7 November 2009

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Obama Lied, His Tax Pledge A Second ‘House Call’ [The Club
Died [Americans for Tax for Growth]
NOV 06, 2009 05:22P.M.
Reform]
NOV 06, 2009 06:34P.M. If at first you succeed, do it again! House Republicans are having a
second House Call on the steps of the U.S. Capitol tomorrow, ahead of
By formally endorsing the House healthcare bill today, President Barack the vote on ObamaCare. It starts at 1pm EST.
Obama effectively announced that the central promise of his 2008
campaign was a lie. During the campaign, Obama mad...

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS What’s That You Say About

Liberty Most Deer [Cato at Avoiding Protectionism,
Liberty] Obama? [Americans for Tax
NOV 06, 2009 06:24P.M.
Reform]
As a footnote to Chris Moody’s post about Monday’s 20-year anniversary NOV 06, 2009 05:00P.M.
of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I just came across this article about red
deer refusing to cross from Germany into the Czech Republic. This, of It has become a cliché to say that history repeats itself, but sometimes
course, is a border that was the once heavily fortified dividing line the phrase is troublingly applicable. After tariffs on poultry, and then
between free West Germany and captive Czechoslovakia. tires, now steel pipes have drawn the ire ...

Even deer who weren’t born when barbed wire, watchtowers, and armed
guards prevented the natural extension of their happy grazing grounds
act as if the Cold War never ended — apparently because they learned FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
their habits from their parents, who learned them from their parents.
JCT Says That Pelosi-Care
Still, as with the new generation of Eastern Europeans who have no
memory of Communism, some young deer are starting to break the Could Send the Uninsured to
mold, taking advantage of — and even taking for granted — their
newfound freedom. I wonder if the grass (and ferns, and whatever Prison [Americans for Tax
else deer eat) is any greener on the other side of the former Iron
Curtain. Reform]
NOV 06, 2009 04:53P.M.

This interesting nugget from the House Ways and Means Committee
GOP staff: Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means
Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan ...

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 7 November 2009

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Who’s Blogging about Cato Weekend Links [Cato at

[Cato at Liberty] Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 04:43P.M. NOV 06, 2009 02:43P.M.

Here’s a round up of bloggers who are writing about Cato research, • The Democrats’ ingenious plan to disguise the true cost of their
analysis and commentary: health care bills.

• Below the Beltway’s Doug Mataconis reviews Gene Healy’s book • The health care legislation moving through Congress could
The Cult of the Presidency. increase young adults’ premiums by 100 percent.

• Matt Yglesias takes aim at Jeffrey Miron’s critique of government • Why raising taxes won’t fix the deficit. Just look at California. And
health care. Miron responds. Rhode Island. And New York.

• PoliticalPolicy.net writes about Cato’s commentary on President
Obama’s “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg.
• Libertarian blogger Ryan Jaroncyk mentions Cato in a blog post on
the war in Afghanistan.
• “What profiteth a political party if it gains congressional seats but
loseth its soul?” —Michael D. Tanner (Yes, he’s referring to
Republicans.)
• Here we go again: The No Child Left Behind Act is up for renewal.

• Attorney.org highlights Cato on their “Featured Organization” • Podcast: “Ayn Rand’s Affinities and Animosities“
series.

• At Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux features a new Cato paper on

socialism in India. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Email us to let us know if you’re blogging about Cato. Give Us Your Tired, Your
Energetic, Your Poor, Your Rich
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS — Pretty Much Anyone Who’s
NY-23 Winner Breaks Four Not a Criminal or Terrorist
Campaign Promises [The Club [Cato at Liberty— Pretty Much
for Growth] Anyone Who’s Not a Criminal or
NOV 06, 2009 04:33P.M.
Terrorist]
Rep. Bill Owens has broken four campaign promises all within the first NOV 06, 2009 02:40P.M.
hour of being a congressman.
On Wednesday I blogged about how, for the first time in many years —
since the last recession — H-1B skilled worker visas remain available
despite the hard cap on their number. In other words, even foreigners
respond to market incentives: when there are no jobs, there are fewer
immigrants.

