22 September 2009

22 September 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

9/12 March on Washington [The Club for Growth]

Emily’s List Case Frees Up Some Speech [The Club for Growth]

SEP 21, 2009 05:51P.M. Here’s Tom and Kathy Coulter from Minneapolis, at the 9/12 March on Washington. They’ve been loyal Club members since 2002.

SEP 21, 2009 05:36P.M. When I blogged Friday about the important Appeals Court decision in the Emily’s List case, I said at the time that I didn’t see anything in it that could affect the Club. Since I only skimmed the decision, I missed something quite important that could affect the Club. The Court threw out the solicitation regulations. These incredibly vague regulations really chilled speech, and we are glad to see them go. Now before anyone gets too excited about this, it is not yet possible. First, the government may well appeal the case. They could win, though I doubt it. However, if they do, then any more liberated speech made between now and then would still be illegal in the view of the FEC. Second, if the FEC appeals and loses, the agency may well try to write new rules that are as restrictive as they possibly can make them. Let’s hope the ruling stands. Here is the key part of the opinion on this issue, from page 29: [T]he regulations create a new regime for solicitations indicating that donated funds will be used to support or oppose the election of a clearly identified federal candidate. The regulations require that donations in response to such solicitations be treated as 100% hard money. This means that donations in response to such solicitations are subject to a $5000 cap. If a solicitation also refers to a state or local candidate, at least 50% of the responsive donations must go to the hard-money account. This provision is badly flawed. Non-profits are entitled to raise money for their soft-money accounts to help support their preferred candidates, yet this regulation prohibits non-profits from saying as much in their solicitations. “Such notions run afoul of the fundamental rule of protection under the First Amendment, that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message.”

1

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

22 September 2009

consumers and technologists how to run the Internet. The FCC’s “net neutrality” plans are nothing more than public utility regulation for broadband. With federal regulation, your online experience will be a little more like dealing with the water company or the electric company and a little less like . . . well, the Internet!

Large Majority of Doctors Disapprove of Health Care Overhaul [Americans for Tax Reform]

As Julian said, Tim Lee’s is the definitive paper. The Internet is far more durable than regulators and advocates imagine. And regulators are far less capable of neutrally arbitrating what’s in the public interests than

SEP 21, 2009 05:33P.M.

they imagine either.

Since the beginning of the recent health care reform fiasco, the White House has attempted to make Americans believe that a large majority of doctors are proponents of Obama’s proposed health ca...

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Obama Transparency Update II [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 04:51P.M.

Preemptive Regulation of the Internet [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 05:06P.M.

An editorial in the New York Times the other day reminded me that it’s a good time for another look at the Obama administration’s record on transparency.

Julian Sanchez has already done a fine job of assessing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s speech announcing his plan for federal regulation of the Internet. There was nothing really new in it. No substantial problems justifying regulation have emerged, and—Genachowski’s claims to modest aims aside—any ‘net neutrality regulation is likely to be a substantive morass. Says Julian:

The editorial lauded a new White Policy of disclosure for the Secret Service’s logs of White House visits, naming the visitor, who set up the meeting, where it was held, and how long it lasted. The Times gushed: “[T]he administration is well on course to be the most open in modern times, with such earlier initiatives as the online Data.gov to allow citizen access to huge amounts of federal agency information.”

[I]t absolutely reeks of the sort of ad hoc ‘I know it when I see it’ standard that leaves telecoms wondering whether some innovative practice will bring down the Wrath of Comms only after resources have been sunk into rolling it out.”

These things are good—and the White House certainly means well—but I’m a little less enthusiastic, and I think the Times set the bar at the wrong height: A ham sandwich is more transparent than recent administrations. Candidate Obama made some firm commitments about transparency that are better for gauging his performance.

If the FCC goes ahead with regulating the Internet, the public will get a good look at what closed systems are really like. The FCC’s retrograde “Electronic Comment Filing System” doesn’t even allow full-text searches of submissions. This is but one failing the Internet’s engineers all over the country—and not just in big telcos—will run into dealing with the FCC. It’s laughable that this outdated telecommunications bureaucracy is trying to take over the Internet.

Disclosure of White House visitor logs is a small step forward, but I agree with the Times that a three to four month delay in revealing visits is too long. Much of this information is computerized at the White House and could be revealed in real time or within 24 hours. Also, visits that are not revealed for security or diplomatic reasons should be noted as such so that the quantity of such visits can be tracked over time and misuse of this secrecy ferreted out.

A complex array of network protocols and business processes make up “the Internet.” The Internet’s end-to-end architecture is good engineering because it is naturally open, flexible, and conducive to communications freedom. The Internet empowers consumers to fend for themselves, such as in their dealings with Internet Service Providers. When Comcast degraded the Bitorrent protocol, it took just weeks for consumer pushback to end the practice. The FCC opened an inquiry long after the matter was settled.

It’s also slightly ironic to see the Times sing President Obama’s transparency praises while the White House flouts a transparency commitment made to the paper back in June. For a story called “White House Changes the Terms of a Campaign Pledge About Posting Bills Online,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told New York Times reporter Katherine Seelye, “[O]nce it is clear that a bill will be coming to the president’s desk, the White House will post the bill online.” It hadn’t happened yet when I wrote about it in July, and it still hasn’t happened, even though 22 more bills have passed into law since then.

But some politicians and the FCC’s lawyers think their slow-moving, technologically unsophisticated bureaucracy knows better than

2

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

Below the jump is an updated ”Sunlight Before Signing” chart, reflecting all the bills President Obama has signed to date. Still only one (of sixtyone bills) has been posted on Whitehouse.gov for five days before signing. (That’s a .016 average, baseball fans.)

