A District of Columbia city council member is calling on the city’s taxicab commission to allow competition to its “mediocre and unreliable” taxi services in the wake of a sting operation aimed at shutting down an innovative car service that officials say violates a number of city laws. If current law prohibits such competition, stated Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), the law should be amended to allow for “improve[d] transportation options for residents and visitors alike.” Cheh’s statement comes days after city officials conducted a sting operation on Uber, an …
Innovation and market disruption can be powerful forces for economic growth. But government involvement in the market tends to be a force against disruption, and hence a force against innovation. The drive to protect the dominant companies – often justified in the name of job preservation — prevents success for companies that offer better, cheaper, or different products or services. The European Union received a frank lesson in these economic truths when it brought Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary to speak at its recent innovation convention. In a rousing and thoroughly …
Silicon Valley is one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy today, but a new report warns that Washington’s outdated regulation and antitrust policy threatens to stifle growth among innovative technology companies. The report, produced by the Progressive Policy Institute, analyzes the impact of acquisitions in the technology sector. It concludes that acquisitions lead to economic growth and job creation. There’s just one problem: Washington bureaucracy. The federal government’s process of approving acquisitions — a problem well-documented by Heritage’s James Gattuso — can slow down innovation, hamper growth …
One-size-fits-all usually ends up meaning “one-size-fits-few.” And there is no exception when it comes to education. That was the message sent during a hearing held last week by the House Education and Workforce Committee: The federal government needs to step back and give states and schools more flexibility. During last Thursday’s hearing, “Education Reforms: Promoting Flexibility and Innovation,” witnesses testified of the importance of allowing schools to set their own course instead of being forced to comply with rigid demands set forth by Washington.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama used innovation as one of the key words in elaborating his vision for America’s economic future. He embraced the word quite often during his speech, mentioning “innovation” eight times. If other variations of the word, such as innovate and innovative, are counted, that increases the total to 10. Other primary words he used included jobs (12 times) and world (nine times). Obviously, the President was eager to talk about innovation and set the tone by saying, “The first step in winning …
In August 2005, The New York Times Magazine published an article titled “The Breaking Point” in which Council on Foreign Relations member Matthew Simmons predicted that oil, then about $65 a barrel, would more than triple in price by 2010. New York Times journalist John Tierney read the article, called Simmons up, and eventually bet Simmons $5,000 that the average price of oil over the course of 2010 would be at least $200 a barrel in 2005 dollars. As of January 1st, Tierney will have won. Yesterday, he explained why …
For Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, President Obama and the White House released a video praising Americans for our environmental awareness, and urging us to get personally involved with improving our local environments. The president’s message of individual responsibility is commendable but his message that we’ll spend and regulate our way to a clean energy economy is troubling. “It’s clear change won’t come from Washington alone,” the president said in his message. The reality is that most productive change comes from outside Washington. The government is good at obstructing that progress …
In a recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC news, a majority of Americans expressed their frustration with the approach our government has taken in response to the financial crisis and economic slowdown. Just 43 percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with how President Obama has handled the economy, a decline of 13 percentage points from a year ago. The disapproval vividly reflects disappointment toward economic policy decisions and management over the past year. As the downward-trending poll numbers suggest, a majority of our fellow citizens are not comfortable …
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner’s message, written five years ago, is still very much relevant today: Almost all the settlers who arrived here hundreds of years ago were subsistence farmers. They cleared hundreds of millions of acres of trees. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, “A single household could consume 20 to 40 cords of wood annually.” Economic growth changed all that. First, we progressed from wood to coal. This allowed us to begin replacing millions of trees. Plus, coal was more efficient and easier to …
This could bring a whole new meaning to the “Not in My Back Yard” argument. Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. is looking to commercialize small, nuclear reactors for remote locations as soon as 2013. The reactors, developed at the reputable Las Alamos National Laboratory, are the size of a hot tub and buried under ground; it is impossible for them to melt down or be broken down into weapons. Furthermore, the amount of nuclear waste one of these reactors produces after about 5 years is about the size of a softball …
