Op-Eds
The UAW, Having Stripped Detroit Bare, Looks To The South
Co-written with Julia Tavlas. The United Auto Workers union, having looted and stripped Detroit bare, have set their sights south, to the right-to-work states and…
The American Spectator
Another Correa Problem
Co-written with Geoffrey McLatchey. Following Hugo Chavez’s death, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador could be considered his likely successor as leader of South America’s…
The American Spectator
The Lady Wasn’t for Turning
When Margaret Thatcher was about to enter 10 Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister in 1979, she surprised everyone by quoting a…
Philly
Letter to the Editor: Race Has No Place in Gun-Law Debate
Charlotte and Harriet Childress falsely claim that "nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years . . . have…
Forbes
When Steven Pearlstein Bashes Capitalism, Is It Really Capitalism?
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein recently touched on several important tensions that arise in our conceptions of capitalism—tensions that lie at the core of America’s…
VT Digger
Unions attempt to silence elderly in power grab
Imagine if your elderly relative was seeking in-home care and was denied the right to negotiate the terms of care with the caregiver. Well, the…
Forbes
We Can’t Save Capitalism Unless We Denounce Its False Prophets
A debate is raging among free market advocates regarding the proper posture to take with respect to Too Big to Fail (TBTF) banks. This has…
Forbes
Barack Obama’s BRAIN Initiative Vs. Bioengineered Gills And One-Wheeled SegWays
In a widely reported announcement, President Barack Obama outlined a major research initiative to map the human brain, building on…
Townhall
Libertarians (And Fiscal Conservatives) Should Oppose Road Socialism
Libertarians and transport economists for decades have advocated tolling as an alternative to fuel taxes, which have…
Townhall
Cypriot deal is welcome change to EU approach
BRUSSELS – In the wake of the bailout/half bail-in that is the Cyprus rescue package, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said last week the EU is…
Townhall
The problem with Perez
If you saw a man standing outside the grocery store swinging a baton and glowering at passers-by, would you go inside? Perhaps, but more likely…
Cato
Public Choice and Political Advocacy
In the three decades since I founded the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I have seen the pro–free market intellectual movement grow by…
Townhall
How the Government Could Save Move-And Protect Workers
In this era of sequestration, why is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) awarding millions in grants to an organization under Congressional investigation? The…
The American Spectator
Let’s Lose LOST
When Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech at the Ross Sea Conservation Reception on March 19, he suggested that we should have called…
Forbes
FTC Drug Meddling Would Needlessly Push Pharmaceutical Costs Higher
Four of every five pharmaceutical prescriptions today are filled with a generic drug. That sounds like a big number, but the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)…
Forbes
With Cyprus, The EU Needs To Urgently Erase Europe’s ‘Nobody Loses’ Mentality
“Horrifying.” “Dangerous.” “Shocking.” And yes, it is coming to a theater near you. Or so went the general reaction among the media and political punditry…
Forbes
Beyond Tom Perez: Why do we need a Labor Department?
Well, America survived. Yes, it’s true, the United States was able to withstand two months without a labor secretary. The previous secretary, Hilda Solis, stepped…
Forbes
How To Protect Your Retirement Assets From The Coming Crash
As a chronic prognosticator of doom, I’m often asked, “Do you heed your own warnings?” I sure didn’t the last time the stock market crashed.
Daily Caller
Why we held the ‘Rainbow on the Right’ event at CPAC
Daily Caller
Unions euthanize nursing homes
Once upon a time, a group of health care workers walked off the job, abandoning the aged and infirm under their care. Others —…
Forbes
Bee-ing Smart: Regulators Must Distinguish Activists’ Bad Dreams From Actual Evidence
Important technologies commonly face opposition from various quarters – often from vested interests, societal Chicken Littles or overly precautionary regulators. Examples include vaccination, fluoridation of…
Forbes
EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Has A History Of Misleading Congress
Co-written by Research Associate Anthony Ward. President Obama has nominated Gina McCarthy to succeed Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator. When the Senate takes up her…
New York Times
Letter to the Editor: JOBS Act Successes
Steven Rattner asserts that “the JOBS Act has little to do with employment” (“A Sneaky Way to Deregulate,” Op-Ed, March 4), but the data…
Washington Examiner
Internet sales tax bill a bad idea
If less complexity, fewer loopholes and lower rates are the signposts of meaningful tax reform, the dubiously named Marketplace Fairness Act embodies the exact…
Wall Street Journal
He’s Still a Player
Many musicians have gotten their start in garages and, in the tech era, so have many entrepreneurs. But Herb Alpert has the rare distinction of…
Forbes
When Postmodern Art Attacks Western Civilization
Washington Times
Who Regulates the Regulators?
