The false alarm concerning the possible resignation of Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. sent shockwaves throughout the blogosphere and media outlets yesterday afternoon. Those of us who respect the Chief’s service to our country and fidelity to the Constitution were relieved when the rumors were false. But this fire drill served as a reminder of the importance of the judiciary in our society—an importance bloated by the Supreme Court’s usurpation of the proper policymaking functions of the other branches of the national government and of the states. The Supreme Court …
Yesterday, Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced legislation that he said would “safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy.” Sounds like a pretty solid policy prescription for an ailing economy. What would his legislation do? …suspend, during the 2-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, any Environmental Protection Agency action under the Clean Air Act with respect to carbon dioxide or methane pursuant to certain proceedings, other than with respect to motor vehicle emissions, and for other purposes. In English, it would prohibit the EPA …
The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC), a UN-aligned pressure group which advocates for U.S. membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), has released an “analysis” of our recent paper, “An Inconvenient Founding: America’s Principles Applied to the ICC”. The paper argues that the Rome Statute and ICC are incompatible not only with U.S. constitutional principles but also with the lessons learned from America’s historical experiences involving the British Vice-Admiralty Courts of the 1700s and the International Slave Trade Tribunals of the 1800s. Instead of responding …
President Obama announced a renewed focus on jobs in his State of the Union address. His budget stated (PDF) “it is critical that we take steps to jump-start job creation”. He’s right, of course. He is also explicitly admitted the failure of last year’s $862 billion “jump-start” stimulus program. On March 4, the House passed yet another admission of failure as it moved a $17.6 billion mini jobs bill built around an ineffective hiring tax credit and highway spending. Why another bill? Because even politicians cannot duck the data forever, such as …
The President has spent the past week trying to convince the American people that he was in search of a bipartisan health care reform. But as yesterday’s speech revealed, the President is not serious about building support for a product that Americans can feel good about. If the President were serious about building bipartisanship, he would scrap the existing proposals and start fresh with the items that both sides can agree to – like letting states take the lead on health reform; tackling that tax treatment of health insurance; getting …
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, took to the floor yesterday to protest an effort led by Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to place a relatively modest cap on discretionary spending. Before raising a budget point of order (which requires 60 votes to overcome), Chairman Inouye made two interesting arguments against the measure. First, he argued that the cap on discretionary spending would allow entitlement programs to continue their unabated growth. The chairman is, of course, correct. However, he is most certainly aware that …
DC lawmakers tried to sugarcoat the five cent per bag tax on store bought items, calling it a fee rather than a tax. The tax has been in effect in the District of Columbia since New Year’s Day. Stories in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other media have reported of widespread disaffection with the tax among people in DC. The lawmakers behind the tax surely do not understand economics. Furthermore, the legalese used to draft the law would provoke laughter if it was not so deserving of …
Last week President Barack Obama hosted a seven-and-a-half-hour televised health care summit. This week the President launched his “final” campaign for passage of his health care plan. Next week, President Obama will travel to Missouri and Pennsylvania to continue this “final” effort to jam his unpopular plan through Congress. With this all-health-care-all-the-time White House agenda it seems like eons ago that the Obama administration announced, following the complete rejection of its health care plan in the Massachusetts Senate special election, that President Obama’s first State of the Union would mark …
Today marks the seventh year that we have published the Index of Dependence on Government. And, for seven years running, our Index shows growing dependence. The Index now stands at 240, up from a value of 19 in 1962, or a nearly 13 fold increase since the Kennedy administration. The rate of growth, however, actually has increased over the last eight years. That period saw the second highest rate of growth in dependency creating programs: since 2001, the Index has increased 31 percent. Most disturbing of all, all of the …
The Department of Education today released the names of the 16 finalists in the competition for federal Race to the Top (RttT) grants. The finalists include the District of Columbia and 15 states: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In all, 40 states had applied for the grants. In March, state leaders will come to Washington to deliver presentations on why their states merit a slice of the $4.35 billion in grants. Winners will be announced …
