Leaders of the liberal majorities in the House and Senate yesterday tried to claim they had completed a deal with the White House to address the Wall Street crisis. From the beginning, leaders on the left have both demanded the White House deliver conservative votes for any deal and then refused to include any conservatives in the negotiations. After yesterday, the leadership on the left now knows it will have to work with conservatives to get a compromise done. If the left is serious about preventing a credit lockdown that threatens …
Democrats on Capitol Hill are claiming they have reached a deal with President Bush on a plan to cleanse the financial system of bad housing-related assets. So far, it doesn’t seem as though any conservatives have signed on. As lawmakers debate the merits of the sketchy plan, we have identified elements that any financial cleanup plan must have to win conservative support: Provide sufficient market liquidity to comprehensively resolve the financial situation. The nation faces a fast-spreading financial contagion and the risk threatens the economic security of Americans outside the …
Everyone wants a piece of the nuclear action. The people want nuclear power; a poll a few months back reported that 2 out of 3 Americans favor building new nuclear plants in the U.S. Recognizing the long-term benefits nuclear can provide, many companies are chomping at the bit to provide nuclear for them. For instance, Electricite de France (EDF) bid to purchase Constellation Energy, a major player in the nuclear market, which was nearly $10 more a share than the next highest bidder, Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy. Yes, the upfront …
To hear leftist politicians and their media allies tell it, the current financial turmoil was directly caused by deregulations carried out in just the past eight years under President Bush. Barack Obama aide Austan Goolsbee told Politico: “The core issue is pretty easy to understand. We’ve just spent the last eight years operating on the premise that the government shouldn’t be in the business of setting the rules of the road.” Problem is Goolsbee just has his facts wrong. George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen explains: There is a misconception …
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga looks at a new Development Counsellors International survey of corporate executives and notes: More than four in ten of [the CEOs] have ranked New York as the worst state to do business in–second only to California in unfavorable mentions. The most common gripes included high taxes and anti-business regulations. Joining New York and California on the list of most unpopular states were New Jersey, Michigan and Massachusetts. The DCI study, coming as it did amidst growing talk of state fiscal crises around the country, …
Bob gets up for work and promptly leaves his apartment complex at 8:00 a.m. It’s an important day for Bob; he’s flying to Chicago to take an important client out to dinner. But as he’s leaving, he notices a handful of men inspecting his apartment complex. Puzzled and a bit concerned, he moves in for a closer look: It’s the Environmental Protection Agency. Shrugging it off, he stops by work to pick up his briefcase and notices more EPA officials trolling around his office building. Not wanting to miss his …
Reps. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) have called out the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for not properly enforcing the Clean Water Act, and have demanded “the agency provide Congress with information about its enforcement process.” This is in response to an internal letter from the EPA that claimed it was more difficult to enforce The Clean Water Act since the 2006 ruling in Rapanos v. United States. The decision was a favorable one for those that object to excessive and burdensome federal regulations. The Pacific Legal Foundation, who …
A few weeks back Heritage hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill to discuss the economics of building new nuclear power plants in the United States. The briefing featured Michael Metzner, senior vice president and treasurer for Exelon Corp., and Caren Byrd, executive director of Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division. Metzner asserted that the economics “have never been stronger” for nuclear power, but also commented that it would cost between $6 billion and $8 billion to build a new plant, quite a large investment for a firm to make. Byrd noted …
Can we tax, spend, and regulate our way to prosperity? Some say we can—if the taxing, spending, and regulating help fight global warming. North Carolina’s legislators are considering a package of 56 proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The proposals include such things as mandates on consumer appliances, energy-efficiency requirements for government buildings, subsidies for buying energy from renewable sources, subsidies for investment in renewable-energy technologies, mandating pay-as-you drive insurance, restricting the hours of operation of heavy trucks and buses, mandates for recycling electricity, rationing energy use by businesses (via …
Here’s a preview of the week ahead in Washington. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an2ZGW85Ad0[/youtube] Recent troubles with the financial and housing markets have lead to proposed action by Congress to help distressed homeowners and to find a government solution to the Bear Stearns collapse. Massive new billion-dollar handouts to aid homeowners and utilizing sweeping new power for the Federal Reserve will do nothing to change the fact that our economy is in a slowdown. Why doesn’t Congress reduce regulation, reduce taxes and allow for more domestic drilling for oil to lower energy prices? These …
