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Subsidy-free capitalism may require a constitutional amendment
Automobiles, electrification, ample consumer goods and mass marketing, a construction boom, and access to credit helped fuel the Roaring Twenties of a century ago.
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Frontier economics with Kendall Cotton
In this week’s episode we cover the diamond jubilee of the Philadelphia Society, the cost of government regulation in the UK, the…
Blog
Small banks targeted as FDIC cracks down on technology partnerships
Earlier this week, Politico’s “Morning Money” column reported an astonishing finding that almost certainly points to politicization in enforcement by federal bank regulators. The…
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Robert Lucas, economist of possibilities, 1937-2023
Robert Lucas, 85, passed away this week. He was a prominent macroeconomist who won the 1995 economics Nobel. Others have remembered Lucas’s contributions to rationality…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: toy guns and trophy fisheries
The 2023 Federal Register topped 30,000 pages on May 8. New inflation numbers looked better on the surface, but actually got worse. A new…
Blog
New credit card late fee rule hurts folks who pay their bills on time
There has rightly been an outcry after the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which sets policy for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) Fannie Mae and Freddie…
Blog
Senate committee yells ‘all aboard!’ for controversial Railway Safety Act
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved the Railway Safety Act this morning, with all Democrats and Republican Sens. J.D. Vance (OH) and Eric Schmitt…
Blog
This week in ridiculous regulations: cloudy guidance documents and potato ledprona
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last week. It was the rare 3,000-page for the Federal Register, which will likely surpass…
Wall Street Journal
Don’t Let Unspent Covid Funds Become Slush Funds
The House has passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would raise the debt limit for a year in exchange for deficit-relief measures. One of…
Blog
New Jersey fishermen challenge Chevron deference
Big news out of the Supreme Court this week as justices have agreed to hear a lawsuit challenging the so-called Chevron doctrine, a policy requiring…
National Review
Make Federal Red Tape Part of the Debt-Ceiling Fight
Last week, the House passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for more than $4 trillion in deficit cuts over a decade.
Blog
The week in ridiculous regulations: Oklahoma emissions and Big Creek crayfish
GDP grew by 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2023. Cable news hosts Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon were both fired. Meanwhile, agencies…
Blog
Has Gary Gensler turned the SEC into a regulatory ‘Hotel California’?
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler hadn’t testified before the U.S. House of Representatives for 18 months. Republican members made up for lost…
News Release
US Economy Grew 1.1 Percent First Quarter 2023 – Could Be Worse: CEI Analysis
The U.S. economy grew 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Statistics. It may seem underwhelming, but…
Blog
Regulatory reform in the 118th Congress: Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act
The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980 was an important transparency measure for vetting new regulations. But it falls short in some important areas,…
Blog
Romney slams Labor nominee Su’s ‘so severely lacking’ record
Julie Su, the White House’s pick to replace outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, had her first of two Senate hearings Thursday. Sen. Mitt Romney…
Blog
Congress shouldn’t party like it’s 2019 on national debt
Now comes the GOP’s turn to do its own version of a “lockdown.” Republicans should heed the advice of a member of the other party, Rahm…
The Washington Times
Don’t Cede Fairness to Liberals
Most people care about fairness. Humans are, after all, moral creatures. And yet it’s mostly the political left that speaks of “fairness.” That’s unfortunate, because…
Real Clear Policy
The Greatest Trick ‘the Swamp’ Ever Pulled
Why are anti-establishment Republicans embracing the special interest racket of Washington, D.C.? In 2016, candidate Donald J. Trump ran on a promise to drain ‘the…
News Release
Biden Veto Means ESG Investment Rule Means Politicized Investing for Pensions
President Biden today vetoed a resolution passed by Congress that would have stopped a Labor Department rule on ESG investing. Specifically, the rule, “Prudence and…
Blog
Free the Economy Episode 12: Consumer Welfare and Big Government with Patrick Hedger
This week we talk about the drama with Silicon Valley Bank and the proposal from Wayne Crews for an Abuse-of-Crisis Prevention Act, how…
Blog
Why Congress Must Think Twice About Adopting Biden’s Brazen Budget Proposal
Last Thursday, President Joe Biden finally unveiled his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year 2024. This marks the third straight year that Biden…
News Release
Biden Budget Amounts to Top-Down Central Planning, Lacks Needed Reforms
President Biden today unveiled his latest budget submitted to Congress. CEI experts take a dim view of the agenda of excess spending and regulation…
Blog
Regulatory Reform Bills in the 118th Congress: The Article I Regulatory Budget Act
The federal government is supposed to put out an annual budget to track its spending. Why doesn’t it do the same thing for regulation? The…
Blog
Fed Economist: Study Shows Danger of Government-Mandated Financial Misinformation
Study from Fed Economist Shows Danger of Government-Mandated Financial Misinformation The “Twitter Files” have made some shocking revelations about government entities…
National Review
FTC Runs into the Judicial Wall
The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust crusade has run into an obstacle: the judiciary. Indeed, the agency wants to expand its authority and broaden enforcement standards so…
New York Post
The numbers prove Cuomo’s lockdowns hurt NYers on EVERY metric — while Florida flourished
What a difference a few years make. In 2020, the mainstream media lauded Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his strong but compassionate COVID-19 leadership. He won a…
Blog
Are Americans Investing for Retirement or Politics?