22 September 2009

3/6/2009 No P.L. 111-9, To extend certain immigration programs 3/18/2009 3/20/2009 No No No P.L. 111-10, To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes 3/19/2009 3/20/2009 No No No P.L. 111-11, The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 3/30/2009 3/30/2009 No 3/30/2009 No P.L. 111-12, The Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2009 3/24/2009 3/30/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-13, The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act 4/20/2009 4/21/2009 No No No P.L. 111-14, To designate the United States courthouse under construction at 327 South Church Street, Rockford, Illinois, as the “Stanley J. Roszkowski United States Courthouse” 4/14/2009 4/23/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-15, The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act of 2009 4/14/2009 4/24/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-16, The Statutory TimePeriods Technical Amendments Act of 2009 4/30/2009 5/7/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-17, A joint resolution providing for the appointment of David M. Rubenstein as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution 4/28/2009 5/7/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-18, A bill to repeal section 10(f) of Public Law 93-531, commonly known as the “Bennett Freeze” 4/28/2009 5/8/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-19, The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 4/30/2009 5/12/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-20, The Protecting Incentives for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs Act of 2009 5/5/2009 5/15/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-21, The FERA 5/19/2009 5/20/2009 No No No P.L. 111-22, The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 5/20/2009 5/22/2009 No No No P.L. 111-23, The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 5/21/2009 5/22/2009 No 5/14/2009 No P.L. 111-24, The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 5/20/2009 5/22/2009 No 5/14/2009 No P.L. 111-25, The Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act 5/21/2009 6/2/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-26, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12877 Broad Street in Sparta, Georgia, as the “Yvonne Ingram-Ephraim Post Office Building” 6/9/2009 6/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-27, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 300 East 3rd Street in Jamestown, New York, as the “Stan Lundine Post Office Building” 6/9/2009 6/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-28, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 103 West Main Street in McLain, Mississippi, as the “Major Ed W. Freeman Post Office” 6/9/2009 6/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-29, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3245 Latta Road in Rochester, New York, as the “Brian K. Schramm Post Office Building” 6/9/2009 6/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-30, The Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004 Extension Act 6/19/2009 6/19/2009 No No No P.L. 111-31, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act 6/16/2009 6/22/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-32, The Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009 6/19/2009 6/24/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-33, The Native American Heritage Day Act of 2009 6/16/2009 6/26/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-34, To designate the Federal building and United States courthouse located at 306 East Main Street in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, as the “J. Herbert W. Small Federal Building and United States Courthouse” 6/19/2009 6/30/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-35, To designate the Federal building located at 799 United Nations Plaza in New York, New York, as the “Ronald H. Brown United States Mission to the United Nations Building” 6/19/2009 6/30/2009

The DTV Delay Act was online for five days after final passage in Congress, though not formal presentment to the president, but I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt to count it as a win. I’ve amended the chart to highlight an interesting thing: Two-thirds of the time (41 of 61), the White House has held bills for five days or more before President Obama has signed them. The only thing keeping him from fulfilling his promise as to these bills is the simple failure to post them on Whitehouse.gov. It’s hard to understand why the White House is not taking this easy step. The “Presidential Actions” page seems like a good place for it. On measurable commitments, we have seen weakness, but, as I say, the White House certainly means well. This was confirmed for me again last week when Cass Sunstein, the new administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, invited a small group of transparency advocates including myself in for a meeting. We highlighted many angles of the transparency issue to him, mine being earmarks. During the campaign, now-President Obama said, “[W]e will put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel project online for every American to see. You will know who asked for them and you can decide whether your representative is actually representing you.” Since then, it has been WashingtonWatch.com, not the White House, tracking and disclosing earmarks. But an OMB representative told Federal Computer Week in August that it would begin tracking and disclosing congressional earmarks from the request stage in the next budget cycle. I passed a copy of the FCW article to Sunstein and some of the OIRA staff members who joined us at the meeting. I’m hopeful that they will follow through on this commitment. I’m looking forward to reporting tangible results to go along with the good intentions flowing from the White House! Public Law Date Presented Date Signed Five Days? Posted (Linked)? Posted Five Days? P.L. 111-2, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 1/28/2009 1/29/2009 No 1/29/2009 No P.L. 111-3, The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 2/4/2009 2/4/2009 No 2/1/2009 No P.L. 111-4, The DTV Delay Act 2/9/2009 2/11/2009 No 2/5/2009 Yes and No P.L. 111-5, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 2/16/2009 2/17/2009 No 2/13/2009 No P.L. 111-6, Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2009, and for other purposes 3/6/2009 3/6/2009 No No No P.L. 111-7, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2105 East Cook Street in Springfield, Illinois, as the “Colonel John H. Wilson, Jr. Post Office Building” 2/26/09 3/9/2009 Yes No No P.L. 1118, The Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009 3/11/2009 3/11/2009 No

