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December 2009
Is It Time for Some Congressional New Year’s Resolutions? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, before Congress bankrupts the country.
It’s time once again to encourage Congress to make some New Year’s resolutions.
First, with the national debt limit being pushed up to about $14 trillion and no end in sight, members of Congress must resolve to get federal spending under control.
The second resolution should be a commitment to more bipartisanship. This is the most partisan and polarized administration in recent history, barely able to get one or two Republicans to vote for a bill.
Third, Congress needs to be more transparent. Democrats are ramming through major legislation without letting Republicans or the public even see the bill, much less read it, until they’re ready to pass it.
Folks, this is no way to run a country. Read More...
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What is the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says Washington may have forgotten.
The U.S. Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, says that powers not given to the federal government belong to the states or the people.
So ask yourself, where does the Constitution give the federal government the power to:
- Mandate people have health insurance or pay a fine;
- Own and operate a major car company;
- Tell bank executives they have to take government money or else?
It doesn’t, and yet the federal government has done or wants to do all of that and more.
The Tenth Amendment expressly limits the power of the federal government. If Congress continues to ignore those limitations, then the public needs to impose its own limits—on the terms of those elected to Congress. Read More...
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While global leaders burn tons of carbon jetting off to meetings about how we can reduce our carbon output, back at home real work is getting done to protect the environment. Across the information technology economy a number of efforts are underway with a huge range of solutions to actually move toward a green economy.
In another irony, at the same time parts of Big Government are trying to seize control of greater portions of the economy using global warming as their foil, other government entities are discouraging technological advances that will preserve the environment.
AT&T recently released a paper entitled "SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age." The report listed any number of ways that technology could be deployed to improve energy efficiency and lower costs. For example, using the latest "TelePresence" teleconferencing technology, enabling telecommuting, or deploying a fully robust "smart grid"--all of these will Read More...
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President Obama keeps claiming he’s willing to “make the hard choices.”
But so far his administration has been characterized by a lack of said hard choices—except perhaps for his choice in dog breeds.
Congress finally got around to passing the 2009 fiscal budget in February, which should have been passed in the fall of 2008. The Democratic-led Congress preferred to wait for a Democratic president who would sign the fiscally irresponsible budget. That budget contained some 10,000 earmarks, which Obama campaigned against.
Did President Hard Choices send it back demanding a bill clean of earmarks? No, Obama signed it. And his press secretary defended the decision saying it was “last year’s business.”
How about the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was this year’s business? Did the president make any hard choices? Maybe, but only because he would have liked one even bigger.
Read More...
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For years one activist organization after another has expressed concern about the “control” of the media. They slice and dice the markets to attempt to demonstrate all of the untold harm that will befall listeners or viewers if this, that or the other business is allowed to merge with or purchase control of another media entity. The wailing and gnashing of teeth has been heard from the FCC to the FTC to the Department of Justice.
These same meddlers were heard from when the barely solvent XM Satellite Radio sought to merge with Sirius Satellite Radio. The resulting entity still struggles to date, but as one with no evident harm to consumers. The same voices were heard opposing newspapers seeking to merge in an effort to put off rigor mortis. Read More...
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Want to Help Get the Country Back on Track? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says it’s time for you to help.
Every day the Institute for Policy Innovation brings you, through these SoundBytes, timely and important information about the economy and public policy.
For more than 20 years IPI has been a leader in promoting limited government and economic policies that minimize taxes and maximize liberty.
In these challenging economic times, with record high deficits, trillion dollar spending programs, and an array of new taxes, IPI’s message is more important than ever.
But we need your help NOW to keep these satellite broadcasts on the air. Check our website at ipi.org. And make a tax-deductible donation to keep these commentaries coming.
Remember, friends, freedom is worth fighting—and paying—for. Read More...
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President Obama’s claim that health care costs are growing so fast that “doing nothing is not an option” would be a little more believable if he could point to a country that has been able to “bend the curve” on health care spending.
Health care reform advocates constantly remind us that all the other industrialized nations spend less that the U.S. on health care, both in the aggregate and on a per-person basis. But that’s not because those countries are more efficient. Most simply limit the amount of funds available to the system.
The problem with those arbitrary health care spending caps is that they are usually much lower than the economically desirable level. And so there is constant upward pressure to raise the cap.
Germany—one of the oft cited models for U.S. reform—is experiencing that pressure. Created by Bismarck in 1883, it’s the oldest publicly sponsored model.
Read More...
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The American Cancer Society, World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection all agree: A survey of the recent scientific literature shows there is no clear evidence of any link between mobile devices and health problems. And yet some special interest groups are advocating for action based on only a couple European research reports while ignoring the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence. In the process those special interests are scaring the public.
Scaring people so much that some states and cities are considering whether they should impose regulations that would require health-related warning labels despite the lack of evidence, and ignoring the fact that government restrictions are already in place.
Read More...
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Is the Stimulus Money Creating Jobs? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, but for most Americans it’s a long commute.
One goal of President Obama’s stimulus bill was to create environmentally friendly “green jobs.”
And it’s done just that. The Washington Times reports that 11 U.S. wind farms have bought nearly 1,000 electricity-producing wind turbines, creating about 4,500 jobs, uh, oversees.
See, nearly 700 of those turbines were bought from China.
Now a new American-Chinese joint venture just announced it plans to buy nearly 250 Chinese-made turbines. That venture wants 30 percent of its $1.5 billion in funding from the stimulus money.
So if you’ve been looking for work for a while, you need to know that taxpayer-financed stimulus money is creating jobs.
And you might even be able to get one of them. Read More...
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Some Republicans and Democrats, including Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, are proposing a bipartisan committee to consider how to address the exploding federal deficit as a condition for increasing the debt limit beyond its current $12.1 trillion, which the government will exceed around mid-December.
And the Obama administration supports the idea as a way to “bring Republicans and Democrats together to make tough decisions about how to cut costs and raise revenue in areas including Social Security, Medicare and taxes,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Here’s an idea: If the President is serious about “bringing Republicans and Democrats together”, how about not shutting Republicans out of important negotiations and decisions?
This is the pattern we’ve seen for nearly a year. Obama talks one game while simultaneously doing exactly the opposite. Read More...
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Author: Merrill Matthews Jr. || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA