CEI Today: Pay disparity, Taxpayer Protection Pledge, Obama recess appointments, and bipartisan reg reform

PUBLIC & PRIVATE SECTOR PAY DISPARITY - MATT PATTERSON

Ocean State Current: Public Employee Pay and Benefits Draw Historical Comparison with Corruption in Roman Empire

The incestuous relationship that exists between union officials and the elected officials they help put into office deserves greater attention and scrutiny, Matt Patterson, a labor policy analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington, D.C., told the Current.

“The pay disparity between public and private sector workers is one of the great unreported injustices in America,” Patterson said.

“Government-worker unions help hire, make that hire, their own bosses: politicians, who are then unsurprisingly inclined to grant their benefactors generous wage and benefit packages with taxpayer dollars. It’s a little like the later stages of the Roman Empire, when the army would install as Emperor whichever general the soldiers thought would reward them the best. Then as now, such a bargain is a recipe for corruption and incompetence.”  > View the news story on Oceanstatecurrent.com

> Interview Matt Patterson

 

COALITION DEFENDS TAXPAYER PROTECTION PLEDGE In response to an all-out assault by the media and even some in Congress on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge lawmakers signed promising they would not raise taxes, a coalition of national and state policy groups sent a letter to GOP lawmakers on Wednesday that urges them to honor their pledge to taxpayers and refuse to raise taxes. > View the coalition letter

NLRB & OBAMA RECESS APPOINTMENTS - HANS BADER Openmarket.org: Appeals Court Hears Challenge To Obama Administration Power Grab Over NLRB This morning, the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in Noel Canning v. NLRB, which includes a challenge to President Obama’s “recess” appointment of two National Labor Relations Board members last January, when the Senate was technically in session, not in recess, and the purported “recess” was very brief, even in the eyes of those who claim there was a “recess.” The Obama administration takes an incredibly expansive interpretation of [the Recess Appointments Clause], arguing that he can appoint officials without the Senate’s consent, not only during any recess, no matter how brief (not just “the” recess between sessions), but also to fill any appointment, regardless of whether the vacancy arose during a recess. Past court rulings have stretched the reach of the Recess Appointments Clause, but never this far.> Read the full commentary on Openmarket.org > Interview Hans Bader

REG REFORM - WAYNE CREWS Openmarket.org: Beyond The Fiscal Cliff, Bipartisan Regulatory Reform If I’m reading this right, the Progressive Policy Institute wants to roll back some over-regulation. It’s not clear how much, but it does seem to be a visible amount. The PPI’s February 2011 policy report, Reviving Jobs and Innovation: a Progressive Approach to Improving Regulation, calls for a Regulatory Improvement Commission to weed out regulations that have accumulated like “barnacles.” The breakthrough is the bipartisan recognition the federal rulemaking process knows how to add but not subtract.  > View the full commentary at Openmarket.org   > Interview Wayne Crews

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