3

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

Yes No No P.L. 111-36, The Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009 6/19/2009 6/30/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-37, The Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2009 6/25/2009 6/30/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-38, A bill to provide additional personnel authorities for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction 6/24/2009 6/30/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-39, To make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes 6/26/2009 7/1/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-40, A bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (”WASP”) 6/24/2009 7/1/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-41, The Korean War Veterans Recognition Act 7/27/2009 7/27/2009 No No No P.L. 111-42, Approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, and for other purposes 7/27/2009 7/28/2009 No No No P.L. 111-43, A bill to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes 7/30/2009 7/31/2009 No No No P.L. 111-44, The New Frontier Congressional Gold Medal Act 7/27/2009 8/7/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-45, To authorize the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to use funds made available under the Trademark Act of 1946 for patent operations in order to avoid furloughs and reductionsin-force, and for other purposes 7/27/2009 8/7/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-46, To restore sums to the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes 8/4/2009 8/7/2009 No No No P.L. 111-47, Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2009 for the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Program 8/6/2009 8/7/2009 No No No P.L. 111-48, The Miami Dade College Land Conveyance Act 7/31/2009 8/12/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-49, The Judicial Survivors Protection Act of 2009 8/3/2009 8/12/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-50, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 46-02 21st Street in Long Island City, New York, as the “Geraldine Ferraro Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-51, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 601 8th Street in Freedom, Pennsylvania, as the “John Scott Challis, Jr. Post Office” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-52, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2351 West Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach, Florida, as the “Elijah Pat Larkins Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-53, The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2009 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-54, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 41 Purdy Avenue in Rye, New York, as the “Caroline O’Day Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 11155, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 431 State Street in Ogdensburg, New York, as the “Frederic Remington Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-56, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 123 11th Avenue South in Nampa, Idaho, as the “Herbert A Littleton Postal Station” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-57, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1300 Matamoros Street in Laredo, Texas, as the “Laredo Veterans Post Office” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-58, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 702 East University Avenue in Georgetown, Texas, as the “Kyle G. West Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-59, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 19190 Cochran Boulevard

22 September 2009

FRNT in Port Charlotte, Florida, as the “Lieutenant Commander Roy H. Boehm Post Office Building” 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 11160, To extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-61, Recognizing the service, sacrifice, honor, and professionalism of the Noncommissioned Officers of the United States Army 8/11/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No P.L. 111-62, A joint resolution granting the consent and approval of Congress to amendments made by the State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of Columbia to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact 8/7/2009 8/19/2009 Yes No No

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Monday Links [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 04:41P.M. • The health care plan now being debated in Congress is not reform. It’s an insurance-company bailout–and you’re going to paying for it. • The true cost of financial regulation: “A detailed anatomy of the bubble shows that many of the policies and regulations meant to reduce financial risk actually increased it.” • A great prep for the upcoming G-20 meeting: Here’s a quick crash course in global economics. • Government: “Hey, let’s start meddling in the Internet business.” A better idea: Preserve net neutrality without regulation. Here’s how. • Podcast: Do certain climate change policies threaten global commerce? More here.

4

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

22 September 2009

Cato senior fellow and University of Georgia economist George Selgin agrees with Sumner that “tight money was the proximate cause of the post-September 2008 recession” and that “a policy of nominal income growth targeting might have prevented the recession.” But Selgin encourages Sumner to acknowledge the role easy money played in the subprime crisis, and argues that Sumner’s favored five-percent nominal income-growth target is “unnecessarily and perhaps dangerously high.” Selgin favors a lower target and tolerance for some price deflation, a strategy he contends would be less likely to perpetuate boom-bust cycles.

New at Cato Unbound: Monetary Lessons from the Not-So-Great Depression [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 04:30P.M.

In the last of this issue’s formal replies, San Jose State’s Jeffrey Rogers Hummel sees merit in much of Sumner’s account of the causes of the financial crisis, but he doubts a better rule for central bankers will keep us out of trouble in the future. Hummel contends that “only abolition of the Fed, elimination of government fiat money, and complete deregulation of banks and other financial institutions offer any longterm hope of bringing better macroeconomic stability.” Stay tuned as our panelists continue to hash it out in free-for-all blog chat that begins Wednesday. And if this is the sort of thing that revs your engine, don’t forget about Cato’s annual monetary policy conference Accounting for the Great Depression and devising plans for preventing a sequel has been a major preoccupation of monetary and macroeconomics for over seventy years now. If the sometimes vitriolic infighting raging now within the economics profession is any indication, our recent recession and financial collapse may play a similar role for years to come. Did Bernanke display a virtuoso touch and keep a bad thing from becoming worse? Or did the Fed drive the economy over the edge by compounding prior errors with fresh mistakes?

coming up in November.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Obama’s $250,000 Tax Pledge Timeline: Descending into a “Read My Lips” Betrayal [Americans for Tax Reform“Read My Lips” Betrayal]

Until the Milton Friedmans and Anna Schwartzes of our “great recession” emerge, try this month’s Cato Unbound for some preliminary answers. We’ve recruited a panel of top-notch money specialists to tease out some of the key monetary lessons from the present mess, and here’s a quick gloss on what they’ve said so far. In our lead essay, Bentley University economist Scott Sumner, a specialist on the Great Depression, stands against conventional wisdom in arguing that monetary policy in the period running up to the carnage in the financial sector was disastrously contractionary. Easier money, Sumner says, might have prevented the worst. He proposes a new strategy for central bankers — targeting forecasts of nominal GDP — that might help avert future crises. Sumner warns of the political dangers of misdiagnosing the crisis: unless the record is set straight, free markets will once again take the fall for a flubbed central banking.

SEP 21, 2009 04:17P.M. President Barack Obama’s central campaign promise was a “firm pledge” not to raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. This timeline ...

In his reply essay, “It’s Harder than it Looks,” James Hamilton of UCSD and the popular blog Econbrowser disagrees with some, but agrees with much of Sumner’s diagnosis, including the claim that the Fed could have done better and might have limited the damage of the financial crisis had it pushed rates of nominal GDP growth higher than they were. But Hamilton points out that this is easier said than done and raises doubts about the practicability of Sumner’s preferred targeting strategy.

5

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

22 September 2009

not comply with the requirement to obtain insurance would have to pay a penalty. Such payments would be equivalent to a tax or a fine, and the government’s receipts should be recorded in the budget as federal revenues.

