to approve a 1.5 cent per ounce tax on soda. The goal of the tax is to raise…
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Attorney General Schneiderman’s Lame Defense of Speech-Chilling Climate Change Investigation
When a government official quotes a dissenting opinion that was on the losing side of history to justify a speech-chilling investigation, that’s a pretty clear…
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New Options for Regulatory Reform from Speaker Ryan
We here at the Competitive Enterprise Institute appreciate the release of the new report by the Task Force on Reducing Regulatory Burdens, issued as part…
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Schneiderman’s New Catchphrase for Free Speech: “First Amendment Opportunism”
Last Thursday New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman delivered a speech (video below) at the Bloomberg Big Law Business Summit defending his investigation against claims…
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Speaker Ryan’s Deregulatory Report: Clamp Down on Federal Labor Agencies’ Overreach
Today, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) released his plan for how to modernize our federal regulatory system in order to jumpstart the economy. This is…
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Export-Import Bank Drama Continues
The Senate’s main business right now is the annual Defense Appropriations bill. The Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im for short, might become part of that bill.
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new regulations for the year exceeded the 1,500 mark last week, with new rules covering everything from seatbelts to suckerfish. On to the…
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Railroad Industry Releases New Economic Impact Report, Urges Regulatory Restraint
Today, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) released its latest State of the Industry Report, highlighting new research from Townson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Common Sense Economics
At CEI’s 2016 annual dinner—A Night in Casablanca!—in DC, I caught up with three interesting gentlemen for a dose of common sense economics.
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Defending the Right to Donor Privacy
The campaign to safeguard the right to privacy for charitable donors is moving one step closer to reality. Last Friday was the deadline for members…
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Politically Correct Transgender Pronoun Mandates Violate First Amendment
The First Amendment is being violated by recent government demands that people use pronouns others than “he” and “she” to refer to their transgender peers.
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India Stops Short of Committing to “Join” Paris Treaty in 2016
President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi met on Wednesday to discuss energy-related issues including the Paris Climate Treaty. In contrast to the United…
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House Passes Resolutions Opposing Carbon Tax and Obama’s Oil Tax
The House of Representatives on 10th June passed two resolutions opposing taxation of fossil fuel consumption. The vote on H. Con. Res. 89, which expresses…
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CEI Dinner 2016 Keynote Address
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House Plan to Replace Dodd-Frank Provides Long-Needed Alternative
On Wednesday, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling announced the main features of his comprehensive plan to replace Dodd-Frank, the flawed response to the…
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What’s Right with Business Schools?
Jane Shaw of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has a compelling new commentary out this week on the state of business schools.
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House Committee Examines Overtime Rule’s Negative Impact on Non-Profits and Universities
The House Education & Workforce Committee held a hearing today that examined the Department of Labor’s recent overtime regulation’s impact on non-profits and universities.
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Obama Administration Fosters Zika through Red Tape
Zika’s spread is being aided by red tape the Obama administration left unchanged, even as it illegally diverted money needed to fight Zika to…
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Rounding Up the Cowards: EU Leaders Block Glyphosate
As reported in the Wall Street Journal this week, yet another valuable pesticide product may eventually be removed from the market place. But despite…
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2016 Dinner Movie Bloopers: A Night in Casablanca
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House to Vote on Carbon, Oil Taxes
The House is scheduled to vote Friday on two bills opposing efforts to rig U.S. energy markets against fossil fuels.
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Heavily Scrutinized NLRB Joint Employer Standard Heads to Court
Most people can pretty easily tell you who their boss is, but the Obama administration has made that a difficult question. In a decision last…
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GIGO Strikes Again: EPA’s Social Cost of Methane
The Environmental Protection Agency’s final methane emission standards for new, modified, and reconstructed oil and gas sources were published in the Federal Register last Friday.
