Essential Air Service, New Century Brewing, and Richard Cordray

Essential Air Service

The federal Essential Air Service Program (EAS) subsidizes air traffic to rural airports in the name of fostering economic development.

Research Associate Matthew Melchiorre talks about House efforts to cut funding to EAS.

“The cuts to EAS reside within a ‘routine’ funding reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As a result, the Democratic-controlled Senate will almost certainly reject the entire bill and blame Republicans for an FAA shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) will undoubtedly espouse specious rhetoric about rural economic development, but the real truth is that they want to protect precious pork rolling back to their electorates. Republicans ought to dismiss their poor economics and ignore their self-interested cries for taxpayer dollars.”

New Century Brewing

Rhonda Kallman, the co-founder of Sam Adams Brewery, has shut down her New Century Brewing company.

Policy Analyst Michelle Minton explains how the FDA is to blame.

“Kallman shut down her small brewery after months of the FDA hounding her to reformulate her flagship product, Moonshot, a light beer that also happened to contain a small amount of caffeine. I’ve followed Kallman’s tragic story since last December — the maverick beer maven who you might have seen in the movie Beer Wars. After leaving Boston Beer Co., Rhonda took the major financial risk of forming craft beer company New Century Brewing to peddle the idea she was sure would be a hit: a caffeinated light beer. While her brew, Moonshot, didn’t take off with the oomph of a rocket ship, it was slowly gaining a following, that is until the FDA decided to step in and kill it.”

Richard Cordray

Richard Cordray has been nominated to the top spot at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs John Berlau explains why Cordray is a poor nominee.

“As Ohio’s attorney general, Cordray’s philosophy was ban first, ask questions later. He seemed to never meet a price control, interest rate cap, or product ban he didn’t like. The former Jeopardy! champion would constantly express the belief that less intelligent beings should not be burdened with deciding what product is best for them in the marketplace. He was a driving force in Ohio’s efforts in putting price controls interest on small, short-term loans. Ohio instituted one of the lowest interest caps in the country, driving legitimate small lenders out of the state, and Cordray would have gone even further. He championed outlawing basic fees that small-loan providers had been able to charge in the state since the ’50s.”