All Posts Tagged With: "special interests"
Government: More Incompetent than Ever
Most intellectuals support big government, and millions of people depend on it. So why, with thousands of laws, millions of employees working to carry out those laws, and trillions of dollars spent, is it in trouble? The most popular big-government programs–like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–are going broke. These entitlements account for more than half [...]
19Apr2010 | Jim Powell | 1 comment | ContinuedObamaCare and Unions
Last November 7, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962, crafted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and whimsically titled the Affordable Health Care for America Act (AHCAA). It was the House’s version of ObamaCare. American labor unions, whether representing government- or private-sector workers, enthusiastically endorsed the measure. Yet most unions have been effective at securing good [...]
24Mar2010 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | ContinuedOpaque by Design
“The House and Senate plan to put together the final health care reform bill behind closed doors, according to an agreement by top Democrats.” That less-than-startling piece of news was delivered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi back in January. She was at the White House when she said it, so it looks like it’s okay [...]
24Mar2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedPrejudicial Terms in the Healthcare Debate
Have you noticed that in the healthcare coverage in the media and the discussion by the politicians, the sellers of goods and services are called “special interests”? Consumers and “the uninsured” are never called special interests. Of course, the term is intended to prejudice the sellers’ position as they try to protect themselves from expropriation [...]
15Jun2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Financial Bailouts: “See the Needle and the Damage Done”
On Wednesday, September 17, 2008, according to the New York Times, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke used “a speaker phone from his ornate office” to tell Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “that it was time to adopt a comprehensive strategy that Congress would have to approve” for dealing with the financial-market troubles. After a second call on [...]
27Feb2009 | Lawrence H. White | 13 comments | ContinuedHow Bad Can it Get?
In August the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) in Washington state released its State of Labor 2008 (the Report), which warns of several perils emanating from the growth of government-sector collective bargaining and offers suggestions for ameliorating them. (The Report is available in PDF here .) I predict these perils will soon be much more severe [...]
20Jan2009 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Politics of Freedom
Thomas Paine said that freedom had been hunted and harassed around the world and that only America offered it a home. Today, it seems to many Americans that freedom is on the run here, too. War and taxes, the nanny state and the Patriot Act, unsustainable entitlements—all threaten the liberty we enjoy as Americans. But [...]
1May2008 | David Boaz | 8 comments | ContinuedInfluence-Peddling
Since the New York Times published its page-one story alleging an inappropriate link between Senator John McCain and telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman, we’ve heard much more about the evil of “influence-peddling.” The day the Times story ran, Senator Barack Obama debated Hillary Clinton, saying, “Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die. [...]
1May2008 | John Stossel | 0 comments | ContinuedHow a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming
The phrase “global warming” has been around for quite some time, but in the past year it has captured the spotlight as never before. One can’t turn on the radio or open a newspaper without facing ads from “green” corporations, or hearing the latest way to reduce one’s “carbon footprint.” With even prominent Republicans (such [...]
1Oct2007 | Gene Callahan | 11 comments | ContinuedPutting a Bureaucrat in Your Tank: Gasoline Markets and Regulation
If you run a barrel of crude oil through a still, the technique used by the earliest refineries and still a stage in modern refining, it separates into various fractions, including kerosene, gasoline, diesel, fuel oils, waxes, and asphalt. Without further processing, about 10 percent will be “straight run” gasoline. In the 1870s this 10 [...]
1Oct2007 | Andrew P. Morriss | 0 comments | ContinuedTwo Presidents, Two Philosophies, and Two Different Outcomes
In the White House, Wilson intended to be a strong president working with a “living Constitution.” He promoted the expanding of “beneficent” government into new areas. In his second year as president he concluded that shipping rates were too high, and he blessed his secretary of treasury’s plan to regulate overseas shipping rates and the companies doing the shipping.
1Jun2007 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Great Contraction, 1929–33
The recession that began in mid-1929 need not have become a disaster. Many downturns had occurred previously in U.S. economic history, and nearly all of them had been fairly shallow and soon followed by recovery and continued growth. In the nineteenth century most people had believed that the government neither knew how nor possessed the [...]
1Apr2007 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedWelfare for the Rich
Advocates of the free market—including those considered “right-wing” and “conservative”—believe it is wrong to violate property rights. Consequently, they oppose egalitarian measures to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Such “income redistribution” represents naked theft and epitomizes the Founding Fathers’ fears of unfettered democracy. At the same time, champions of laissez faire [...]
1Apr2007 | Robert P. Murphy | 10 comments | ContinuedBroadband: A Basic Right?
It’s 2006. You really want a broadband high-speed Internet connection, but you live in a small American city with a population of 100,000. So the broadband providers have decided it would not be profitable to come to your town at this time. What do you do? First, get mad. Then, form an interest group. Finally, [...]
1Mar2006 | Max Borders | 0 comments | ContinuedRepeal Davis-Bacon
After Hurricane Katrina ravaged much of the Gulf Coast, President Bush ordered the suspension of the federal Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates that workers on all federally financed construction projects of more than $2,000 (virtually all, that is) be paid the “prevailing wage” of the project location. The suspension would have covered only the parts of [...]
1Dec2005 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedWhy Classical Liberals Care about the Rule of Law (And Hardly Anyone Else Does)
In 1776 John Adams declared that America was “a
nation of laws, not men.” Politicians of all persuasions
have used Adams’s phrase ever since to claim
the moral high ground. Such rare agreement among the
political classes, even if only rhetorical, is an indication
of the power of the idea of the rule of law.
America Needs Socialized Medicine?
Jane Orient, M.D. is executive director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Paul Krugman attributes “America’s Failing Health” to the lack of Canadian-style socialized medicine and thus to the persistence of a free-enterprise sector in American medicine (New York Times, August 27). Because “interest groups are too powerful, and the antigovernment propaganda of the right [...]
1Feb2005 | Jane M. Orient M.D. | 1 comment | Continued-
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