I’ve gotten some interesting email in response to that little notice, one of
which I post below, along with my paragraph-by-paragraph responses.

Just read your blog entry on the H-1b visa. The problem is
that this visa has been misused by sponsoring companies,
suffering from high rates of fraud. I find it strange that Cato

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supports (or appears to support) a labor tool that is anything
but free market. The H-1b visa is more of an indentured
servant visa program than anything else – where employees
must be sponsored by an employer. Since employees aren’t
free to find new jobs or start their own business, it results in a
captive workforce who will do whatever the employee asks,
even beyond reason. They won’t bargain for higher wages,
quit if mistreated, join unions, or do anything that might
result in their immigration status being jeopardized.
Having myself been on H-1Bs with several employers, including Cato, I
agree that the program is seriously flawed, in the ways this
correpondent describes and in others. Ideally, people would be able to
apply for a work permit — their application gaining more “points,” say,
for language, youth, skills, the needs of the economy, or whatever other
criteria the political process determines are important — and then not be
tied to an employer and have an opportunity to receive permanent
residence and eventual naturalization if they pay their taxes, stay out of
jail, etc. Or, indeed, we could admit all people who want to come here
(after screening for security, criminal, and health concerns), and give
them the same opportunity. But until we get to that more perfect world, I
see no conflict in advocating for a repeal of the H-1B cap or pointing out
how this recession shows that immigrants come for jobs, not to leech off
our welfare state (if that’s the concern, then wall off the welfare state, not
the country) or commit crimes.
One thing not correct in your blog is that H-1b visa holders
cannot get a green-card. They can, unfortunately most of the
workers are from India so it is difficult for those workers to
get the green-card because of how, numerically, green-cards
are issued. The H-1b visa is a “dual intent” visa meaning there
is a path to permanent residence and after 6 years on the visa
holders can extend 1 year until their green-card is processed.
Indian workers call it the “green carrot” and relate it to the
picture of where the mule driver holds a carrot on a stick in
front of the mule to keep him moving. No matter how hard
the mule tries, the carrot gets no closer.
The H-1B’s “dual intent” provision is categorically not a path to a green
card. All it does is, as the correspondent points out, allow the worker to
stay in the country during the green card application process. That
process, however, and the substantive requirements for obtaining a
green card, is no different for H-1B holders than it is for anyone else.
Indeed, spending five or six years on an H-1B with one employer can be a
detriment, inasmuch as that employer’s sponsorship application cannot
take into account the skills gained during that time of employment. And
yes, the nationality-based restrictions are also obnoxious.
The primary sponsors of H-1b workers are Indian
outsourcing firms. In short, the visa is used as a tool to send
jobs overseas. People from Cato may not have a problem with
that because of their own views on globalization and free
trade, but the majority of Americans do. You guys are
notorious at just looking at one half of the equation when it
comes to free market practices unfortunately – which is the
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7 November 2009
corporate side. Yes, corporations can move people around the
world using a variety of immigration programs. But do the
people being moved around control their own destinies or are
they at the mercy of the corporations?
Cato is not a corporate shill. Plenty of what we advocate is counter to the
expressed preferences of Big [fill in your preferred Villain] because the
business community often prefers stability over liberty-enhancing
volatility — smaller, secure profits over potentially larger but not-
guaranteed ones — and a place at the government subsidies trough over
a truly free market. Moreover, and with much irony, it is the H-1B’s cap
and costly bureaucratic processing that has promoted outsourcing —
which in and of itself is not problematic for the American economy as a
whole — by preventing American firms from bringing Indian (and other)
workers here. And people on H-1Bs are “at the mercy of corporations”
precisely because this visa is tied to one employer, as mentioned in the
first quoted paragraph above.
Liberty doesn’t just apply to corporations and the narrow
objective of free trade. I just don’t understand how the Cato
Institute and all of your intellectuals don’t see through this
visa for what it is. It deprives people of liberty. Many
American workers don’t care that “an Indian” is being
deprived of their liberty, but they should if not for moral
reasons than for economic reasons. If I have a worker that I
can exploit and pay less, now I have a bargaining tool against
the worker I previously could not. When one man is deprived
of their liberty, in a way we all are.
I couldn’t agree more that our current immigration regime benefits
nobody — not big business, not small business, not skilled workers, not
unskilled workers, not the American economy as a whole, not certain
sectors of it — with the possible exception of populist demagogues of
both the left and the right. The answer to that morass isn’t to attack
globalization or free trade — which is not a “narrow objective” but a
fundamental mechanism for enhancing peoples’ lives all over the
world — but to reform our immigration system.
For more on these and related issues, check out these recent studies put
out by my colleague Dan Griswold and his trade and immigration policy
team:
• On the fiscal impact of low-skilled immigration
• On the economic benefits of immigration reform
• On the influx of immigrants pushing Americans up the income
scale
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 7 November 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Government of Continual How Obamacare Will Lead To

