Unseen Stimulus, E-waste Abroad and Pelosi’s Private Jet
1. BUSINESS
CNN.com profiles Americans receiving benefits from the economic
stimulus package.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Regulatory Studies Fellow Ryan Young on the other
side of the stimulus coin:
“All of these people clearly
benefited from the stimulus package. But where did their free money come from?
To help these fortunate people, others had to be hurt. Where are the stories
about them? When will we see a story about a company that was unable to raise
job-creating capital because government bonds necessitated by stimulus debt ate
up precious investor dollars? When will we see a story about a job that was
never created because the government decided to take that money and use it on
Sara Kelley’s civil engineering job?”
2. ENVIRONMENT
International agencies weigh in on the issue of “e-waste”
– trash generated from discarded electronic equipment.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Director of Risk and Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on efforts
to ban
e-waste disposal in developing nations:
“Clearly we should investigate the
extent of waste management problems and support policies to help address them.
But the best policies will be the ones that worked for us: growth enhancing policies.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive in this case, trade the best solution
because it’s a critical vehicle for wealth creation. To sum it up, developing
nations don’t have the same environmental standards as we do for the same
reasons they don’t have the same labor standards—they are too poor. Keeping
them poor will only keep them poor! That’s hardly a policy for progress!”
3. CONGRESS
Democrats in Congress plan to spend $200
million on Gulfstream jets so that members of Congress can travel in luxury.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans
Bader on the hypocrisy and
waste of the purchase:
“Congress plans to spend $200 million on luxury jets for
liberal House leaders, even though it earlier denounced the automakers for
having corporate jets, and even though the luxury jets the House plans to buy
emit vast amounts of pollution and greenhouse gases. Now they’ll be able to go
on foreign junkets and hob-nob with wealthy lobbyists in style.”
Listen to LibertyWeek,
the CEI podcast, here.