Op-Eds
Time Out for Federal Regulation
At the moment, the Federal Register stands at 61,247 pages–for 2011 alone. You can see the Code of Federal Regulations from space. Assuming this perturbs…
Op-Eds
Google And The Antitrust Case Against Antitrust
Now that the economy has recovered to robust health and unemployment is back below 5%, the U.S. Senate has ample time and resources to spend…
Op-Eds
How to Transcend Post-9/11 Homeland Insecurity
Is “Elevated” worse than “High,” or is it the other way around? Hell, I can’t remember. Need the iPhone app for that I guess.
Op-Eds
Nice Talk. When’s the Jobs Speech?
Hauling the United States Senate and a reluctant House together to listen to you on NFL kickoff night–when it’s not even State of the…
Op-Eds
Jobs Speech Won’t Do the Job
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his own jobs agenda this week in anticipation of President Obama’s Thursday address to Congress. The most important idea is…
Op-Eds
Obama’s Jobs Agenda: An Infrastructure Bank that Robs You
I stopped by our bank Friday to get something notorized, and, damn, they were all out of free Jolly Ranchers. For a moment, I’d forgotten…
Forbes
Stimulating Demand Misses the Point
A top summer’s-end story on the Drudge Report laments Ben Bernanke’s inferences that the air is pretty much out of the Federal Reserve balloon with…
Forbes
Obama’s Anti-Jobs Agenda
Though President Obama is nowhere to be seen on ground-level job-creation efforts apart from the golf course, he did issue an early 2011 executive order…
Forbes
Finally Free from Government Servitude
All that business last month about July 4 being In- dependence Day was a temporary indulgence by those Founding Father guys. Hope you enjoyed the…
Forbes
The S&P Downgrade Last Friday Night vs. Katy Perry
[F]airly interpreted, “Say’s law of markets” survives as the most fundamental “economic law” in all economic theory. It enunciates the principle that “demands in general”…
Forbes
Put a Ceiling on Overregulation
President Barack Obama may have inadvertently revealed one area of common ground with the Republicans during his recent news conference laying out sharp differences with…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
Government to Google: All Search Results Must Appear First
According to legend, when Winston Churchill and his lifelong foe Clement Attlee ran into each other at a row of urinals in the House of…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
The Debt Ceiling, Thomas Jefferson and the Semi-Virtue of a Balanced Budget Amendment
I’m for a balanced budget, even an amendment, but I’m more for the principle of limited government. A federal government that picks a national bird…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
Put a Ceiling on Overregulation
After months of saying it wanted a “clean” hike in borrowing authority, the Obama administration now proclaims it wants to do something “big” in a…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
The Cost Of Government Regulation
“You, there: stop complaining and start hiring!” That is essentially the Obama administration’s message to businesses. This is an administration that seems to believe that…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
Catching Air Without NASA: How Will We Regulate Commercial Space Flight?
What if having a vibrant space program requires bypassing NASA? There exist great pressures for change despite NASA’s signature successes. The private experimental launches…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
To Stimulate Economy, End Predatory Abuse Of Antitrust
Among numerous steps needed to stimulate a double-dipping economy, one is to make antitrust not pay anymore. AT&T’s $39 billion merger with T-Mobile (a…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
When Washington Fails a Cost-Benefit Test
Today I’m pretending I’m a bureaucrat, and I’ve decided you shouldn’t do backflips on a pogo stick. Also, nousing a pogo…
Bellingham (WA) Herald
Ten Thousand Commandments: How Much Regulation Is Enough?
President Barack Obama’s recent federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 sought $3.729 trillion in discretionary, entitlement and interest spending. For reference, George W. Bush…
Investors' Business Daily
Regulation Cuts Must Be Part Of Serious Reform
Spending reform is all the rage in Washington, with both parties offering proposals to rein in the deficit. President Obama has proposed a mix…
The Sacramento Bee
Regulation: The Hidden Tax
Appeared: The Sacramento Bee, …
The Sacramento Bee
Still Burning Witches at the FCC
It seems that things are never quite perfect enough these days for the Federal Communications Commission to elect to leave competitive communications markets alone. When…
The Sacramento Bee
Antitrust In the Airwaves?
For a moment there I was thrilled that AT&T and T-Mobile were merging, thinking how great it’ll be to finally get reception this coming Easter…
The Sacramento Bee
Cybersecurity Theater vs. The Real Thing
Computer attacks cost mid-to large size businesses $3.8 million annually on average , and generate massive global damage. Some homeland security and cybersecurity specialists even warn…
The Sacramento Bee
How About a Budget for Regulations?
