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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
43 new regulations, from flood elevations to extra parentheses.
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 3: Make Regulations Transparent Like the Budget
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
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Federal Government Underreporting Union Official Time
In a recent FedSmith.com article, author Robert Dietriech gives three reasons why union official time data collected by the federal government understates the extent of…
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CEI Podcast for January 23, 2014: CEI Appeals Affordable Care Act Lawsuit Verdict
General Counsel Sam Kazman explains the case's importance not just for health care, but for the rule of law.
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 2: Regulatory Benefits? Maybe Not
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his State of…
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Target, Retailers Use Dodd-Frank to Skimp on Data Security
Chutzpah, thy name is the National Retail Federation! In the wake of the recent credit and debit card breach at Target that may have compromised…
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Pennsylvania Bill Challenges Union Privilege
Pennsylvania government unions are spreading misinformation about a bill that would end the practice of public employers deducting union dues from members' paychecks.
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The Loss of Net Neutrality Is Not a Detriment to Consumers
Last week’s announcement that the District Court of Appeals struck down the non-discrimination and no-blocking rules of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) 2010 Order on…
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 1: Measure Regulatory Costs
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated "Energy in the Executive." But President Obama's 2014 agenda framed by his State of…
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Downsizing the Federal Government
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
57 new regulations, from shoeing horses to Florida avocados.
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Obama Announces NSA Reforms Could Undermine U.S. Leadership in the Global Information Economy
President Obama outlined plans to “reform” the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs in a Friday morning speech at the Justice Department. To his…
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Trade Issues Heat Up — A New TPP Leak, “Fast-Track” Bill
WikiLeaks on January 15 leaked another chapter of the negotiation text of a major trade agreement – the environmental chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership…
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OSHA Injury and Illness Name-and-Shame Rule
Under the guise of improving safety in the workplace, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced a proposed rule called, "Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries…
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“Wall Street” Regs Devastate Main Street Banks and Credit Unions
Again and again, when regulators implement a new Dodd-Frank regulation aimed at "Wall Street," it is Main Street banks and credit unions that are forced…
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CEI Podcast for January 16, 2014: FCC Loses Net Neutrality Court Case
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia argues that while the case looks like a victory on the surface, it still gives the FCC plenty…
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Abusive appeal bonds
Over at Public Citizen’s blog, Scott Michelman posts about the attempt by class attorneys in the Facebook Sponsored Stories settlement to impose $32,000 appeal…
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Budget Deal Agreement and State of the Union Address Continue to Neglect Debt and Economy
In the lead-up to the State of the Union...a briefing theme was that President Barack Obama has little appetite for a debt reduction deal and…
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Obamacare Court Ruling in Halbig a Major Blow to Opt-Out States
The court’s ruling today in Halbig v. Sebelius delivers a major blow to the states that chose not to participate in the Obamacare insurance…
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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.
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Fast-Track Trade Authority Is in the Works
It sounds like fast-track authority for trade deals is getting some traction, according to an article today in the Financial Times. The FT says that…
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Retailers Only Sell Half a Loaf in their Analysis of the Costs of Interchange Fees
In a comment on my American Spectator article on the deleterious effects of debit card interchange fees on American households, Sara Durr, Spokesperson for…
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President Pushes Welfare Rather than Opportunity and Social Mobility in Speech about Inequality
"President Obama on Wednesday declared that addressing income inequality would be the focus of 'all' of the White House’s efforts 'for the rest of…
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CEI Podcast for December 5, 2013: Ending Corporate Welfare
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The Administration’s Regulatory Uncertainty
Groups like the Center for American Progress are claiming that the possibility of another row over the budget and debt ceiling are creating “uncertainty”…
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Union Release Time on the Ropes
Over two years ago, 16 NYPD officers were charged in a widespread ticket-fixing scam. And the criminal cases against the officers are still ongoing.