Failure [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 02:23P.M.
The Washington Post is full of so many stories about government failure
these days, it’s hard to keep up.
Today, on page A19 we learn about a Small Business Administration
subsidy program that has a 60-percent default rate. On the same page,
we learn that the U.S. Postal Service will lose $7 billion this year.
Less Coverage; Higher Costs
[Americans for Tax Reform]
NOV 06, 2009 02:20P.M.
More and more evidence continues to flow in that demonstrates just how
bad the Administration’s plans for government run healthcare will be for
Americans. Writing in today’s Washington Post, Martin F...

Flipping over to page A20, we learn that former New York City Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik is a liar, a tax cheat, and thoroughly FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
corrupt.
ATR Supports House GOP
Then flip back to A15, and columnist Steve Pearlstein rightly lambastes
the latest stimulus scheme from Congress: ”This $10 billion boondoggle Alternative To Pelosi-Rangel-
is nothing more than a giveaway to the real estate industrial complex.”
Obama Health Bill [Americans
Finally, on A14, we’ve got government-owned Fannie Mae losing a
colossal $19 billion this year and asking the Treasury for another $15 for Tax Reform]
billion taxpayer hand-out. NOV 06, 2009 01:41P.M.

The federal government is a mess. Policymakers have no idea what the ATR sent a letter today to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-
effects will be when they spend billions on scheme after scheme. Most of Ohio) endorsing the House GOP alternative to Pelosi-care. Click here to
them don’t read the legislation, they don’t understand economics, and read the full text of that letter. Click her...
they never admit mistakes when their schemes almost inevitably fail.
Fully 40 percent of the vast federal budget will be debt-fueled this year,
but few policymakers seem to care. And public corruption seems never-
ending. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Isn’t it time to give libertarianism a chance? Correction: The CoC Does Not
Endorse Carbon Tariffs [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 01:19P.M.

Following on from my earlier post, I was delighted to receive a call from

Bradley Peck at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce just now, clarifying that
they do not in fact endorse the idea of carbon tariffs. Here’s a blog entry,
posted a few minutes ago on the Chamber’s blog, clarifying their
position.

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New Poll: VA and NJ Voters Do House Democrats Not Care

Were Sending a Message to About Obama’s Tax Pledge?
Obama [The Club for Growth] [Americans for Tax Reform]
NOV 06, 2009 12:48P.M. NOV 06, 2009 12:22P.M.

There are two new state polls out today by OnMessage, Inc. (Virginia During his campaign, President Obama made a “firm pledge” not to raise
voters) and McLaughlin & Associates (New Jersey voters). Simple “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. Yet,
question (800 voter sample in each state): the U.S. House of Represent...