Nobody Considers Health Insurance Mandates a Tax? Really?? [Cato at Liberty]

Here’s a question: if an individual mandate is not a tax, why exempt anybody? If an employer mandate isn’t a tax, why exempt small

SEP 21, 2009 04:05P.M.

businesses? As my colleague Jefferey Myron noted earlier today, when grilled by George Stephanopolous on whether the so-called “individual mandate” is a tax increase, Obama replied, “Nobody considers that a tax increase….You can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase…My critics say everything is a tax increase.”

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Trade Delivers Peace and Bargain Prices [Cato at Liberty]

Where do Obama’s critics get these wacky ideas? From a bunch of nobodies, that’s who!

SEP 21, 2009 02:51P.M. Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, quoted by Larry Summers (1987): [Just because] the fiscal flows triggered by mandate would not flow directly through the public budgets does not detract from the measure’s status of a bona fide tax. Economist Larry Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council chair (1989): Economists have generally devoted little attention to mandated benefits regarding them as simply disguised tax and expenditure measures… Essentially, mandated benefits are like public programs financed by benefit taxes… [If] the mandated benefit is worthless to employees, it is just like a tax from the point of view of both employers and employees…There is no sense in which benefits become ‘free’ just because the government mandates that employers offer them to workers.

For a fair and authoritative (and did I mention favorable?) assessment of my new Cato book, Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization, you can read William H. Peterson’s review in today’s Washington Times.

Columbia University economist Sherry Glied, Obama’s appointee to HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, in the New England Journal of Medicine (2008):

Dr. Peterson is an adjunct scholar with the Heritage Foundation and the Ludwig von Mises Institute who holds a Ph.D. in economics from New York City University. In his review he writes:

The mandate is in many respects analogous to a tax. It requires people to make payments for something whether they want it or not. One important concern is that the government will provide insufficient funds for the subsidies intended to accompany the mandate. In that case, the mandate will act as a very regressive tax, penalizing uninsured people who genuinely cannot afford to buy coverage.

Daniel Griswold’s tour de force explores, reasons and documents how import competition benefits the American consumer, seeing him move ahead toward greater peace incentives, lower real prices, more choices, better quality. Mr. Griswold also tracks how the big-box retailers such as WalMart, Home Depot and Best Buy deliver the world’s goods mostly by sea via millions of big, truckload-size containers. …

Congressional Budget Office (2009): Under some proposals, firms would be required to make payments to the federal government if they chose not to offer health insurance to their employees, and individuals who did

So Mr. Griswold would have the United States adopt or maintain trade policies best for most Americans, especially the poor and middle class, no matter what other nations do.

6

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

Says the author: Let’s drop the remaining barriers separating us from ongoing growth and peace policies enhancing the global marketplace. Bully for him.

22 September 2009

obstacle to letting the copyright cops sniff through your packets for potentially “unauthorized” music, or otherwise interfere with “reasonable” network management practices.

Information at the beginning of the review should have given the list price of the book as $21.95, and it is available with a nice discount at Amazon.com.

And what exactly does that mean?

Well, they’ll do their best to flesh out the definition of “reasonable,” but in general they’ll “evaluate alleged violations…on a case-by-case basis.” http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441444 Insofar as any more rigid rule would probably be obsolete before the ink dried, I guess that’s somewhat reassuring, but it absolutely reeks of the http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/21/world-peace-throughsort of ad hoc “I know it when I see it” standard that leaves telecoms world-trade/?feat=home_themes_tab1_featured& wondering whether some innovative practice will bring down the Wrath of Comms only after resources have been sunk into rolling it out. http://www.amazon.com/dp/193530819X/?tag=catoinstitute-20 Apropos of which, this is the line from the talk that really jumped out at me: Information at the beginning of the review should have given the cover price of the book as $21.95. It is available with a nice discount at This is not about protecting the Internet against imaginary Amazon.com along with a peak inside at the table of contents and dangers. We’re seeing the breaks and cracks emerge, and they threaten to change the Internet’s fundamental architecture of selected pages. openness. [....] This is about preserving and maintaining something profoundly successful and ensuring that it’s not distorted or undermined. If we wait too long to preserve a FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS free and open Internet, it will be too late.

Eye of Neutrality, Toe of Frog [Cato at Liberty]

To which I respond: Whaaaa? What we’ve actually seen are some scattered and mostly misguided attempts by certain ISPs to choke off certain kinds of traffic, thus far largely nipped in the bud by a combination of consumer backlash and FCC brandishing of existing powers. To the extent that packet “discrimination” involves digging into the content of user communications, it may well run up against existing privacy regulations that require explicit, affirmative user consent for such monitoring. In any event, I’m prepared to believe the situation could worsen. But pace Genachowski, it’s really pretty mysterious to me why you couldn’t start talking about the wisdom—and precise character—of some further regulatory response if and when it began to look like a free and open Internet were in serious danger.

SEP 21, 2009 02:41P.M.

If anything, it seems to me that the reverse is true: If you foreclose in advance the possibility of cross-subsidies between content and network providers, you probably never get to see the innovations you’ve prevented, while discriminatory routing can generally be detected, and if necessary addressed, if and when it occurs. And the worst possible time to start throwing up barriers to a range of business models, it seems to me, is exactly when we’re finally seeing the roll-out of the nextgeneration wireless networks that might undermine the broadband duopoly that underpins the rationale for net neutrality in the first place. In a really competitive broadband market, after all, we can expect deviations from neutrality that benefit consumers to be adopted while those that don’t are punished by the market. I’d much rather see the FCC looking at ways to increase competition than adopt regulations that amount to resigning themselves to a broadband duopoly.

