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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…
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Will Reforming Consumer Finance Regulation Cause a Recession?
Will reforming consumer finance regulation cause a recession? That is the claim of a recent article in The Hill. Yet, the article provides little evidence to…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While Washington’s “This Town” types geared up for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the rest of the country flocked to movie theaters for a much…
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New York City Enacts Its Own Green New Deal
New York City’s council passed the Climate Mobilization Act, a set of six bills, by a 45 to 2 vote on 18th April. Mayor Bill de Blasio signed…
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White House Moves to Strengthen Information Quality Act
The White House Office of Management and Budget on April 24th sent a memo to heads of departments and agencies updating guidelines for implementing the Information Quality…
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On Climate, Lindsey Graham Says GOP Ready to ‘Cross Rubicon’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters yesterday at an Earth Day event in Dallas that congressional Republicans are “ready to cross the Rubicon” on climate…
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VIDEO: Government Should Not Regulate Social Media Content
Trends in social media have rocketed to the top of the national political agenda recently, whether in the desire of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to…
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How Julian Simon Defeats Thanos
“The universe is finite, its resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist.” With those simple words, the Marvel supervillain Thanos…
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New Civil Liberties Alliance Sounds Alarm on Unconstitutional Government
The New Civil Liberties Alliance hosted a very interesting event this week, as part of its “Lunch and Law” speaker series, featuring remarks by Hudson…
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Antitrust Regulation Turning into Campaign Issue
Both parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020 campaign issue. Neither President Trump nor most of the Democratic candidates are proposing improvements. Over at the…
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CEI Leads Coalition Supporting Reformed Payday Loan Rule
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute led a coalition of eighteen free market organizations in support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s decision to rescind portions of…
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Two-Tier Wage System Highlights Need for Labor Reform
Over the weekend, the eleven-day strike by more than 30,000 Stop & Shop employees ended. The grocery chain announced that it “has reached fair new…
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Insights from James Otteson’s ‘Honorable Business’
I’ve been reading a new book on business ethics, “Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society,” and it has some…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and sustained heavy damage. The rebuilding will likely take years, though people began politicizing it almost instantly.
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EPA Mercury Rule an Inappropriate Exercise of Regulatory Power
On Wednesday, I submitted comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to rescind its justification for the 2012 Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule.
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VIDEO: Johan Norberg on Resource Scarcity vs. Abundance
It’s an old argument: as population increases and we use up more of the earth’s natural resources, everything is become more scarce. Soon the pressures…
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Blocking the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger: Competition, Rent-Seeking, and Uncertainty
Nationwide 5G networks are coming. They will expand possibilities for everything from smartphone applications to GPS to streaming video, and will enable new technologies that…
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Reformed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Can Be Free-Market Regulator
Earlier this week, The New York Times Magazine rolled out another edition of the tired old trope of how former acting Director Mick Mulvaney “destroyed”…
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New Study: The Case against Antitrust Law
Antitrust regulation is a complex, multifaceted issue. It brings together insights from law, economics, political science, history, philosophy, and other disciplines. Right now both political…
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Shed Light on Cryptocurrency ‘Dark Matter’ Regulation at SEC
A few days ago, the Trump administration issued a memorandum strongly discouraging what the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Wayne Crews has called “regulatory dark matter.” The…
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Carbon Tax Not a Conservative Policy
Yesterday’s E&E News ran an article titled “Inside conservatives’ disarray on climate.” E&E reporter Mark Matthews was inspired to write the piece by an email…
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FDA Created the Youth Vaping Epidemic, Now It’s Doubling Down
E-cigarettes pose less risk than smoking. The science is clear: while cigarettes kill about half their users, e-cigarettes have perhaps five percent of the risk.
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a remarkable human achievement, scientists took the first-ever image of a black hole. The effort took eight telescopes on five continents, five petabytes of…
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Restrictions on Debt Collection Impede Access to Credit
In a market economy that is based on private property and the rule of law, the efficient and effective enforcement of contracts is indispensable. Without…
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Administration Takes on Anti-Infrastructure Misuse of Clean Water Act
President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order on April 10th that is intended to limit the misuse of the Clean Water Act of 1972…
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Proposed Climate Science Review Continues to Attract Support and Opposition
The proposal by Dr. William Happer of the White House’s National Security Council staff to create an independent panel of experts to do a critical…
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Support Builds for EPA to Reconsider Endangerment Finding
In the 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that Environmental Protection Agency had the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant…
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Americans Optimistic about Role of Tech and Platforms
At a time when big tech companies are being attacked over bigness, privacy, elections, and the ordering of their news feeds, the Charles Koch Institute…