Being able to save enough during our working lives to fund a comfortable retirement is a top concern for most American households, especially since…
The Well News
Justice Dept. Sues Google Again Alleging Monopolistic Ad Tactics
Google was joined in criticizing the Justice Department by Jessica Melugin, the director for technology and innovation at the Washington, D.C.-based public policy…
Washington Journal
VIDEO: CEI’s Kent Lassman Joins CSPAN to Discuss House Republican economic policy goals
CEI President Kent Lassman joined CSPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss House Republicans’ policy proposals to tackle inflation and grow the economy contained in the party’s…
National Review
Can a Trillion-Dollar Coin Repay Our Debt?
The red wave that wasn’t has consequences for policy-making in Washington. One result of the GOP’s new, narrow House majority is that outlandish and marginal policy…
POLITICO
Lobbyists not sweating McCarthy’s drawn-out battle for the gavel
LOBBYISTS NOT SWEATING DRAWN-OUT SPEAKERSHIP RACE: Kevin McCarthy’s push to become House Speaker dragged on for the fourth day this afternoon, though the…
Blog
Free the Economy Episode 2: Defending the American Dream
Thanks to everyone who listened to the inaugural episode of the new Competitive Enterprise Institute podcast Free the Economy in December. We covered stagnating wages,…
News Release
White House Finally Releases “Unified Agenda” on Upcoming Regulations, Signaling a Rise in Big, Costly New Regulations
Today, at last, the White House released the fall 2022 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, where federal regulators report on what they have planned for…
The Hill
Congress can promote growth by lowering regulatory barriers for consumers and businesses
Three quarters of Americans surveyed by Gallup say they disapprove of the way Congress handles the job of governing. We also know that…
News Release
Senate Passes $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill, No Help to Inflation Reduction
The Senate today voted to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus package to fund the federal government through September next year. CEI Senior Economist Ryan…
The American Spectator
What Do Americans Really Think of ‘ESG’ Investing?
Investing to promote environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes — rather than to just maximize profit — became the hot topic in finance this year…
News Release
CEI Experts View Proposed FY 2023 Omnibus as Wasteful, Ineffective Big Government Progressivism
The Senate Appropriations Committee released the text of an omnibus appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2023 early in the morning on Tuesday. CEI experts…
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Corporate Governance
Retirement Security Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which governs private pensions, in 1974, in response to widespread concerns at the time…
Study
Free to Prosper
Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 118th Congress highlights specific steps lawmakers can take to prevent overreach by executive branch agencies, reduce the costs…
National Review
ESG Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon
While the “Red Wave” never emerged in this November’s midterm elections, the issues that have riled up conservative voters the most in the past two years…
Blog
New Angles on Finance and Faith
I recently had the pleasure of making my way down to Lynchburg, Virginia, to the campus of Liberty University to attend the Networking the…
Reason
FBI Reports Dubious ‘Trend’ of Rideshare Driver Kidnappings
“Fund managers who handle retirement accounts through the EBSA are being told to consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG)…
National Review
The Threat from Biden’s ‘Whole of Government’ Regulatory Approach
When the U.S. federal administrative state began its march from novelty to leviathan over a century ago, few likely imagined the tangle of rules it would…
Blog
Policy and Politics Are Different Things
What is more important this election: The culture wars or policy issues like inflation? In an op-ed as part of a point-counterpoint series from…
Blog
Seizing the Ecomodernist Moment
I recently had the good fortune to attend Ecomodernism 2022, a conference hosted in northern Virginia by the Breakthrough Institute. The theme was “Deregulating…
POLITICO
POLITICO Playbook: Breaking down the GOP’s midterm momentum
Politico cites CEI’s Kevin D. Williamson on midterm momentum: We have fresh data this morning from the new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll that shows the national political…
The Daily Caller
Financial Giants Are Suddenly Realizing The Left’s ESG Movement Has Serious Downsides
Advocates for aggressive environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards have tried to achieve social and political objectives through anti-democratic and unrepresentative means. Whether it is…
Daily Caller
LASSMAN: Financial Giants Are Suddenly Realizing The Left’s ESG Movement Has Serious Downsides
Advocates for aggressive environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards have tried to achieve social and political objectives through anti-democratic and unrepresentative means. Whether it is…
Fox Business
Elon Musk says Twitter purchase ‘accelerant’ to creating X, ‘the everything app’
Fox Business spoke with Jessica Melugin on Elon Musk purchase of Twitter: Watch the latest video at foxbusiness.com Click here to learn…
Blog
The Founding Fathers and Free Trade
There is an ongoing small cottage industry of historical revisionism aimed at showing that America since its founding was friendly to protectionism and that this…
Blog
No, We Don’t Need Federal Licenses for Big Tech
In the wake of congressional testimony by former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has suggested that he will partner with…
National Review
ESG’s Midlife Crisis
For the last several years, much of the corporate world has, to a greater or lesser degree, adapted to the demands imposed by “environmental, social, and…
Staff & Scholars
Clyde Wayne Crews
Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies
- Business and Government
- Consumer Freedom
- Deregulation
Richard Morrison
Senior Fellow
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Capitalism and Free Enterprise
Fred L. Smith, Jr.
Founder; Chairman Emeritus
- Automobiles and Roads
- Aviation
- Business and Government
Ryan Young
Senior Economist
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform