Obamacare has struck again. Last week, 3M announced plans to drop health benefits for retirees, citing the new law’s impact as a contributor in its decision. In 2013, 3M retirees who qualify for Medicare will lose their current employer-sponsored health benefits, and instead receive a health reimbursement account (HRA) with which to buy a Medicare plan. In 2015, this policy will extend to all 3M retirees. Those who do not qualify for Medicare will be able to use their HRA to purchase a health plan in the new federally mandated …
Abner Schoenwetter had been in the commercial seafood business since 1986. Over the years, Schoenwetter built a successful company distributing seafood across the country, including lobster tails imported from overseas. As far as Schoenwetter knew, all of his business transactions were perfectly legal and he had no reason to believe that he or any of his business partners were breaking any laws. But at 7 a.m. one morning in 1999, armed agents from the FBI, IRS and National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) showed up at his south Florida home with …
Last week, the White House announced a new White House White Board video series in which “one of our key players on the White House team will cut through the political back-and-forth you hear every day and break down an issue affecting American families into simple, understandable terms”. Their first video features Austan Goolsbee, the new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, discussing the looming expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts. As you might expect, the video contains a number of distortions and falsehoods that we simply couldn’t ignore. …
On Friday the Kremlin announced that Russia and the U.S. settled all outstanding bilateral issues relating to Russia’s accession to the WTO. “I can say that the United States has removed all the questions regarding Russia joining the WTO,” Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said, assuring the press that Russia will settle all outstanding issues regarding its accession to the global trade organization within four months at the most. Later the same day, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on the phone. According to the White …
President Obama is channeling his inner Jimmy Carter again. In 1979, President Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House, and they were taken down in the Reagan Administration during roof repairs. Today, the White House announced that that Obama Administration will use taxpayer dollars to build solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House in the spring of 2011. It’s an easy decision to make when you’re not the one paying for it. The government’s Energy Information Agency …
Watching Waiting for Superman last week left me exhausted. For too many years, education reformers have fought hard against the very injustices in the education system portrayed in the film. The good news, however, is that this newest declaration against the intolerable conditions of a broken public education system could finally call enough attention to the persistent problems to change things for the children whom we care so deeply about. Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, is interviewed throughout the film. Canada talks about his childhood and how …
No stranger to controversial choices, the Nobel Committee has awarded its 2010 Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Robert Edwards of Cambridge University, who, along with the late Australian Dr. Patrick Steptoe, developed in vitro fertilization. In terms of impact, the award is fitting. In vitro fertilization techniques isolated the earliest stages of embryonic human life from the female body and, since 1978, allowed for the conception and birth of more than 4 million children to infertile couples. The Nobel Committee chose to focus, understandably, on these results. But other …
Last week, European Parliament member Daniel Hannan promoted his new book, The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America, at the Cato Institute. In what he called “a message from the future,” Hannan gave ample warning of what will happen if we do not change our path toward Euro-socialism, but he also provides a note of hope for the American ideal. One never knows what to expect from a man who is known for being a viral video celebrity—unless that man is Daniel Hannan. Ruffling feathers in …
Pakistan’s closure of one of the main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan and the string of attacks on NATO convoys transiting Pakistan over the last few days highlights the vulnerability of the entire coalition mission in Afghanistan to events inside Pakistan. Nearly eighty percent of supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan currently transit Pakistan. There have been several militant attacks on NATO trucks in the past but this is the first time Pakistan has formally closed down one of the border crossings. The border closure demonstrates Islamabad’s furor over …
The media seem intent on convincing Americans that they no longer support free trade. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal, for example, begins “The American public, already skeptical of free trade, is becoming increasingly hostile to it.” The article goes on to report that the results of a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey show that as much as 90 percent of the U.S. public is concerned about outsourcing. Unfortunately, the survey contains leading questions that push responders toward predictable answers. For example, without providing any context, it …