I won’t go on at too much length about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s speech at Brookings announcing his intention to codify the principle of “net neutrality” in agency rules—not because I don’t have thoughts, but because I expect it would be hard to improve on my colleague Tim Lee’s definitive paper, and because there’s actually not a whole lot of novel substance in the speech. The digest version is that the open Internet is awesome (true!) and so the FCC is going to impose a “nondiscrimination” obligation on telecom providers—though Genachowski makes sure to stress this won’t be an

Instead of giving wireline incumbents a new regulatory stick to whack new entrants with, the FCC could focus on facilitating exploitation of “white spaces” in the broadcast spectrum or experimenting with spectral

7

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

commons to enable user-owned mesh networks. The most perverse consequence I can imagine here is that you end up pushing spectrum owners to cordon off bandwidth for application-specific private networks—think data and cable TV flowing over the same wires—instead of allocating capacity to the public Internet, where they can’t prioritize their own content streams. It just seems crazy to be taking this up now

22 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

On Tonight’s Kudlow Report [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$]

rather than waiting to see how these burgeoning markets shake out.

SEP 21, 2009 01:07P.M. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Scientific Consensus: Freedom Works [Americans for Tax Reform] SEP 21, 2009 02:35P.M. We often hear about the importance of scientific consensus, how the science is settled, and we must act now. Well, here’s another area where

This evening at 7pm ET:

there is scientific consensus: economics. As in pure ...

OBAMA, MARKETS, MONEY POLITICS & MORE Panel:

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

*Art Laffer, chief investment officer of Laffer Investments; former Reagan Economic Advisor *Dean Baker, co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research *Steve Auth, Global CIO of Equities; Federated Investors *Andy Busch, BMO Capital Markets; CNBC Contributor

Learning from Trade Wars Past [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 01:53P.M.

Also joining us...former Fed governor Wayne Angell and Vince Reinhart, AEI Resident Scholar; former director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs.

David Rockefeller, the former chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, makes a compelling historical case in today’s New York Times for pursing free trade policies. Rockefeller has been around long enough to remember the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of 1930 and the Great Depression that followed. In an op-ed piece titled, “Present at the Trade Wars,” he writes:

NET NEUTRALITY Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs at CTIA, a wireless trade group will offer his take.

I lived through the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it, and I saw that there was no direct cause and effect relationship. Rather, there were specific governmental actions and equally important failures to act, often driven by political expediency, that brought on the Depression and determined its severity and longevity.

BULL V. BEAR DEBATE *Peter Schiff, chief global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital *Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial Services Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC.

One critical mistake was America’s retreat from international trade. This not only helped to turn the 1929 stock market decline into a depression, it also chipped away at trust between nations, paving the way for World War II. On the eve of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh this week, Rockefeller offers a timely warning to President Obama not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

8

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

22 September 2009

the ANSF means America must support, rather than supplant, indigenous security efforts. Training should be tied to clear metrics, such as assessing whether some Afghan units can operate independent of coalition forces and can take the lead in operations against insurgents. Training the ANSF is not a panacea, and I go through its potential problems here in a Cato white paper.

McChrystal’s Assessment [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 12:53P.M.

Denying a sanctuary to terrorists who seek to attack the United States does not require Washington to pacify the entire country or sustain a long-term, large-scale military presence in Central Asia. Today, we can target al Qaeda where they do emerge via air strikes and covert raids. The group poses a manageable security problem, not an existential threat to America. Committing still more troops would feed the perception of a foreign occupation, weaken the authority of Afghan leaders, and undermine the U.S.’s ability to deal with security challenges elsewhere in the world.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Obama: ‘Nobody’ Considers Health Care Mandate a Tax Increase [Cato at Liberty‘Nobody’ Considers Health Care Mandate a Tax Increase]

In his review of the war in Afghanistan, states that “failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)—while Afghan security capacity matures—risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” I would hope that Congress and the American people hold McChrystal to his “12 month” prediction, because if President Obama sticks to McChrystal’s ambitious strategy, U.S. forces could remain in Central Asia for decades. McChrystal argues that the U.S. military must devote more effort to interacting with the local population and elevating the importance of governance. How? Does America defeat the Taliban in order to build an Afghan state, or does America build an Afghan state in order to defeat the Taliban? Winning the support of the population through a substantial investment in civilian reconstruction cannot take place without some semblance of stability on the ground. The mission’s multidisciplinary approach (“an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign”) is understandable, but oftentimes its feasibility is simply assumed.

SEP 21, 2009 12:43P.M. President Obama argued on TV talk shows this weekend that his proposed mandate for everyone to buy health insurance – or face a large financial penalty – is not a tax increase: In a testy exchange on ABC’s “This Week,” broadcast Sunday, Obama rejected the assertion that forcing people to obtain coverage would violate his campaign pledge against raising taxes on middle-class Americans.

Unfortunately, the United States has drifted into an amorphous nation building mission with unlimited scope and unlimited duration. Our objective must be narrowed to disrupting al Qaeda. To accomplish that goal, America does not need to transform Afghanistan into a stable, modern, democratic society with a strong central government in Kabul—or forcibly democratize the country, as our current mission would have us do, or as McChrystal states “Elevat[ing] the importance of governance.” These goals cannot be achieved at a reasonable cost in blood and treasure in a reasonable amount of time—let alone the next 12 months.

“For us to say you have to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Obama said in response to persistent questioning, later adding: “Nobody considers that a tax increase.” Well, I consider it a tax increase, so I guess that makes me nobody. The real question is whether this tax increase is a good idea. My answer is no. If others disagree, then fine, let’s have that debate. But denying plain truths suggests that advocates of Obamacare are trying to pass something that Americans would not endorse if it were structured and explained clearly.

Growing and improving the effectiveness of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) seems limited and feasible. A focused mission of training

9

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

22 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Watch:

There’s More Than One Tax Hike In the Baucus-Obama Health Plan [Americans for Tax Reform]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Oppose A Tax On Marriage? You Must Beat Your Wife! [Americans for Tax Reform]

SEP 21, 2009 11:19A.M.

SEP 21, 2009 12:37P.M.

Yesterday, President Obama obstinately refused to acknowledge what is obvious to anyone who reads the Baucus-Obama government healthcare

The Commonwealth Foundation reports on the aftermath of a vote last week, where the Pennsylvania House voted to increase the marriage

bill: it has a massive tax increase ($750 to $3800) on families...

license fee from $3 to $28 turning it into an effective marriage t... FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Video of the Day [The Club for Growth]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Monday’s Daily News [The Club for Growth]

SEP 21, 2009 11:11A.M.

SEP 21, 2009 11:30A.M.

As Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute wrote, “Wolf Blitzer gets it. Why doesn’t David Axelrod get it? Let Americans purchase health insurance licensed by other states.

THE DAILY NEWS Obama’s Nontax Tax - Wall Street Journal Editorial Why Health Care Will Never Be Equal - Greg Mankiw, New York Times Awful Healthcare Poll for the White House - James Pethokoukis, Reuters Dems Squabble Over Who Will Pay - O’Connor & Brown, The Politico 40 Senators: Terminate TARP By Year’s End Michael O’Brien, The Hill Present at the Trade Wars - David Rockefeller, New York Times Obama’s Tire Tariff Takes Us Down a Failed Road John Tamny, Forbes Obama’s Tangible Demotion of Trade Policy - Scott Lincicome’s Blog Coca-Cola’s CEO Fights Back on Taxes - IBD Editorial Estate Tax Faces Its Own Life-and-Death Struggle - J. Weisman, WSJ

To answer Cannon’s question, liberals clamor on and on about how we need a public option to bring about more competition, but there’s little competition now because government is purposely hampering it. So why won’t the Obama Administration let Americans purchase insurance across state lines? Because it’s not about increasing competition through free market forces, it’s about the government getting control over health care in this country. Sound policy is not relevant here.

Cubs 6, Cards 3 - Associated Press

10

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

22 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Obama Open to Newspaper Bailout Bill [The Club for Growth]

Prosecutors Should Not Be Allowed to Fabricate Evidence [Cato at Liberty]

SEP 21, 2009 10:30A.M.

SEP 21, 2009 09:58A.M.

It’s just another day and another bailout idea for the Obama

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

In 1977, county attorney David Richter and assistant county attorney Joseph Hrvol worked side by side with police to investigate and “solve” the notorious murder of a former police officer in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The prosecutors fabricated evidence and used it to charge and convict Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, sending them to prison for 25 years.

How Cap and Tax Will Hurt Montana [Americans for Tax Reform]

After the convictions were overturned for prosecutorial misconduct, McGhee and Harrington sued the county and prosecutors. The defendants in that civil suit invoked the absolute immunity generally afforded prosecutors to try to escape liability. After the Eighth Circuit ruled against them, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.

Administration.

SEP 21, 2009 10:30A.M. On Friday, Cato joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU on a brief supporting the men unjustly imprisoned. We argue that prosecutors should be responsible for their role in manufacturing a false “case,” just as police officers would be under the same circumstances. As the Court has held, prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity only during the prosecutorial phase of a case, not its investigatory phase. Were prosecutors to receive absolute immunity here, citizens would have no protection from or recourse against prosecutors who frame the innocent by fabricating evidence and then using that evidence to convict them.

In our continuing, daily, state by state, look at the financial impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Tax Bill, we will show you the projected losses in Gross State Product, Personal Income, and...

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Arizona CD-08 gets two pledge signers! [Americans for Tax Reform]

To read Cato’s brief in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, see here.

SEP 21, 2009 10:06A.M. Jesse Kelly and Brian Miller, Republican candidates for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, both signed the ATR Taxpayer Protection Pledge. The 8th Congressional District in Arizona is rated ...

11

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

22 September 2009

productive work, rather than political patronage positions.

Pakistan: More Aid, More Waste, More Fraud? [Cato at Liberty]

Second, Islamabad needs to liberalize its own economy. As P.T. Bauer presciently first argued decades ago–and as is widely recognized today–the greatest barriers to development in poorer states is internal. Countries like Pakistan make entrepreneurship, business formation, and job creation well-nigh impossible. Business success requires political influence. The result is poverty and, understandably, political and social unrest. More than a half century experience with foreign “aid” demonstrates that money from abroad at best masks the consequences of underdevelopment. More often such transfers actually hinder development, by strengthening the very governments and policies which stand in the way of economic growth.

SEP 21, 2009 09:45A.M. Pakistan long has tottered on the edge of being a failed state: created amidst a bloody partition from India, suffered under ineffective democratic rule and disastrous military rule, destabilized through military suppression of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by dominant West Pakistan, dismembered in a losing war with India, misgoverned by a corrupt and wastrel government, linked to the most extremist Afghan factions during the Soviet occupation, allied with the later Taliban regime, and now destabilized by the war in Afghanistan. Along the way the regime built nuclear weapons, turned a blind eye to A.Q. Khan’s proliferation market, suppressed democracy, tolerated religious persecution, elected Asif Ali “Mr. Ten Percent” Zardari as president, and wasted billions of dollars in foreign (and especially American) aid.

Even military assistance has been misused. Reported the New York Times two years ago: After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped. In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.

Still the aid continues to flow. But even the Obama administration has some concerns about ensuring that history does not repeat itself. Reports the New York Times: As the United States prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan — to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year — Obama administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, American and Pakistani officials say. A procession of Obama administration economic experts have visited Islamabad, the capital, in recent weeks to try to ensure both that the money will not be wasted by the government and that it will be more effective in winning the good will of a public increasingly hostile to the United States, according to officials involved with the project.