In Beltway terms, the Federal Communications Commission’s $350 million budget request for 2013 is practically a rounding error. Yet it costs the American people a…
Washington Times
The Third Side of the Immigration Debate
Viewed from afar, America’s immigration debate appears to center on two groups: liberals whose primary concern is the welfare of immigrants and conservatives whose primary…
US News
Government Office, Government Pay…Union Duties?
When President Carter signed the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978, he said he did so to "promote the general welfare, contribute to the effective…
The American Spectator
At Minimum, a Big Loser
President Obama brought the minimum wage debate back into the news in a big way in his State of the Union address, when he proposed…
Washington Times
Cut spending: Permanently furlough ‘official time’ workers
As politicians of both parties ride through the country Paul Revere-like in their warning about the dire consequences of the looming automatic spending cuts coming…
The News Tribune
Budget: Herbert Hoover Increased Spending, Deficits
Forbes
Sequester This! President Obama’s Colossal Media Blunder
President Obama has gone all-in trying to get Republicans to blink and serve up another round of tax increases in lieu of the looming spending…
National Review
A Genuine Conservative Opinion Editor at the Times
No, not the New York Times. That could happen today only under the most bizarre of circumstances. It’s the Times of London, the Thunderer herself,…
National Review
Countdown to Sequester
The hysteria of President Obama, liberals in Congress, and the media over very small cuts in federal spending from…
Daily Caller
Beer market needs liberty, not lawsuits
The U.S. Department of Justice wants to protect your ability to buy cheap beer. At least, that’s what it’s claiming to do in its January…
Human Events
Chicago Adults Could Be Forced to Give Up Energy Drinks
Are adults responsible enough to choose whether or not to consume energy drinks? Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke doesn’t seem to think so. He introduced…
Forbes
After The Sequester, Bring On The Blame Game
Should a miracle occur and the pending sequester actually kick in to reduce the growth of federal spending—said slowdown derided as “draconian budget cuts” even…
National Review
Virginia’s Transportation Mess
Virginia’s transportation-funding system’s drive toward socialism seems to veering even further left. Readers may remember Governor McDonnell’s plan to increase funding…
National Review
Smearing the Tea Party with Taxpayer Money
You may be aware of a recent study that suggested that the Tea Party was founded by Big Tobacco. My colleague Hans Bader has been…
Huffington Post
National Cancer Institute Funds Tea Party Witch Hunt
What was the National Cancer Institute (NCI) thinking when it decided to spend $678,952 to fund a notorious political activist to conduct a "scientific" research…
Huffington Post
The adventures of ‘Richard Windsor’ — EPA e-mail dump due today
Sometime Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to deliver a tranche of “Richard Windsor” emails to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Those emails may shed…
Op-Eds
CEI Responds to the 2013 State of the Union
National Review
Re: Out of the Woods
Forbes
Doctor Shortage? Let Idled Postal Workers Fill In! (Satire)
Rejoice, one of Obamacare’s great mysteries has been solved: Namely, the question of how we are going to provide free medical care to 30 million…
National Post
Frum Wrong About Budget Cuts
David Frum claims modest automatic budget cuts scheduled to go into effect in the U.S.A. in March will somehow harm the economy if they aren’t…
National Post
‘Blunting’ the decline of unions
Some say the organized-labor movement is going to pot — but at least one union is looking to pot for its salvation. US labor unions…
The American Spectator
The Anti-Democracy Index
The United States Constitution gives “all legislative powers herein granted” to Congress. Neither the judicial nor the executive branch has the power to make laws,…
Investor's Business Daily
New Green Rules In California Take Safe Chemicals Out Of Use
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That's the approach California bureaucrats are taking to implement the state's 2009-passed "green chemistry" law. Unfortunately,…
Townhall
Lessons in Green Chemistry
“Green chemistry” has become the latest craze and now government agencies are sponsoring programs to teach it to kids in school. But what exactly is…
Wall Street Journal
E-Verify’s ‘Hang Everyone’ Approach
This op-ed was coauthored by Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office If you hang everyone, the old saying goes, you…
Forbes
Atlas Shrugged Producer Shares Insights And A Surprise That Awaits In Atlas III
Forbes
Why a ‘small’ bailout for little Cyprus is a big deal
The bailout of Cyprus is garnering much less attention than did the help provided to other struggling euro zone members. Cyprus is tiny, and rescue…
Forbes
Obama Administration Errors Set The Stage For The First Green Trade War
Trade wars benefit nobody, but we may need to brace for one soon. This month, China is set to decide on whether to…
Forbes
France’s disappointing labor reforms
Businesses in France have long faced a hostile environment at home, with the country’s rigid labor laws among their chief complaints. This matters, as France…
Forbes
Safety shouldn’t be NASA’s top priority
It has been a century since the Panama Canal was completed. It was the greatest transportation project of its time, made possible only by new…
Washington Examiner
Letter to the Editor: Sequestration Cuts Will Increase Long-Term Growth
Re: "Drop in GDP a preview for area," Jan. 31 This article falsely claims that the U.S. economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
McDonnell’s transportation plan veers off-course
Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation plan has earned critics on both the left and right. On the left, many are upset the governor’s plan would transfer…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Is It Time to Get Rid of the EPA?