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Labor Agencies’ Regulatory Agendas
As my colleague Wayne Crews comments in Forbes, the Obama administration tends to publish its regulatory agenda around holidays, or when "nobody is looking."…
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Good News to Share Over the Holidays: The World Is Getting Better
In the middle of this holiday season my colleague Stephanie Rugolo over at the Cato’s new project, HumanProgress.org, is spreading cheer by getting…
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Hypocritical New Yorkers Whine about High Housing Prices while Supporting High-Price Policies
The New York Post today has a story on what it describes as "new hipsters fight[ing] old hipsters in Brooklyn." The gist of it…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations, from red porgies to homopolymers.
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AT THANKSGIVING, BIG GROCERY & BIG LABOR ATTACK COMPETITOR WAL-MART
If you’re one of the millions of Americans who will visit a Wal-Mart on the biggest shopping weekend of the year, don’t be surprised if…
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COOL Protectionism Still a Hot Issue
A protectionist meat labeling rule requires complicated labeling of beef, pork and poultry to indicate where the animals were born, raised, and slaughtered. Called country-of-origin…
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CEI Podcast for November 27, 2013: Toxic Turkey Day?
Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini debunks scare stories about chemicals in your family's Thanksgiving dinner, from BPA in canned foods to naturally occurring pesticides in potatoes.
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Disregard Toxic Advice on Turkey Day
Toxic chemicals lurk in the "typical" Thanksgiving meal, warns a green activist website. Eat organic, avoid canned food, and you might be okay,…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 3: The Costs of Regulatory Benefits
In the first installment of "Cataloging Washington's Hidden Costs," the topic was loss of liberty; in…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
60 new regulations, from salamanders to beans from Jordan.
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Senate Abolishes Filibuster, With Potentially Profound Implications for the Rule of Law
Yesterday, the Senate voted 52-48 to effectively abolish the filibuster for nominations to federal offices, such as federal appeals courts and trial courts, and cabinet departments. It used a tactic Senate…
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CEI Podcast for November 22, 2013: Daniel Hannan on Inventing Freedom
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I, iPad – Sir Jonathan Ive and Leonard Read Sing the Same Tune
Apple recently released an ad for the new iPad Air that — whether intentionally or not — mimics CEI’s I, Pencil short film.
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Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda to Show the “Evils” of Private Alcohol Sales
As if there wasn’t enough money in politics, now government agencies are using taxpayer dollars—our dollars—in an attempt to influence state policy. The National Institutes…
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Can the Government Regulate Bitcoins?
Bitcoins themselves cannot be regulated under current law, at least not directly. But certain activities involving…
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Government “Study” on Internet Tax Hides Harmful Small Business Effects
Under presidents of both parties, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has produced quality independent studies on the harmful tax and regulatory burden on…
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Unions’ Taxpayer Subsidized Activity
Taxpayers expect their government to spend tax dollars only on activities that benefit the public. But in Kentucky, the City of Louisville and Jefferson County…
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Urban Active Fitness class action settlement
The class in Gascho v. Global Fitness Holdings LLC, Case No. 2:11-cv-436 (S.D. Ohio), consists of the 606,246 individuals who signed a gym membership or…
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Obamacare Fallout Continues: Obamacare “Winner” Turns Out to Be a Loser Instead
"You screwed me over," says a woman cited by President Obama as an Obamacare success story. Jessica Sanford was used as a prop in the president's "…
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Dumbest Reason to Be Skeptical of Autonomous Vehicles: They Might Cost Auto Mechanics Their Jobs
Today, the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on “How Autonomous Vehicles Will Shape the Future…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 2: The Unmeasured Impacts of Economic Intervention
Back in Part 1 of Cataloging Washington's Hidden Costs, the topic was the incalculable cost of the loss of liberty in…
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A More Unequal America
Inequality grows hand-in-hand with the growth of the regulatory state. The proliferation of regulations increases economic inequality, since powerful people and politically connected companies know how to shape and manipulate…
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Watch the Live Stream of The New York Meeting @ 6pm
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Two More Strikes against the Export-Import Bank
Two common points made in defense of the Export-Import bank are its recent profitability and the number of jobs it supports. During the recent reauthorization debate,…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
66 new regulations, from corporate mergers to dried bacteria.