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Price signals and virtue signals
It’s a divisive election year, but all of us still have some things in common. Since the pandemic began, inflation has devalued the dollar by…
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The social significance of the Consolidated Audit Trail
Personal privacy is important. The ability of citizens to communicate and do business with one another – and to do so with some degree of…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Horse race integrity and threatening air cargo
Now that it’s August, agencies began publishing their Spring 2024 Unified Agenda entries for their planned regulations. Economists had a frustrating week, with Kamala…
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Ten Thousand Commandments in the news
The 2024 edition of Wayne Crews’s Ten Thousand Commandments is out now. For those not familiar, the report puts together a big-picture view of…
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Free the Economy podcast: Crypto politics with Eric Peterson
In this week’s episode we cover corporations playing politics, Florida’s ban on lab-grown meat, and a tale of two high-speed rail…
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Scrapping tipping taxes is now a bipartisan issue. Good.
Never let it be said that Democrats think that Donald Trump is always wrong. Vice President Kamala Harris recently endorsed an…
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Consumers can see a net benefit from FCC’s net neutrality rule stall
The saga of broadband regulation is finally taking a positive turn. On August 1st, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of…
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Americans are rejecting EVs despite government meddling
Some policymakers across the country continue to try and get American drivers out of gas-powered cars and into electric vehicles (EVs), using a…
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CEI’s recent victory and principled history
My colleague Devin Watkins wrote about an important court decision last month, and we like to think that an amicus brief CEI provided to that…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Bank hiring and salmonella frameworks
Baseless recession freakouts dominated the news cycle. The just-released 2024 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments got its share of attention as well. Kamala…
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Americans are open to trade
Politicians win elections by telling voters what they want to hear. Right now, both parties think voters are angry about foreign trade. But when you…
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Uncertain grids, growing market: The rise of backup power solutions in the US
In recent years, the generator market has seen remarkable growth, with more consumers opting for backup power solutions than ever before. The US generator sales…
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Free the Economy podcast: Economic trends and subsidies with Andrew Stuttaford
In this week’s episode we cover weaponization of banking rules, the massive cost of federal regulation, and politicized pension fund management.
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The politics of proxy voting and the importance of shareholder representation
As the 2024 election quickly approaches, many Americans consider how their vote will affect political races. While our focus tends to be on the voting…
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Can AI thrive in health care’s HIPAA-shaped box?
Innovation continues to transform health care, enabling us to live longer and healthier lives. And now artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to supercharge that…
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CEI’s The Surge: Loper Bright, nuclear exports, and more
If you are interested in analysis and perspective on current energy and environmental issues, then we encourage you to subscribe to this new publication…
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Congress needs to restore representative government: A new legislative solution
BackgroundThere is significant momentum right now to help restore our nation’s republican form of government and ensure that Congress and not unelected agency officials make…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Closed captioning and toothless blindcats
The new 2024 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out now. The Paris Olympics began. Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro stole another election. Agencies issued…
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EPA: From environmental champion to bureaucratic goliath?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established as a symbol of hope for a cleaner, healthier America. Today, however, it faces critical scrutiny due to…
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Free the Economy podcast: Paying for mass transit with Marc Scribner
In this week’s episode we cover California’s minimum wage for fast-food workers, overturning the FCC’s universal service fee, and pushing back on…
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Jerome Powell risks the Fed’s gains against inflation
The big story from today’s Federal Reserve decision isn’t that interest rates are staying the same. It’s that the dual mandate is back. This…
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The NLRB’s Orwellian ‘Fair Choice – Employee Final Voice Rule’
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that oversees union elections, has a funny idea about what constitutes giving employees an honest say…
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America should emulate South Korea on nuclear energy
A South Korean company, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, just received a $17.3 billion dollar contract to construct two new nuclear power plants for the Czech Republic.
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EU’s Digital Markets Act: An obstruction to AI innovation?
