The aftermath of the unintended acceleration hearings involving Toyota is moving to the front burner again as lawmakers are proposing legislation that would increase auto safety regulations to address all potential sources of unintended acceleration. The bill would also increase the budget of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as well increase the maximum financial penalty Congress could impose on an automaker. Draft legislation titled The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010 has been introduced in the House by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.). …
The president’s debt commission had its first meeting this week, and all of the talk was of getting serious about putting our fiscal house in order, with everything “on the table” for consideration. There’s no arguing with the need to get serious. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the Obama budget were adopted in full, just the interest on the national debt would exceed $900 billion in 2020 and consume one out of every five dollars in federal revenue. To put that in perspective, in 2007, before the …
Although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has found little time to reciprocate the Obama Administration’s diplomatic engagement efforts, he apparently is eager to engage an international audience at a U.N. forum next week. He is planning to travel to New York City on Monday to address the U.N. conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is the same treaty that Iran is subverting by exploiting loopholes to advance its nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejad’s appearance will be a major embarrassment for the U.N., which has failed to take decisive action to pressure …
The president has signed the START Treaty with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev but the Senate still has to ratify the treaty before it means something. Heritage has laid out all the problems of the treaty in a new paper. Here are some of the “highlights”, or “lowlights”, of the current treaty. The Administration claimed that there would be a 30% reduction in strategic Warheads is not true. The Administration likes to point out that Russia will be limited to 1,550 warheads, but, according to the treaty, they can have 2,100. …
Obamacare aims to insure the uninsured. To do that, the law bars insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions—but not until 2014. In the meantime, the law calls for a national high-risk pool to offer coverage to the otherwise “uninsurable.” Under the new law, an important deadline looms. By Friday, states must declare whether they will help implement the new risk-pools for their citizens, or if they’ll just let the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services do it for them.
There might be 14,000 things to be happy about, but there is one less reason in Santa Clara County, California: the government there voted to ban toys in Happy Meals. Toys that come in those delightfully colored boxes filled cheeseburgers and fries that have brought joy to millions of children will go the way of bottled water and salt, trans fat and soda pop, all of which have fallen victim to regulation-happy local governments. The reason? No, it’s not because the toys are unsafe. It’s not because they’re filled with …
In a very rare visit to the press cabin of Air Force One yesterday, President Barack Obama told reporters that the White House will not be leading any immigration reform efforts in 2010. Obama said: “…I’ve been working Congress pretty hard. So I know, there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue.” Obama went on to assert that energy taxes were a higher priority, and that the election in November would make tackling immigration tough. Apparently, Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t heed the President’s advice. …
H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act, contains language that will rig the election in favor of Puerto Rican statehood. I have written a more comprehensive post titled “Puerto Rico Democracy Act – Legislation Biased in Favor of Statehood” on why this legislation is biased in favor of statehood. The Senate is the next stop for this legislation, and it will be interesting to see if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tries to bring up the bill this year. One important point of contention is the fact that this …
“If you like your current health coverage, you can keep it.” It was a key promise of Obamacare. But the new law gives government a say in everything from the benefits you carry to the treatment you receive. And that means very real changes to existing coverage. One of those many changes derive from new restrictions on flexible spending accounts (FSAs). FSAs allow users to put aside pre-tax dollars for out-of-pocket health expenditures such as co-pays, deductibles, eyeglasses, and dental work. Typically, it cuts out-of-pocket costs by around 20 percent. …
According to Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve and a senior economic advisor to President Obama, an European-style Value Added Tax (VAT) would be a good idea for the United States but is too unpopular to be under consideration “now or for the indefinite future.” On the one hand, Mr. Volcker’s public acknowledgment of the VAT’s unpopularity shows he is a MOTO – a master of the obvious. Even this early in the debate, 85 United States Senators stood up on April 15 to oppose a VAT. On …
