The White House Council of of Economic Advisors is set to release a report this morning showing that slowing the growth of health care spending from 6% a year to 4.5% a year could create 500,000 jobs a year and increase the income of the typical American family of four by $2,600 by 2020. CEA Chair Christina Romer told The Hill yesterday: “If we don’t do this, we’re going to be facing a huge mess in 30 years. The nightmare scenario is getting closer.” She’s half right. Doing nothing about …
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has truly outdone himself this time. He has managed to identify a single piece of legislation passed by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 that single handily brought down the entire world economy a mere 25 years plus later. AEI’s Peter Wallison sets the record straight: The Garn-St. Germain Act was an effort to save the S&L industry from the consequences of government regulation. During the inflation of the late 1970s (note to Krugman: thanks in part to the policies of Ronald Reagan’s political opponents) …
This week the House is set to debate the “Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009” which would provide 4 weeks of PAID leave to federal government workers. At a time when public sector employees are already seeing their wages rise while private sector workers deal with the recession, bill sponsor Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has the audacity to claim that the bill is revenue neutral. That claim inspired CNN to dub her the “Wingnut of the Week.” Watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BJBNEgrHjg[/youtube]
In three words: Everything and nothing. Megan McCardle has more: GM’s main problem is not that the market is unreasonably unwilling to finance a potentially profitable company. Nor that it can’t produce an awesome small car that shockingly few people want to buy. (Believe me, as the owner of a tiny, ultra-efficient car, I would that there were higher demand for my rapidly depreciating asset). GM’s main problems are 1) A terrible, bloated cost structure 2) A terrible, bloated bureaucracy 3) A bunch of meh car lines
Will the new majority owner of General Motors — the United States Government — take an active role in managing the firm as it struggles for viability? In a statement earlier today, President Obama insisted that the government wouldn’t impose it’s own political agenda on GM. “What we are not doing, what I have no interest in doing, is running GM,” he declared. Calling the government a “reluctant shareholder”, he declared that “GM will be run by a private board of directors and management team with a track record in …
It’s summer and that means gas prices are creeping up and although projections indicate we’re not headed toward $4-a-gallon gas; last summer was a fresh reminder of just how quickly gas prices can skyrocket. Despite America’s overwhelming public support for more drilling, the White House has put many drilling projects on hold. While the oil wouldn’t be commercially available for years, the time to get started is now, and there may be far more oil in Alaska and immediately off its shore than previously thought. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDDO_w3DtsU [/youtube]
Last month when the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked up the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill we detailed how the legislation would inflict heavy costs on Ameircan consumers for absolutely zero environmental gain. Harvard University professor of economics Martin Feldstein has analyzed the bill and reached the exact same conclusion: The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction — slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target — would raise the cost of living of a typical household …
The following is the prepared text of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s June 1, 2009 speech at the United States Navy Memorial: Thank you, Senator Talent, for your very kind introduction. Ed, it is always a pleasure to be with my many friends at the Heritage Foundation, and it’s an honor to give the first of the series of speeches Heritage will sponsor as part of its Protect America Month. I owe Heritage a great debt of gratitude. When I served as governor, I drew extensively on the research and …
Last week we detailed the absurdity of the Obama administration’s claims that they could control health care costs by ADDING millions of America into government run health care. This Sunday, the New America Foundation’s Maya MacGuineas also attacked Obama’s Health Reform’s Savings Myth: “Health-care reform is entitlement reform” has become a mantra of the Obama administration. The idea is that Congress can add a massive health-care program this year — covering the uninsured — and use the same measures that pay for the health reform to fix the broader budget …
At midday today, President Barack Obama will announce details of his administration’s $30.1 billion plan to restructure General Motors. Despite claiming that the administration “will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations” it is instructive that this announcement is being made by the President, from the White House, and not by the company’s CEO from either the company’s Detroit headquarters or the New York bankruptcy court. Since March of this year when the White House rejected GM’s restructuring plan, their interventionist actions have spoken much louder than …