Writing blank checks to regimes like that in Pakistan is counterproductive in the long term. Extremists pose a threat less because they offer an attractive alternative and more because people are fed up with decades of misrule by the existing authorities. Alas, U.S. “aid” not only buttresses those authorities, but ties America to them, transferring their unpopularity to Washington. The administration needs do better than simply toss more money at the same people while hoping that they will do better this time.

…The overhaul of American assistance, led by the State Department, comes amid increased urgency about an economic crisis that is intensifying social unrest in Pakistan, and about the willingness of the government there to sustain its fight against a raging insurgency in the northwest. It follows an assessment within the Obama administration that the amount of nonmilitary aid to the country in the past few years was inadequate and favored American contractors rather than Pakistani recipients, according to several of the American officials involved. Rather than pouring more good money after bad, the U.S. should lift tariff barriers on Pakistani goods. What the Pakistani people need is not more misnamed “foreign aid” funneled through corrupt and inefficient bureaucracies, but jobs. Trade, not aid, will help create real,

12

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

22 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Health Care – One Way to Reduce Costs [Cato at Liberty– One Way to Reduce Costs]

Pat Tillman Saw the Iraq War as Folly [Cato at Liberty] SEP 21, 2009 09:32A.M.

SEP 21, 2009 09:38A.M. In a debate with Larry McNeely in the L.A. Times, Cato’s Michael Cannon suggested “eliminating barriers to competition by nurse practitioners and other mid-level clinicians.” McNeely responded, “By ending all state licensing and monitoring of physicians…not only qualified nurses but also any quack with a scalpel and some drugs would be able to set up a shingle, call himself a doctor and start cutting.” Does McNeely pick his doctors at random? How does he know his cardiologist has any relevant experience or training? Licensing creates the impression that all licensed physicians are adequate. Not true. Ask any medical malpractice insurance underwriter. A state medical license does not restrict a physician’s practice to any particular specialty. If McNeely wants information about a medical professional, he will have to look elsewhere.

Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative NFL career to join the Army after 9/11, was a true patriot: he wanted to defend America, not conduct social engineering overseas. That led him to oppose the Iraq war.

State regulation of medical professionals does not insure quality, but does limit access to care and make health care more expensive. Not all audiologists or advanced practice nurses need a doctorate. Physician assistants and advanced practice nurses have been shown to be fully capable of taking over the majority of primary care, yet many states restrict their scope of practice.

Reports the Daily Telegraph: According to a new book, Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in 2004 and hailed as an all-American hero by the former president, was disillusioned by Mr Bush and his administration’s “illegal and unjust” drive to war.

McNeely has faith in state licensing and monitoring of physicians that can’t be substantiated with facts. The majority of consumer protection comes from non-governmental entities. Consumers are protected by the annual evaluation and continuing oversight of medical professionals by hospitals, managed care organizations, and medical malpractice insurance underwriters. Malpractice underwriters verify a physician’s training and experience, limit what risky doctors can do, penalize physicians for negligent behavior, reward risk management, and go so far as to assess whether specific equipment and techniques are up-todate). Consumers are also protected by brand name (as with hospital chains and retail clinics). Private organizations and boards offer certification of education and experience.

In Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer, the author relates the strong views of Tillman – who gave up his NFL football career to serve his country – and his brother Kevin, who joined the same Rangers unit. The war “struck them as an imperial folly that was doing long-term damage to US interests,” Krakauer claims. “The brothers lamented how easy it had been for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to bully secretary of state Colin Powell, both the houses of Congress, and the majority of the American people into endorsing the invasion of Iraq.”

More than 80 percent of physicians in the U.S. are specialty board certified; a variety of national organizations certify physician assistants,

Tillman was a true citizen soldier. Not only did he leave private life to serve in the military after his nation was attacked, but he believed it was his responsibility to look beyond the self-serving rhetoric of politicians to judge the wisdom of the wars which they initiated. The rest of us should remember his skepticism when confronted with the willingness of politicians of both parties to continue sacrificing American lives in

advanced practice nurses, and other medical professionals.

13

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

22 September 2009

conflicts with little or no relevance to American security.

special giveaways.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Michigan Study: Targeted Tax Incentives Fail to Spur Economic Growth [Tax Foundation]

Illinois May Tax Cigarettes to Pay for Higher Education [Tax Foundation]

SEP 21, 2009 12:00A.M.

We have blogged on the talk of an income tax increase to be considered by the Illinois legislature early next year. But lawmakers still have the fall session, and on the table at that time will be a cigarette tax increase of $1 per pack. Governor Pat Quinn’s idea is to use the cigarette tax revenue to fund college scholarships for Illinois residents.

SEP 21, 2009 12:00A.M.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has a new study looking at Michigan tax incentives: In this study, the authors explore [Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA)] data to see whether actual job creation meets the MEDC’s estimates. The authors inspected credits awarded from 1995 to the end of 2004 and found that while MEGA deals were expected to produce 61,043 jobs, only 17,971 were ultimately created. Hence, the actual job count was just 29 percent of the expected total - less than one-third. In practice, an announcement that 1,000 direct jobs are expected at a MEGA facility translates into 294 actual jobs on average.[...]

Putting aside the debate on whether or not governments should even be subsidizing higher education in the first place, there are serious problems with a cigarette tax to pay for higher education. There is no connection between the two activities, and such a funding arrangement would make about as much sense as funding higher education with a tax on kayak paddles. Why should smokers, who tend to be lower income, be forced to subsidize the education of people who will likely go on to make many times more than the smoker over their lifetime? If higher education were really a public good then it should be funded by those who benefit, namely the general public, not a politically unpopular minority like smokers.

