The new U.K. coalition government’s strong ongoing support for foreign aid may be one area where it is out of touch with the British electorate. According to a recent poll, the British public identifies foreign aid as one of the top three priorities for spending cuts. Nearly half the respondents indicated that they would like to slash wasteful overseas aid. The late Peter Bauer, one of the greatest development economists of all time and an adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, argued relentlessly against ineffective development aid, noting famously that …
The Gulf states thought they finally caught a break last month when a federal judge struck down the Obama administration’s deep-water oil drilling ban, but it turns out they were wrong. With the federal government holding all the cards, a de facto ban on drilling continues, as does the economic harm to the region. Today, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the lower court decision, with the Obama administration seeking to reinstate the ban and oil companies looking to uphold the …
It often happens that flawed theories put into practice expose their internal inconsistencies for all to see before long. We now see this playing out in the case of Keynesian stimulus and the U.S. economy, and the stimulus defenders are at a loss. By any measure, the Keynesian debt-based stimulus pushed into the economy in recent years has been extraordinary. Typically prescribed in doses of from 1 to 2 percent of the economy, from 2008 to 2009 the federal budget deficit jumped by 6.7 percentage points, yet the unemployment rate …
President Barack Obama recently promised that his Administration will be “going to bat” for U.S. exporters. A look at his specific recommendations suggests that the country would be better off if he stuck to golf. For example, President Obama promised improved access to credit to exporters through the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank), which provides taxpayer-subsidized loans to U.S. exporters. Think of the Ex-Im Bank as Fannie Mae for exporters, with taxpayers holding the bag for bad loans. Critics argue that Ex-Im Bank subsidies violate international trade rules prohibiting “The provision …
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA – I was privileged to be one of six representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) invited by the Office of Military Commissions to observe the guilty plea of Ibrahim al Qosi here in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, yesterday. The other invitees were the ACLU, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ). Each of those organizations have been highly critical of military commissions, denouncing them as unfair, unjust, unnecessary, not in keeping with the rule of law, and not fair compared …
The weaknesses of President Obama’s New START treaty with Russia are finally starting to surface in Washington. On Monday, Mitt Romney weighed in against the treaty in a Washington Post column. The former Massachusetts governor raised concerns previously aired by Amb. John Bolton (in National Review), by the Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Kim Holmes, and — in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — by former undersecretaries of state and defense Bob Joseph and Eric Edelman. Yesterday, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), reacted with a column that, after attacking Romney personally, …
This past April, on the last day of the legislative session, the Hawaii House of Representatives voted 31–20 in favor of HB 444, a controversial measure creating civil unions. This week, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle replied with a veto of the bill. She states, “I have been open and consistent in my opposition to same gender marriage and find that HB 444 is essentially marriage by another name.” In her public statement, Lingle also points out that the last-minute vote by legislators represents a “flawed” legal process: The legislative maneuvering …
The announcement that Cuba’s communist regime intends to free 52 political prisoners over the next few months raises serious questions that require honest answers by the Cuban government and by those anxious to bestow kudos upon Cuban President Raul Castro for these cosmetic and expedient gestures of leniency. How many political prisoners? Prominent U.S. Members of Congress—Ileana Ros Lethenen (R–FL), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R–FL), and Mario Diaz-Balart (R–FL)—warn that, by accepting claims that place the number of Cuban political prisoners at less than 200, the U.S. and the international community are …
Imagine a Congress running in a tough environment—the electorate is angry; a war is going badly; the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high. And imagine such a Congress facing the prospect of passing a nice, pre-election tax cut for all. They’d pass the tax cut faster than Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) can say “Ronald Reagan.” Suppose instead of passing a tax cut, Congress faced the even more compelling prospect of preventing the largest tax hike the middle class has ever seen. Hitting the middle class with tax hikes is a prescription …