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: One of

the reasons I voted for (Christie/McDonnell) is to send a
message to the Obama administration that I am unhappy FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
with the direction they are taking Washington and the
country. This Cannot Last [Cato at
Answer: NJ — 68% said they agreed with the statement, and 46% Liberty]
strongly agreed. VA — 74% said they agreed with the statement, and 54% NOV 06, 2009 12:14P.M.
strongly agreed. 63% of NJ Independents and 76% of VA Independents
agreed, as did even 63% of NJ Democrats and 46% of VA Democrats. This morning, Politico Arena asks:
More details here. The next question is this: Are President Obama,
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid listening? Will the House pass healthcare this weekend — or not

My response:

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS In his post below, my colleague Michael Cannon links to his
devastating analysis of the way House Democrats have buried
The Week in Government the true cost of their healthcare scheme. This is legerdemain
of the first order, but it is business as usual here in
Failure [Cato at Liberty] Washington. Here we have a Congress that cannot fix
NOV 06, 2009 12:27P.M. Medicare, which will go broke even before Social Security
does, a Congress that still hasn’t met the October 1 budget
Over at Downsizing Government, we focused on failures in the following deadline for the ninth year in a row, and it wants to
departments this week: fundamentally reorder healthcare in America with a scheme
that no one understands and no one knows how to fund. Any
• Commerce: corporate welfare in Ohio private business that ran its affairs that way would long have
been out of business.
• Defense: cost overruns in the Pentagon’s space programs
Given this record of insanity, therefore, it is impossible to say
• Energy: central planners gamble with taxpayer money whether the House this weekend will pass this 1,990-
page monstrosity of a bill — whether enough sanity will come
• HUD: subsidizing private firms to operate public housing isn’t a to enough members to kill the bill. One datum does loom
solution large, however: Speaker Pelosi can afford to lose no more
than 40 members of her caucus. Combine that, after
Also, dubious stimulus projects point to a need to return to fiscal Tuesday’s election results, with another datum — there are 49
federalism. House Democrats who sit in districts that John
McCain carried — and one has to ask whether the insanity we
see before us reaches to political suicide.

Yet whatever happens tomorrow, or in the Senate down the

road, this cannot go on, simply because the money isn’t there
to allow it to go on. On Tuesday at the polls and yesterday

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with the huge demonstration in front of the Capitol we are similarly explicit statement had been repeated in their letter.
seeing what Charles Krauthammer this morning rightly calls
the demolition of “the great realignment myth of
2008.” America is not a suicidal nation. The Founders and
Framers gave us institutions that have endured for over two FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
centuries and are the envy of the world. Whatever happens
tomorrow, the seeds of sanity are in the American soil and 2.8 Million Jobs Lost Since
soon will be springing forth.
“Stimulus” Signed Into Law
[Americans for Tax Reform]
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS NOV 06, 2009 11:49A.M.

Chamber of Commerce The U.S. has lost at least 2.8 million jobs since President Barack Obama
signed the “stimulus” package into law on Feb. 17. Monthly job losses
Endorses Carbon Tariffs? [Cato reported by the BLS are as follows: ...

at Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 11:55A.M.
Even though the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month is
likely to yield very little, domestic shenanigans continue. The Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works passed a bill on
Thursday amid controversy, and the farmers’ friends in the Senate
(notably Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D. Mich) are looking to send goodies
their way by filing an amendment that would pay farmers for not cutting
down trees, not farming, and will likely see states such as — well, how
about that! — Michigan “cashing in” (see here).
Meanwhile, those concerned about the cost of climate change
regulations may have lost an ally. Often, but not always, one can depend
on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to defend free enterprise, or at least
free trade. On climate change, however, they are a little more ambiguous.
If anything, they appear to be getting more sympathetic to climate
change legislation. Nothing to do with membership defections, they
assure us, just good business practice. Maybe it is. I’m not a member of
the Chamber so their strategy is not really any of my business.
What concerns me is the apparent shift in their position toward so-called
carbon tariffs (also called “border adjustment measures,” and often
spoken of in terms of “international competitiveness,” “negotiating
leverage” and other terms that should raise the alarm). My friend, and
former Catoite, Scott Lincicome does an excellent job here of parsing
through the Chamber’s recent public letter in support of the Kerry-
Graham “framework” (outlined in this New York Times op-ed) and their
strange silence on the framework’s inclusion of the need for carbon
tariffs, so I won’t repeat his analysis here. Suffice to say, their non-
comment on the issue of carbon tariffs is worrying. As Scott points out,
they appear to endorse the concept, if in a coded manner.
Back in June, the Chamber explicitly opposed Waxman-Markey, in part
because “It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the
U.S., a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global
trading partners.” (See here.) I would feel a lot more comfortable if a
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Jobless Numbers Prove
“Stimulus” Is Anything But
[Americans for Tax Reform]
NOV 06, 2009 11:16A.M.
The following was originally posted at the Center for Fiscal
Accountability The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its latest
jobless numbers today, showing that unemployment in America is now...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
As it Turns Out, There Are
Limits on Congress’s Power
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 11:07A.M.
In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety
Act. One provision of the law authorizes the federal government to civilly
commit anyone in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons whom the
attorney general certifies to be “sexually dangerous.” The effect of such
an action is to continue the certified person’s confinement after the
expiration of his prison term, without proof of a new criminal violation.
Six days before the scheduled release of Graydon Comstock — who had
been sentenced to 37 months in jail for receiving child pornography —
the attorney general certified Comstock as sexually dangerous. Three
years later, Comstock thus remains confined in a medium security

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prison, as do more than 60 other similarly situated men in the Eastern Pelosi breaks her pledge to put the final health care bill online for 72
District of North Carolina alone. hours before the vote.

Comstock and several others challenged their confinements as going WSJ Editorial: “The return of the inflation tax”
beyond Congress’s constitutional authority and won in both the district
and appellate courts. The United States successfully petitioned the U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk says South Korea has to open up its market to
Supreme Court to review the case. U.S. cars before Obama will sign a free trade agreement.

Cato, joined by Georgetown law professor (and Cato senior fellow) Meanwhile, South Korea approves a free trade agreement with India.
Randy Barnett, filed a brief opposing the government. We argue that the
use of federal power here is unconstitutional because it is not tied to any Check out the size of Ford’s agreement with its labor union.
of Congress’s limited and enumerated powers. The government’s
reliance on the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8, is IBD’s editorial board asks, “Are Democrats politically tone-deaf?”
misplaced because that clause grants no independent power but merely
“carries into execution” the powers enumerated elsewhere in that
section. The commitment of prisoners after their terms simply is not one
of the enumerated powers. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

While the government justifies its actions by invoking its implied power Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes
“to establish a federal penal system” — itself a necessary and proper
auxiliary to certain enumerated powers — civil commitment is unrelated [Americans for Tax Reform]
to creating or maintaining a penal system (let alone any enumerated NOV 06, 2009 11:00A.M.
power). Nor can the law at issue fall under the Commerce Clause,
because civil commitment involves non-economic intrastate activity. In this short youtube clip, Eline van den Broek from the Centre of
Freedom and Prosperity, explains why the US healthcare system needs
As the Supreme Court recognized almost 150 years ago in Ex Parte reform - but in a more free market direction. (H/T ...
Milligan, “[n]o graver question was ever considered by this court, nor
one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole,” than the
government’s unconstitutional assertion of power against its own
citizens. In this spirit, the Court should affirm the Fourth Circuit’s FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
rejection of this blatant government overreach.
On CNBC’s Kudlow Report
United States v. Comstock will be argued on January 12. You can read
Cato’s brief here. Tonight [Larry Kudlow’s Money
Politic$]
NOV 06, 2009 10:59A.M.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Friday’s Daily News [The Club

for Growth]
NOV 06, 2009 11:07A.M.

Larry Kudlow reflects on yesterday’s 200-point rally in the stock market.

