The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a $1 trillion package of agriculture subsidies and welfare benefits that exemplifies warped federal policy. Within its 575 pages, the proposed Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act includes massive spending on food stamps, a bumper crop of insurance subsidies, and …
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, earlier this month an official from the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC) warned that many activities at USDOC—such as the activities of the USDOC’s International Trade Administration (ITA) and the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service—will have to be scaled back due to …
If the Obama Administration is looking for places to make sequestration cuts, it can start with the Economic Development Administration (EDA). In late August 1965, less than a month after terrible riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Congress passed and President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed a bill establishing …
It would be funny if it all wasn’t so tragic. According to The Washington Post, an agency in the Department of Commerce was so ravaged by a malicious virus that its entire information technology infrastructure, from desktop computers to hand-held cell phones, had to be shut down. Ironic. The Department …
A federal court this week barred the simultaneous application of anti-dumping and countervailing duties to imports from China, a practice begun by the Department of Commerce in 2007. Commerce has rightly classified China a “non-market economy” for purposes of applying anti-dumping duties against goods sold in the U.S. at below-market …
The House Rules Committee advanced three proposals Wednesday that may help curb a growing problem for the nation’s economy: stagnant job growth in the technology sector. The three pending free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and Korea are up for full House approval next week. Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch …
The U.S. Commerce Department today announced that the trade deficit for April was $43.7 billion. This number is misleading because it implies a “deficit” in terms of dollars leaving the country, which is not the case. For example, the trade deficit numbers do not include the billions of dollars foreigners …
On February 11, the U.S. Department of Commerce will release our country’s 2010 trade statistics. The following three principles will help in understanding what the numbers mean: Unlike the U.S. budget deficit, the size of the trade deficit does not matter. The trade deficit results from people in other countries …