When I joined the Food and Drug Administration in 1979, I was essentially apolitical and knew next to nothing about federal regulation. A science nerd,…
Financial Times
Letter to the Editor: Companies should never apologise for making products people enjoy
Sir, The key (if unintended) message of Alan Rappeport’s analysis of Coca-Cola’s response to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “anti-obesity” measures is that corporate appeasement…
Forbes
It’s Time For A Transparency-In-Government-Statistics Law
Question: When does a government agency chartered with collecting and disseminating economic data morph into a propaganda ministry? Answer: When it allows unaccountable bureaucrats answerable…
Forbes
The EPA’s Lisa Jackson: The Worst Head of the Worst Regulatory Agency, Ever
President Obama and his minions seem to think that freedom is a four-letter word. His administration has imposed an array of intrusive, nanny-state, financial, environmental…
Forbes
Value Destroyers Like Bernanke Fancy Themselves Magician Economists
Economics is not magic. Yet today, many prominent economists insist on pulling off an economic rabbit hat trick when they propose getting something for nothing.
Forbes
EPA Cannot Regulate Water Flow, Federal Court Rules
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cannot lawfully restrict the amount of rainwater that enters a creek, a federal district judge ruled, in a victory for…
Washington Times
Letter to the Editor: Under Obama, a Failing America
Washington Times
Not All Austerity Is Equal
Prominent economists, politicians, and pundits throw around the term “austerity” as if policies by…
Right Side News
Economic Freedom Declines Again; Government Control Is Bad for Your Health
Economic freedom has declined under the Obama administration, and America’s rank has repeatedly fallen on the Index of Economic Freedom and other rankings issued by…
Forbes
Deconstructing Obamanomics: What Is The Real Goal?
As President Barack Obama begins his second term, democratically returned to office by a majority of Americans who seem to buy what he is selling, it…
Huffington Post
Greece Shows Us How Poverty Degrades the Environment
Missoulian
Baucus can help Montana by opposing Internet tax
As chairman of the powerful Finance Committee and senior senator from a non-sales tax state, Montana’s Max Baucus is uniquely positioned to protect both American…
The Hill
Partisanship Perverts the NLRB
When former SEIU Associate General Counsel Craig Becker left his post at the National Labor Relations Board in December 2011, he quickly segued into a…
Forbes
The Logic, Illogic And Political Calculus Of The Great Gun Control Debate
Whenever you see a parade outside, you can count on politicians to jump out in front of it to demonstrate their leadership. Even better is…
Forbes
Letter to the Editor: Circumventing the WTO is dangerous
Sir, Jean-Pierre Lehmann’s letter (“Focus on EU-US deal risks further damage to…
Forbes
Why All The Green Pork In A Deal Meant To Avoid The Fiscal Cliff?
