“Competitive Enterprise Institute” on The Daily Caller

The Lady Gaga phenomenon conquered the Today Show this morning, with what must have been the largest crowd they’ve had in their summer concert series. (more)

For decades, government employees at every level have received steadily increasing compensation—including salary, pensions, and health care benefits—thanks to the political clout of public employee unions. Yet that era may be coming to a close. Years of profligacy have led to the vast majority of public pensions now being significantly underfunded. State and local governments can no longer avoid the problem. For that reason, 2010 may be remembered as a turning point for government employee compensation. (more)

Most Americans accept, grudgingly, their government’s heavy subsidy of American farmers. But few know that the U.S. government may soon subsidize Brazilian farmers as well. On June 17, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office formally agreed to pay Brazil almost $150 million a year in “technical assistance” to compensate for the damage our cotton subsidy program has done to Brazilian agriculture. (more)

Today marks the five-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s notorious Kelo v. New London decision. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court held that seizing private property in order to lease it to a private developer met the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause—“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”—“public use” requirement. Huh? (more)

Last week, the Obama administration confirmed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will file a lawsuit to challenge Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070 before it becomes law in late July. But regardless of its constitutionality, SB 1070 will have bad consequences for Arizona. The majority of this law is about punishing businesses during a slow economy and will unintentionally increase crime. (more)

Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill “have come from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that … possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration wouldn’t accept the help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions. (more)

Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s failure to win his state’s Democratic nomination was a crushing defeat for organized labor, which went all-out in supporting Halter in order to punish incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln for her failure to support the unions’ top legislative priority, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which was unpopular in her fairly conservative state. (more)

BP, which is responsible for the terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has a safety record infinitely worse than other oil companies, which make safety a priority in drilling for oil. ABC News reports that “BP ran up 760 ‘egregious, willful’ safety violations, while Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had eight, Citgo had two and Exxon had one comparable citation.” Exxon, the oil company most critical of global warming hysteria, had the best safety record. BP’s record is so bad that it has been described as a “serial environmental criminal.” (more)

The Supreme Court has just held that violent juveniles cannot be given a life sentence without the opportunity for parole, unless they succeed in killing their victim. Even torturers and rapists who attempt to commit murder cannot be denied the opportunity for release under the court’s decision Monday in Graham v. Florida. (more)

On May 5, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-WV) announced that he was “committed” to passing a bill to re-regulate railroads by the end of the year. Such a bill would reduce the railroads’ ability to charge market rates for their services and reverse one of the most successful deregulatory initiatives of the past 40 years. At a time when railroads are just about beginning to become viable again, this would be a major blow to this vital transport industry. (more)

In a party-line, 56-to-43 vote Tuesday, Senate Democrats blocked any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the corrupt, government-backed mortgage giants that even administration officials admit were at the “core” of “what went wrong” in the financial crisis. (more)

In the loud echoing outcry for net neutrality regulation over the years, there has always remained some voice of reason even if it was a low murmur. That voice has remained constant and consistent in its concerns regarding the infrastructure market. As the drum beats have grown louder in the recent months for regulation, examples of concerns over stifled investment in broadband infrastructure have increased: (more)

General Motors’ willingness to publicly display their penchant for image over sound business practices should surprise no one. This is, after all, a company who was cozy enough with the White House to avoid bankruptcy by performing their part in the play perfectly: as the embattled company saved and redeemed by government bailout. (more)

General Motors’ false advertising that it has paid back its bailout money “in full” has prompted harsh criticism. Yesterday, Competitive Enterprise Institute Attorneys Hans Bader and Sam Kazman filed a complaint asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate these claims, noting “GM has only repaid a fraction of those funds—barely ten percent, and “moreover, GM apparently repaid its loan by using other federal funds [emphasis in original]” (more)

Federal regulations cover everything from the size of holes in Swiss cheese to the label text on over-the-counter flatulence medication. There are so many rules, it takes 157,000 pages to list them all. And they cost us $1.187 trillion, according to “Ten Thousand Commandments,” a new study from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. (more)

President Obama’s tax-cheat treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, is trumpeting the fact that General Motors has paid back a small fraction of what taxpayers gave the company, noting that “GM had repaid in full the $4.7 billion balance it owed under the government’s Trouble Asset Relief Program.” “But this so-called ‘repayment’ was just an accounting trick. GM used government bailout money to make the ‘repayment,’ as the New York Times has noted.” (more)

“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of” them to pay for ObamaCare. They will have to spend countless hours to “gather information,” such as about the person they buy a used car from, and the mom-and-pop landlords who lease space to them, even if the small business has to spend more money gathering the information than the IRS will collect in taxes as a result.  (The new health care law will raise far more revenue by taking away medical-tax deductions of “15 million very sick people” with “major medical expenses” starting in 2013.) (more)

It makes sense to set aside a day to celebrate our planet.  Unfortunately, that is not what Earth Day is about.  Instead, it is a day to celebrate public policies that have had disastrous consequences—both for humanity and for the environment.  If we want to celebrate the environment and humanity, then let’s celebrate Free Market Earth Day and promote the principles of Free Market Environmentalism (FME). (more)

Happy Earth Day. (more)

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 future entitlement spending in the tens of trillions of dollars has put the government’s AAA bond rating in jeopardy, so borrowing all that money could be an expensive proposition. That means a tax hike is coming. (more)