European consumers are being left behind in the AI revolution due to tightened regulations. Apple’s decision to withhold its new AI features from the European…
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2024 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments is out now
The federal government has a spending budget that the public can see. Every year Congress allocates a certain amount of money to each agency, and…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Water heaters and children’s passports
President Biden dropped out of the race, leaving Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely Democratic nominee. The Federal Register topped 60,000 pages and remains…
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Harris’s rent control support clashes with even progressive economists
As one of his last policy initiatives before officially dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, President Joe Biden unveiled a housing plan that included…
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Top-down economic ‘moonshot’ incompatible with bottom-up ideals
In her book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, economist Mariana Mazzucato proposes rebranding the United States’s economy. An advocate behind Biden’s Build…
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Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finds FCC’s universal service fee unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine
Late yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Consumer Research v. FCC that breathes new life into the nondelegation doctrine. This…
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Free the Economy podcast: Dead malls and retail nostalgia with Sal Amadeo
In this week’s episode we cover state-level regulatory reform, the opinions of Latino voters, Biden’s tax on stock buybacks, and another…
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Kamala Harris’s California quid pro quo for unions
Kamala Harris is now the Democrats’ likely nominee to succeed Biden and she may pull the administration’s already pro-union labor policy even further leftwards. A…
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CEI’s The Surge: Carbon taxes, Chevron, nuclear bill becomes law, & more!
If you are interested in analysis and perspective on current energy and environmental issues, then we encourage you to subscribe to this new publication…
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Congress in a post-Chevron world
The House Committee on Administration conducted a regulatory reform hearing today entitled “Congress in a Post-Chevron World.” The title refers to the anticipated sea…
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House Interior and Environment spending bill: Critical provisions and amendments
This week, the House is expected to take up the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 (H.R. 8998). The…
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Generator sales are rising… And there’s good reason
I bought a house earlier this year, and to my absolute delight, it came with a built in 16 kilowatt (kW) generator, plenty of power for…
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Combatting climate anxiety: Yes, it’s okay to have children
The message that the Earth is rapidly decaying has long been evangelized by college professors and other gung-ho Malthusians in the media. It has led…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Blood donors and paper marketing
Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt. The Republicans held their convention in Milwaukee. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was convicted on bribery charges and resigned, leaving…
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NLRB backs down on Joint Employer
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has withdrawn an appeal of a district…
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‘Are you serious? Are you serious?’
Earlier this week, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal recapped former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s famous response when a journalist questioned her about the…
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Free the Economy podcast: Inflation and Bidenomics with Kurt Couchman
In this week’s episode we cover Capital One buying Discover, solutions for high housing prices, China’s soft-power investment strategy, and President…
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Enhancing oversight: GAO’s blueprint for congressional control over agency rulemaking
On July 5, the White House released its biannual regulatory agenda for the executive branch, which highlights agency priorities for the next six months.
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Book review: The War on Prices by Ryan Bourne
I have reached a stage in my career where younger colleagues sometimes ask me for advice. There are a few evergreen pieces of advice I…
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Rent control doesn’t work. Increase housing supply instead.
President Biden will soon announce a proposed 5 percent cap on rent increases. Rent control is one of the most ridiculed economic policies there…
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Union leaders need Trump more than he needs them
Credit where credit is due, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien faced a tricky tightrope walk when he spoke before the Republican National Convention…
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The deregulation maverick
A deregulation wave occurred in the American economic landscape in the late 1970s, particularly in the utility and airlines sectors. This shift was driven by…
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There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially under MMT.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has emerged in recent years as a highly-debated economic concept, challenging traditional views on national debt and money. MMT is a…
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Kansas REINS Act overrides governor’s veto
Advocates for government accountability recently scored a big win with the passage of House Bill 2648 in Kansas. The Regulations from the Executive In…
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How major rules are surging under the Biden administration
We’ve taken a look at the total numbers of significant regulations issued this year in the Biden administration as well as at the subsets…
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This week in ridiculous regulations: Watermelon taxes and crash test dummies
CEI’s home distillery court case had a good week. President Biden had a bad week. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from rotorcraft to desert…
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Energy freedom on the ballot in Washington State
Climate change policies tend to become unpopular as soon as the public realizes the effects such policies will have on them. That certainly is the…