When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the…
Real Clear Politics
Obama Blinks: No Emperor’s New Coin
It looks like the American people have been cheated out of a precious teachable moment. Demonstrating their ability to think two moves ahead, something their…
Real Clear Politics
E-Verify: Immigration Reform’s Threat To Legal Workers
Ken Nagel thought it would be no problem to hire his daughter at his Phoenix restaurant. He had not considered that Arizona’s new employment verification…
Forbes
A Barrage Of Legal Threats Shuts Down Whistleblower Site, Science Fraud
Cato
The Ripple Effects of Flawed Agbiotech Regulation
The modern techniques of genetic engineering—also known as biotechnology, recombinant DNA technology, or genetic modification (GM)—offer plant breeders the tools to make old crop plants…
Cato
EPA Rejects Arizona Haze Plan
Arizona consumers can expect higher electricity costs as a result of new EPA restrictions on three Eastern Arizona power plants. Arizona state environmental officials say…
Forbes
Federal Regulation: The Costs of Benefits
The premise that national top-down regulation of the economy brings substantial net benefits dominates public policy. But forget the philosophical debate over laissez-faire vs. the…
Forbes
Fiscal Justice Trumps Fiscal Sanity, Progressivism Marches On
In his first New Year’s Eve address since taking office, French President François Hollande—progressive poster boy and role model for class warriors the world over—defended his…
Forbes
Alleged Conflict of Interest on FDA Tobacco Panel
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has allowed a lawsuit seeking an injunction by R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard Tobacco to proceed against the Tobacco Products…
Forbes
Italy’s Zombie Politicians Have Crossed The Atlantic
Zombies have overrun Rome—and they’re spreading to Washington. Politics on both sides of the Atlantic is stuck in limbo between life and death as politicians…
The Environmental Forum
Missing in Action: Constitutional Environmentalism
The most important thing the Obama administration could do in its second term to promote public health is terminate its regulatory war on affordable energy.
Forbes
Happy New Year? Fiscal Cliff, Meet The Costberg
How the largest government on earth plans to expand our liberties in the new year of 2013 by forcing “the rich” to pay somebody’s idea…
Daily Caller
EPA costs US economy $353 billion per year
Transparency is the lifeblood of democracy. Washington needs more of it, especially in the all-too-opaque world of regulation. The…
The Hill
BPA resin replacements may be more harmful
As the year winds down, it’s a good time to look back at what was one of the biggest alarm stories of the year: the…
Forbes
Clement Moore Revisited: Twas The Night Before Fiscliff
Twas the night before Fiscliff, when all through the House Not a statesman was stirring, not even to grouse. Neither bills nor amendments…
AJC
Tax pledge proves its worth
Grover Norquist’s Tax Pledge isn’t perfect. But it successfully forces lawmakers and taxpayers to address America’s current fiscal path. Opponents of the pledge say it…
AJC
Italian politics: 1970s stuck on repeat
BRUSSELS – The inevitable loop of Italian politics repeated again this month when former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – fresh from a tax fraud conviction…
Washington Times
Federal rules cost $10,000 per employee
What do the Progressive Policy Institute, former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, former presidential candidate Herman Cain and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have…
Forbes
Lesson From The Google Case: There Is No Such Thing As Antitrust Policy
“Don’t get Scroogled‘” Seen that one yet? It’s a Microsoft Bing TV ad criticizing Google‘s search results for causing a kitchen fire. It’s cute, emblematic…
The American Spectator
We Cheer for Michigan
What a difference. This week’s enactment of a right to work law by Michigan lawmakers comes only three years after the 2009 government-directed bankruptcies of…
Forbes
Can Union Backed Crowdfunding Rescue Hostess From Bankruptcy?
By now you’ve heard at least two opposing versions of the Tale of the Tearful Twinkies. In the first, a great American brand was driven…
Forbes
Regulation Vs. Jobs: Assessing The Employment Impact Of Rules and Regulations
One might think there’s some official acceptance that the thousands of regulations issued annually in Washington have a dampening impact on job creation. But no;…
Human Events
The Return of Gunboat Diplomacy
Co-authored with Riley Walters. Last September, China deployed six surveillance ships in response to the Japanese government’s attempt to buy the disputed Senkaku islands,…
Huffington Post
Transatlantic Free Trade Must Be Done Right
There's a buzz, says Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, in both Berlin and D.C. these days, for free trade as a potential path back to…
Huffington Post
Tobacco rules substitute one problem for another
“Cigar smoking knows no politics. It’s about the pursuit of pleasure, taste, and aroma,” someone once said. Premium cigars are enjoyed by adults as much…
National Review
Do as Reagan Did, And Free Credit Unions
In their post-mortem on the election, National Review’s editors stressed the need to “make the case that conservative policies would make the broad mass of…
Forbes
Why Grover Norquist’s Tax Pledge Works
Listening to the media these days, it seems Grover Norquist is Public Enemy No. 1. His insistence lawmakers keep their promises to voters—in the form…