Political analyst Stu Rothenberg shares his thoughts on the Florida

This evening at 7pm ET:
Senate race.

10.2% UNEMPLOYMENT…
AARP endorses ObamaCare. Now’s the time to cancel that membership if
Has Obama’s plan failed?
you have one.
How do we get America working again?

There’s a civil war brewing within the American Medical Association

Panel:
after the group endorsed ObamaCare.

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*Joseph LaVorgna, Deutsche Bank Chief U.S. Economist FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
*Steve Moore, WSJ senior economics writer; “End of Prosperity” co-
author Graph of the Day [The Club for
*Matt Miller, Center for American Progress
*Amity Shlaes, author of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Growth]
Great Depression” NOV 06, 2009 10:45A.M.

Also…Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) will join us to discuss the latest From the good folks in Mike Pence’s office:
jobs number and what lies ahead in the healthcare debate.

THE RETURN OF THE INFLATION TAX?

The aforementioned panel will debate.

WHAT DOES FED SUPER-EASE MEAN?

An eye on the dollar, gold, commodities, oil, & stocks

*Jerry Bowyer, CNBC Contributor/Syndicated Columnist will join

Messrs. Moore and LaVorgna.

WHAT DOES BIG GOV’T TAKEOVER MEAN FOR AMERICA?

American author, journalist and satirist P.J. O’Rourke will be aboard.

SUPPLY-SIDE SOLUTIONS

The panel will debate.

Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

New Study Shows Young Will The House Health Care Bill —
Suffer Under Obamacare Transparent or Not? [Cato at
[Americans for Tax Reform] Liberty— Transparent or Not?]
NOV 06, 2009 10:48A.M. NOV 06, 2009 10:28A.M.

In a detailed study released yesterday, Aaron Yelowitz, associate The House health care bill is reportedly coming to the floor this
professor of economics at the University of Kentucky, proves what we weekend, and House Speaker Pelosi committed in September to a 72-
have been saying all along - that Obamacare will seriously hurt y... hour delay between the time the bill is posted online and a final vote.

Is that 72-hour delay happening? Some say yes. Some say no.

On the “yes” side are some folks at the Sunlight Foundation. John
Wonderlich wrote a post last Sunday called “72 Hours is Now.” He hailed
the posting of the health care bill well in advance of a vote.

“Public outcry, partisan pressure, and rising expectations are forcing

Congress’s hand,” he wrote, ”and it’s now (apparently) taken as a matter
of course that this bill is online for a long weekend before its final
consideration.”