We have a bad fiscal budgetary process that institutionally isn’t capable of controlling the trajectory of federal spending in any direction but up. We need…
The Sacramento Bee
Cyber Insecurity: Flip That Internet “Kill Switch” Plan
Unless there’s a major critical infrastructure failure, cybersecurity’s never going to be a pop culture concern like Cee-Lo Green or Christina at the Super Bowl.
The Sacramento Bee
Regulation Destabilization: Time For Reform, Washington
On Feb. 14, President Obama will release his fiscal budget. It’ll be big. But even that alternate universe tells only part of the story of…
Investors' Business Daily
Regulation Without Representation
Regulatory agencies enact more than 3,500 new regulations in an average year. A new federal rule hits the books roughly every two hours, 24…
Investors' Business Daily
Mis-State Of The Union
Politicians rarely think voluntary markets are so grand that they couldn’t benefit from a good ol’ dose of compulsion. It’s a shame, because that…
AOL News
6 Painless Ways to Cut Federal Red Tape
In this age of trillion-dollar budgets, deficits and stimulus packages, taxes and spending get all the press. But while the $3.5 trillion federal budget…
AOL News
Obama Needs To Confront Regulation
Today President Obama released an Executive Order called “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.” It calls for a government-wide review of rules,…
AOL News
What the New Congress Can Do For the Technology Sector
This week the Consumer Electronics Show will eat Las Vegas whole, and it’s an awesome thing to behold. Here’s hoping that the affiliated…
AOL News
Keep Privacy Policies Private
Like the lame duck itself, the online privacy turkey waddles on this December. It’s headed for January and the next Congress. Along with proposed legislation,…
AOL News
Instant Reform: Measure The Hidden Tax Of Regulation
If Congress doesn’t grapple with the regulatory state, this economy can’t regain footing. You don’t have to tell the grass to grow; you simply have…
AOL News
It’s Time To Regulate The State
Think about what’s about to happen, if we don’t stop it. Crushing regulations loom thanks to unpopular health care and financial reform legislation. An ambitious…
AOL News
Antitrust: America’s Unfortunate Export
Scholars, journalists, bureaucrats and lawmakers persist in viewing the body of antitrust law as serving the public interest. They still believe in monopolies apart…
AOL News
Tyranny of the Unelected
Congress passed and the president signed 125 bills into law in 2009. Your tireless federal regulatory agencies were even busier: They issued 3,503 rules and…
AOL News
An Industry, not a Bureaucracy
Online security problems are real, but the increasing tendency to treat cybersecurity as a government-spearheaded function asks for big trouble. Case in point is the…
AOL News
How Regulations Accumulate as a Small Business Grows
The Senate votes this week on a small business tax-break bill which also contains controversial provisions to boost community-bank loans to small business. That is,…
AOL News
Stimulus without Spendulus: A How-To Guide
This week brought more Subprime Stimulus from an administration attempting to ignite the economy with a burnt-out match. The Obama proposal to allow the expensing…
AOL News
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World
The Federal Communications Commission has called off closed-door talks with tech lobbyists, talks meant to iron out a government driven compromise on “net neutrality.”…
AOL News
The Lady Gaga Economy
The Lady Gaga phenomenon conquered the Today Show this morning, with what must have been the largest crowd they’ve had in their summer…
AOL News
Shutdown.fcc.gov
Increasingly, some groups contend there’s a crisis in journalism, even to the extent of advocating government support of news organizations. The dangers to freedom…
AOL News
The Huge, Hidden Tax You Pay for Government
Taxpayers rushing to fill out and file their form 1040 today may think their obligation to the federal government is complete. But it's really just…
Fox News
The Hidden Tax That’s More Than $1 Trillion
Last year, Americans paid $989 billion in income taxes. Add to that sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and other taxes, and the total tax…
Daily Caller
VAT Chance
After running up more than $3 trillion in debt in just two years, the federal government is looking for new ways to raise money. Promised…
Daily Caller
More Government Means Less Manufacturing
When it comes to our economy, where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket? That’s a question worth answering before Congress…
Daily Caller
The EU Searches for a Monopolist, Finds Google
If policy makers set the terms in a primitive year like 2010, nobody will have to respond to Google.
Daily Caller
Year One Report Card: Treasury gets a ‘D’
In a libertarian world of civil rather than political society, the Treasury Department would pay the modest bills of a constitutionally limited government. It’s…
Investors' Business Daily
VAT Would Be One Big Tub of Trouble
Ask a man on the street what VAT means. After giving you a strange look, he'll probably give an answer along the lines of "a…