According to the Financial Times, the leading think-tank Copenhagen Economics will release a study next week showing that “broadband prices could rise by up to one-third if regulators in Europe insist on strict ‘net neutrality’ rules.” The reports warns that letting politicians dictate how internet service providers manage their traffic flows will “pass on the cost of scarcity to all consumers” and significantly increase broadband prices thus depressing broadband demand. Also form FT: A separate report, due out in the next few days from the Centre for European Policy Studies, …
This past Friday the Supreme Court issued an order setting aside a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals order forcing Ohio’s secretary of state Jennifer Brunner to verify the accuracy of the information provided on applications for voter registration. The Ohio Republican Party had sued to force Brunner to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) after widespread reports of voter registration fraud. The Court expressed no opinion on whether Brunner was following HAVA — it threw the case out on the grounds that the Republican party didn’t have …
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin received an “A” from Cato. (Newscom) The Cato Institute released its ninth biennial fiscal report card on the nation’s governors yesterday, and topping the list with “A” grade were Charlie Crist of Florida, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Cato grades the governors based on data from their taxing and spending records. Republican governors, on average, received slightly higher grades than Democratic governors. More importantly, there has been a disappointing lack of major spending reforms among governors of both parties …
This past weekend President Bush announced plans to host an “emergency” summit of world leaders to “overhaul the regulatory framework for global finance.” Bush offered few details on what actual policy fixes would be addressed, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown penned an op-ed in for The Washington Post calling for unprecedented levels of “global governance,” including global standards for accounting and regulation and a “renewal of our international institutions to make them effective early-warning systems for the world economy.” Specifically, Brown wants to enhance the power and authority of …
China announced economic results yesterday. The results are simultaneously good, bad, and completely unbelievable. The good: GDP growth was put at 9% in the third quarter of this year. This would please almost any country in the world at almost any time. For this particular third quarter, the U.S. would be happy with 0.9%. The bad: 9% is down from 10% in the second quarter, itself down from 12% in 2007. There are indications growth is going to slow further. China is striving to create jobs for millions of new …
Following the testimony this morning of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the House Budget Committee turned to three economists for their recommendations. Bill Beach, director of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, outlined his views on crafting a long-term, pro-growth economic policy. Here’s video of his opening statement: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIfVkAL55ck[/youtube]
(Newscom) Barack Obama has claimed he would lower taxes on 95% of workers — even though more than 40% of tax filers don’t even pay taxes. What he says is true, but what it really means is that he is reintroducing a massive increase in the welfare state, costing about $30 billion per year. According to the Center for Data Analysis’ microsimulation modeling, Obama would increase the number of tax filers who receive a check from government without paying any taxes, including payroll taxes — people filing just to receive …
Want a preview of what an Obama Department of Justice would look like? Look no further than Obama for America general counsel Bob Bauer’s letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey last Friday. Bauer wants the special prosecutor investigating the U.S. attorney firings to start investigating John McCain, Sarah Palin and other Republicans such as Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Their crime? Calling on our nation’s law enforcement officers to investigate widespread reports of vote fraud. Bauer writes: As Election Day approaches – just as in 2004 …
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman did some fine work on international trade theory 20 years ago. When he writes about economic policy today, however, he often just gets his facts dead wrong. This past summer Krugman devoted an op-ed to exonerating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their key role in the current financial crisis. We called him out on it at the time. This past Friday, National Journal‘s Stuart Taylor finally got around to noting where Krugman erred: Fannie and Freddie appear to have played a major role in causing …
The facts of this story hardly qualify as news. Everybody knows Big Labor is indistinguishable from the Democratic Party. But the brazenness with which the president of California’s largest Service Employees International Union local used nonprofit staffers to campaign for Democrats is stunning. The Los Angeles Times reports: Six people who worked for either the union or the charity told The Times that [Tyrone Freeman], and others at the labor organization acting on his behalf, ordered the nonprofit’s staffers to join partisan get-out-the-vote drives and other campaign efforts during and …