[F]rom 2001 to 2007, every $1 million in MEGA manufacturing tax credits awarded in a county was associated with the loss of 95 county manufacturing jobs. While the statistical model cannot imply causation, it does strongly indicate that MEGA credits are not working to improve manufacturing employment. MEGA invites scrutiny because of its size, influence and design. The program has offered more than $3.3 billion in Michigan business tax credits since its inception.

Cigarette taxes are often used by politicians because smokers are an easy target and politicians can claim they are just trying to protect smokers from themselves. The same argument could be made to justify a tax on kayak paddles to pay for higher education. Whitewater kayaking is, after all, a dangerous and potentially lethal activity, and people are obviously over-participating and doing themselves harm. A good stiff tax on paddles would help individuals make better decisions and would reduce the government’s emergency response costs. And at the same time the money raised from irrational kayakers can pay for the further education of us rational non-kayakers.

Michigan has a terrible business tax system. Rather than fix that, their focus has been on giving select businesses exemptions from it. So rather than welcoming all investment and job creation, the state’s politicians and their MEGA officials pick and choose what gets special treatment at the expense of everyone else. Given Michigan’s seemingly perpetual recession, that strategy doesn’t seem to be working out. Unfortunately, a lot of other states seem to be heading down that path, lured by the hopes of easy “job creation.” What should matter is wealth creation: capital flowing into the state and creating meaningful jobs that contribute to long-term economic growth. The MEGA strategy of handing out cash and goodies to the politically connected probably won’t ever achieve that.

We’ve written many times before on the problems with common justifications for cigarette taxation.

Michigan should get rid of its politically-motivated picking winners-andlosers stuff. Offer a simple, neutral, transparent, stable tax system-apply it to everyone equally at a low rate-and junk all the targeted credits and

14

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

22 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Stadium Subsidies Still Popular Despite Budget Crunches [Tax Foundation]

Facts on Redistribution and the Impact of Obama Policies [Tax Foundation]

SEP 21, 2009 12:00A.M.

SEP 21, 2009 12:00A.M.

Andrew Moylan of the National Taxpayers Union writes in Budget & Tax News about stadium subsidies:

Attempts to put “price tags” on health care and cap-and-trade proposals vary among agencies and think tanks, but one vital question has been left unanswered: How would these policies affect what families pay in taxes and how much government spending benefits they receive in return? New analysis from the Tax Foundation shows that President Obama’s policies will increase the number of families who are net “receivers” of federal government spending — those who get more back than they pay in taxes — from 60 percent of families under today’s policies to 70 percent.

According to Neil deMause, author of Field of Schemes, an exposé on stadium subsidies, New York City taxpayers paid a whopping $1.8 billion in subsidies for construction of the stadiums, despite the franchises being worth more than $2.1 billion collectively. The teams pitched in just over $800 million. Soon after New York officials dispensed those enormous subsidies, the bottom dropped out of the city’s balance sheet. In May of this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) unveiled a budget loaded with tax hikes to close a gap threatening to approach $5 billion in 2011. He called for a hike in the city’s already-high sales tax, plus a 5 cent fee for every plastic grocery bag used in the city.

This means the “givers,” or those who pay more in taxes than they receive in spending benefits, will shrink from the top 40 percent of families today to the top 30 percent by 2012, according to new results from the Tax Foundation’s “Fiscal Incidence” project, which compares the total amount of federal taxes families pay (such as income taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, etc.) to the total amount of government spending they receive (such as entitlement benefits, defense spending, public works, etc.). Under Obama’s policies, the top 30 percent of families will be redistributing more than $1 trillion to the bottom 70 percent, compared to the $826 billion currently being redistributed from the top 40 percent to the bottom 60 percent.

Meanwhile, as California’s state budget situation began crumbling into a looming $21.3 billion deficit, the city of Santa Clara recently inked a deal promising more than $150 million in taxpayer money to help build a stadium for the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers, a franchise worth nearly $800 million. It can be quite a sum, and we of course described how New York City and federal taxpayers footed the bill in a hidden way for the Yankees’ new stadium:

In the slideshow below, Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge explains the concept of income redistribution and discusses who currently pays for government programs and services, who benefits, and how new policies will change that balance.

First, the new Yankee Stadium will be city-owned and thus exempt from property taxes. Meanwhile its primary tenant, the Yankees, will pay no rent. This clearly brings up the issue of whether such tax-exempt bonds should have been issued at all, and especially when the city is so far in the red.

Learn more about the latest results from the Tax Foundation’s “fiscal incidence” model in Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No.189, “Accounting for What Families Pay in Taxes and What They Receive in Government Spending,” and Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 190, “Basic Facts on Redistribution and the Impact of Obama’s Policies.”

Secondly, to pay off the bonds over time, New York City will receive payments theoretically equivalent to the property taxes that Yankee Stadium would otherwise pay. The city claims that these payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) equal taxes that would otherwise be owed. In reality, these payments are inflated by overvaluing the stadium property by three times that of comparable property. By inflating the payments in lieu of taxes, the City can say to taxpayers that the Yankees are paying a significant part of the stadium’s cost, while telling the IRS that the City is paying for almost all of it. Read the rest here.

15

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Cleaning Up California’s Mess: An Interview with Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Poizner [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$] SEP 19, 2009 10:59A.M. Last night I had the chance to speak with California Insurance Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate, Steve Poizner. Mr. Poizner delivered a tremendous Laffer-like supply-side growth message. He was much sharper and more on-target than his competitor Meg Whitman who I interviewed the prior evening. Poizner supports an across-the-board reduction in marginal tax rates for individuals, corporations and capital gains. In addition, he favors a suspension of California’s version of cap-and-trade. Plus a no-tax pledge. He was really impressive.

16

22 September 2009