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Paul Blumenthal followed that up mid-week, sounding slightly more
cautious notes but hailing the posting of the “final manager’s
amendment.” His post restarted the 72-hour clock.
Which brings us to the folks who say no.
On the Weekly Standard blog, John McCormack says that Speaker
Pelosi plans to violate the promise to post the health care bill online for
72 hours.
House members are still negotiating important issues in the
bill — whether it will provide taxpayer-funding for abortions,
for example. Pelosi is pushing for a Saturday House vote, and
a number of big changes will be introduced, likely less than
24 hours before the vote takes place (if in fact it does).
Did Pelosi promise to post a bill? Yes — and she did, when it was pretty
near final.
Meanwhile, though, the really tricky details — the stuff that matters to a
lot of people — are still being hammered out. The spirit of the 72-
hour pledge remains unfulfilled.
And this reveals a weakness in H. Res. 554, the preferred reform of the
Sunlight-backed ”Read the Bill” effort. It would install a House
rule giving bills 72 hours of online airing “before floor consideration.”
Floor consideration can and regularly does include the adoption of a
“manager’s amendment” which can revamp a bill wholesale or add and
subtract key details — things that matter.
H. Res. 554 has a loophole you can drive a truck through, and Speaker
Pelosi is revving her engines.
This episode is a good, if regrettable, illustration that “self-reform” by a
branch of government isn’t reliable. “Read the bill” is a good idea, but the
genius of President Obama’s parallel “Sunlight Before Signing” pledge to
hold bills coming out of Congress for five days before signing them is
that it is based on interbranch rivalry. Especially, but not only, when
there is partisan division between the president and Congress,
competition among branches will promote the practice.
(More on “Read the Bill” and “Sunlight Before Signing” here.)
Getting Congress to hold up its own legislation for 72 hours, giving
meaningful access to the public of every detail, is asking Congress to be
altruistic. And Congress is anything but altruistic.
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7 November 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Cato Podcast Exposes Anti-Poor
Bias of U.S. Tariffs [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 10:16A.M.
The dirty secret of the U.S. tariff code is that it is not only insanely
complex but that it is biased against the poor. Our highest remaining
trade barriers are imposed on goods that loom the largest in the budgets
of poor and middle-income families — such as food, shoes, and clothing.
Politicians and interest groups that fight any reduction of U.S. tariffs are
unwittingly picking the pockets of the poor every day. I discuss how
President Obama supports this unfair status quo in a new Cato podcast,
in an earlier newspaper column, and in Chapter 9 of Mad about Trade.
And you can bet your imported t-shirt that I will highlight this
inconvenient truth during my presentation at today’s Cato book forum.
You can watch it live online beginning at noon, eastern time.
Commenting on Mad about Trade will be Steven Pearlstein, business
columnist for the Washington Post.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Big Business Not Investing
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 10:11A.M.
In a recent post, I argued that while third-quarter GDP was positive, the
underlying data revealed that U.S. private investment was still in the
toilet. While government spending might be providing a short-term
“sugar high” for the economy, U.S. business investment remains in
recession. I speculated that Obama’s anti-business agenda is likely one
cause of the problem.
For those observations, economist Brad DeLong called me an “utter
fool.”
Let me draw your attention to an article in the Washington Post today
entitled “Corporate giants sit on piles of cash.” Nucor Steel is sitting
on piles of cash that it is unwilling to invest. Nucor’s chief executive
Daniel Dimicco explains:
Everything is still on hold because we don’t have a lot of
confidence that the right things are being done in
Washington to reinvigorate the economy.
To story goes on:
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 7 November 2009

Nucor isn’t alone. The balance sheets of large U.S. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
corporations are for the most part in good shape. Many big
companies have piles of cash on hand and credit markets Unemployment Rate at 10.2%
have thawed so that they can raise new funds… But most U.S.
executives lack enough confidence in the economy to expand [The Club for Growth]
their businesses. NOV 06, 2009 09:06A.M.

The article explains how big businesses are “jittery” for various reasons, It’s the highest rate in 26 years.
such as memories of last year’s credit crunch. It doesn’t
mention President Obama’s policies, but at this point in the economic
cycle when world growth is returning, the lack of excitement by U.S.
businesses regarding domestic investment is very curious.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is giving them nothing to get

excited about. The President is promising them higher health care costs,
higher corporate taxes, more labor regulations, higher energy costs with
cap-and-trade, and a lack of interest in further trade agreements.

The Post article says that some U.S. multinationals are using their
hoards of cash to invest abroad, allowing them to avoid punitive
treatment under the high-rate U.S. corporate income tax.

How do we get U.S. multinationals to start investing their “piles of cash”

in the United States? Cut the U.S. corporate rate permanently to 15
percent, as I’ve described in Global Tax Revolution. With just about
every other advanced economy having slashed their corporate rate in
recent years, we are “utter fools” for not following suit, especially with
the unemployment rate now topping 10 percent.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Disguised Health Care Costs:

The $1.5 Trillion Fraud [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 06, 2009 09:58A.M.

If House Democrats hold a vote on their health-care overhaul this

weekend, they might as well vote to abolish the Congressional Budget
Office too.

It would be no more audacious (and much more honest) than the way
they have gamed the CBO’s rules to hide $1.5 trillion of the cost of their
legislation — which has to be the biggest fiscal obfuscation in the history
of American politics.

Here’s how they did it.

C/P Politico

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