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FCC Could end up “Protecting” Consumers from Cheaper Internet Access
Net neutrality proponents have seen their lines splinter over the issue of “zero rating,” the practice of not counting data used to access certain sites…
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Time to End the Failed Experiment of “Sin” Taxes
It seems like an economic no-brainer that if you can raise the cost of a good or service, people will buy and consume less of…
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Affordable Energy Is Important to Conquering Poverty
When economists and politicians talk about income inequality, they rarely consider the effects of their policies on the poor, as my co-author Ryan Young has…
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Obama Illegally Diverts Money Needed to Fight Zika to UN
President Obama raided $500 million needed to fight the Zika virus, and instead illegally gave it to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund. Sen. James…
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Controlling Federal Agency Guidance Documents: A To-Do List for Congress and Reformers
When I wrote about the proliferation of federal agency guidance documents and other regulatory “dark matter” that skirts Congressional oversight and even normal…
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A Complaint We Didn’t Expect to Hear: Virgin Islands Attorney General Now Says We’re Wasting His Time
Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker filed his opposition last week to CEI’s motions for attorney fees and sanctions. As you may know if you’ve…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Fighting Injustice & Igniting Prosperity
This week on RealClear Radio Hour, professors Stephanos Bibas and Donald Boudreaux discuss injustice in the plea bargain system and the dangers of the dismal…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Last week’s Federal Register fell short of 2,000 pages, mainly because it was a four-day work week due the Memorial Day holiday. While the Federal…
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2016 CEI Dinner Movie: A Night in Casablanca
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First Amendment Forbids Ideological Discrimination in Protecting Rallies
Anti-Trump demonstrators beat up Trump supporters outside a Trump rally in San Jose, California this week, while police initially did nothing but watch. As Buzzfeed…
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Attorney General Lynch Refuses to Defend Law to Speedily Terminate Wrongdoers
Attorney General refuses to defend law passed by Congress to speedily terminate wrongdoers One of an Attorney General’s fundamental duties is to defend laws passed…
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Administration’s War on Work Reflected in Jobs Numbers
The administration and its allies are currently engaged in a regulatory onslaught on employers that can only be described as a war on work. Today’s…
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Six People You’ll See at the CEI Dinner
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The Seventh Circuit Considers a Costly But Useless Shareholder Settlement in the Walgreens Merger
OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. In recent years, about 97 percent of sizable mergers (those valued at $100 million or more) have been hit by…
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One Enlightened Statesman: Sen. Rand Paul Pauses TSCA Bill
Three cheers to Senator Rand Paul for actually caring enough to read legislation before voting on its passage. Last week, he held up legislation…
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Inequality: Policies That Work, and Policies That Don’t
CEI recently released a pair of papers by Iain Murray and me about economic inequality. The first encourages activists to ask the right questions: think…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Latin American Politics, Jazz, and Freedom
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Congressional Review Act deadline for the possible midnight regulation rush has now likely passed, though the Federal Register once again topped 2,000 pages last week. That…
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Federal Regulations Affecting Small Business
It is often said that there is no such thing as a free lunch, something particularly true for the small businessperson. The “Small Business…
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NLRB Downplays Pro-Union Threats
Union bias permeates the actions of the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This is hardly surprising since a former union lawyer, Richard Griffin,…
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Court Will Soon Decide Fate of FCC’s Ill-Conceived Internet Regulations
Any day now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to release its decision in U.S. Telecom Association v. FCC.
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More on “Inequality”
In serendipitous timing, the Institute of Economic Affairs in London released a new study this week entitled “Never Mind The Gap: Why we…
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Unions and Environmentalists Oppose Plan to Address California’s Rising Housing Costs
Everyone’s for affordable housing—except, it seems, some unions and environmentalists. On May 18, a coalition of unions and environmental advocacy groups—including the State Building &…
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Raise, Don’t Level: New CEI Papers on Inequality and Poverty Relief
Economic inequality is one of today’s defining issues. How to address it? Iain Murray and I offer an unconventional approach in a new two-part CEI…
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Obama Administration Harms Students in Many Ways
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CEI Asks Court to Sanction U.S. Virgin Islands AG for Baseless, Retaliatory Subpoena
On Monday, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker agreed to revoke a subpoena he obtained from the D.C. Superior Court last month,…
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Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists: No Illusions about Germany’s “Energy Turnaround”
In a previous post I poked fun at the “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. For 60 years, the Bulletin has…
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RealClear Radio Hour: On-Demand Internet Service & Medical Testing
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Appeals Court: Students Qualify for FOIA Fee Waivers
Under the Freedom of Information Act, you can obtain government records, but usually you have to pay for them. But the law limits the fees…
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White House Supports Bill that Exempts Puerto Rico from New Overtime Regulation
Progressives praised the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule as a way to fatten workers’ pockets and a means to strengthen the middle class. If…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
As mentioned earlier, something of a regulatory midnight rush is happening right now. The Federal Register topped 2,000 pages for the third time in four weeks—a rare…
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CFPB Moves to Cut Off Any Loans to People with Bad Credit
According to the federal government, people may have to live on the streets, but at least they aren’t being “exploited” by companies who are willing…
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Muggles for Free Speech
J. K. Rowling made international headlines this week by defending free speech in an address to the PEN Literary Gala in New York. She…
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Regulation: A 28 Percent Hidden Tax For The Family
When corporations pay taxes, you pay taxes. That is, while it’s popular to tax rich corporations, and even if they write the check to the…
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How the Overtime Rule Hopes to Design Higher Salaries, But Can’t
The Labor Department has just issued a new regulation for overtime pay for salaried employees. Under the new rule, all salaried workers earning less than…
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New York Times Ad Attacks AGs’ Abuse of Power, Defends Free Speech
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Deadline for Major New Regulations This Week?
An early midnight rush of controversial new regulations might be on the way over the next week or so. Why now instead of the very…
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Free Market Organizations Call on Congress to Block the DOL Overtime Rule
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute along with 16 other organizations sent a letter to Congress in support of the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity…
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RICO 20 Ringleader’s Implausible Denial of Intent to Silence Skeptics
After a recent victory in a FOIA lawsuit, Horner and CEI v. GMU, a Richmond court allowed the Competitive Enterprise Institute to release records on…
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Air Traffic Control Reform Opponents Still Miss the Big Picture, Repeat Errors
Air traffic control is in dire need of reform and modernization, and there is a great plan in the House FAA bill to do just…
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Members-Only Unions Benefits Unions and Individual Workers
There has been a surge in right-to-work laws over the past couple of years. Since 2012, four states (Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and West Virginia) revoked…
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RealClear Radio Hour: Middle East & Panamanian Renaissance
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Leave DFS Regulation to the States, But Don’t Kneecap Skilled Players
Congress is abuzz with the issue of gambling. Last month, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) inserted language from his failed online gambling ban into the…
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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…