CEI Today: Financial transaction tax?, S&P rating, and global warming science

FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAX? - JOHN BERLAU

IBD: Online 'Fairness' Tax Could Hit Your 401(k)

Supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA), which the U.S. Senate passed on May 6 on a 69-27 vote, claim that online retailers enjoy an unfair advantage over their brick-and-mortar competitors. The bill, they maintain, addresses this imbalance by allowing states and localities to require "remote sellers" to collect taxes for "sales" to their residents.

However, the bill is silent on the particular products and services of "sellers" and "sales" it covers. Thus, it could open the door for state and local governments to tax financial transactions they deem as "sales" on businesses throughout the country. > Read more

> Interview John Berlau

 

S&P RATING - BILL FREZZA CBN: S&P Boosts US Credit Outlook to 'Stable' Standard & Poor's ratings service has boosted its outlook for U.S. government debt from "negative" to "stable," meaning it's not as likely to downgrade the nation's debt in the near future. Bill Frezza, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a Boston-based venture capitalist, talked more about implications of the S&P's revised outlook on CBN's Newswatch, June 10. > View the interview > Interview Bill Frezza   > Follow Bill Frezza on Twitter

GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: Climate Models: “Epic Failure” or “Spot on Consistent” with Observed Warming? Surface temperatures are not a direct or reliable measure of bulk atmospheric heat content, which is one reason [University of Alabama scientist John] Christy has devoted much of his career to developing a satellite record of global temperatures. Satellite datasets “are not affected by these surface problems and more directly represent the heat content of the atmosphere.” If the models accurately represented the atmosphere’s heat content, Christy told me by email, the warming rate of the tropical mid-troposphere (TMT) would be 1.4 times that of the surface. In reality, the TMT warming rate is only 0.6 times that of the surface. The models simply project too much warming in the bulk atmosphere. > Read more > Interview Marlo Lewis

MORE IN THE NEWS... Farm Bill: One Big Catfish France’s Taxing Culture

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation The federal government sells pecan insurance. A new rule corrects errors made in a previous rule from February. > Read more

TEN THOUSAND COMMANDMENTS An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State This year marks the publication of the 20th anniversary edition of the CEI’s annual survey of the federal regulatory state, Ten Thousand Commandments.  cei.org/10kc > Follow 10kc on Twitter > See also: Wall Street Journal editorial, Red Tape Record Breakers

INTERVIEW A CEI EXPERT CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation

   

CEI Weekly: Celebrate National Donut Day (for Freedom)

June 7, 2013

Feature: Eat a donut today...or two.

FEATURE: Celebrate National Donut Day (for Freedom) Today is National Donut Day. As food regulations on local, state and federal levels continue to influence the way Americans eat, today is a reminder that sometimes it's okay to excercise your freedom and indulge. CEI urges everyone to eat two donuts---one for yourself, and one for your liberty. Read CEI's press release here. SHAPING THE DEBATE EPA Plays Favorites With Fee Waivers Chris Horner and CEI featured on Fox News' Special Report The Real Reason Amazon Flip-Flopped on Internet Sales Taxes Jessica Melugin's op-ed in Forbes Time for an Official End to Federal Employee Union Subsidies Trey Kovacs and Alex Habighorst's op-ed in The Washington Examiner Twenty Years of Non-Stop Regulation Wayne Crews and Ryan Young's op-ed in The American Spectator One Ethical Sock Puppet Chris Horner's citation in The Washington Post What Happens in the Backroom of a Sue-and-Settle Lawsuit William Yeatman's citation in The Washington Examiner Government in the Shadows CEI's citation in The Washington Times Abuse of Power is Clearly Obama Policy CEI's citation in NewsMax

CEI PODCAST June 6, 2013: Making Passenger Rail Affordable Fellow in Land-use and Transportation Studies Marc Scribner discusses a new CEI study arguing that regulations make passenger train cars unnecessarily expensive. BEST OF THE BLOGS France Needs a 'Power Up' When it Comes to Labor Reform By Matthew Melchiorre Pennsylvania's Liquor Privatization Plan Forgot About the Beer By Michelle Minton Graph: More Visas, Less Illegal Immigration By David Bier Wisconsin Town Criminalizes Parents for Kids' Bullying and Offensive Speech By Hans Bader

CEI - How To Be Patriotic on National Donut Day

Eat Two: One for Yourself, and One for Your Freedom

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 6, 2013 — Today, June 7th, is National Donut Day. For some companies, the day is an occasion for unveiling new types of baked goods and breakfast foods. Going a step further, the Competitive Enterprise Institute suggests that millions of Americans turn that day into a new way of celebrating freedom. Specifically, we urge Americans to eat not one but two donuts—one for themselves, and one for their liberty.

In a time of ever-growing government involvement in every aspect of our lives, tomorrow is the day to make the donut a tool for telling politicians and bureaucrats to mind their own business. We have the White House nagging us to eat this and not eat that, FDA slapping warning labels on everything in sight, EPA declaring that every breath we take poisons the climate, and the Department of Energy raising appliance efficiency standards to infinity and beyond. To all of them, let’s say bug off. And unashamedly having a donut or two, in public, with smiles on our faces and glazed crumbs on our hands, might be the most satisfying way to do it—at least on this day of the year. Let’s make this a day of freedom.

Michelle Minton, CEI Fellow in Consumer Policy Studies, stated: “It’s sweet revenge to eat sweets in protest of government attempts to stop us from living as we see fit.”

Sam Kazman, CEI General Counsel, stated: “This shouldn’t get us in trouble with the IRS, but you never know.”

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CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: EPA Bias, Official Time, and Passenger Rail Costs

EPA BIAS - CHRISTOPHER HORNER

Fox News: EPA Plays Favorites with Fee Waivers

> Interview Christopher Horner

> Follow Christopher Horner on Twitter

LABOR POLICY - TREY KOVACS & ALEX HABIGHORST Washington Examiner: Time for an official end to federal employee union subsidies Did you know you'repaying for union officials to do union business with your tax dollars, a practice known as "official time"? If not, you aren't the only one -- official time statistics are kept obscure from the public. To remedy this lack of transparency, Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., recently introduced H.R. 568, a bill to make the number of government employees using official time and its cost public in an annual report. > Interview the authors

CEI PODCAST - MARC SCRIBNER Liberty Week: Making Passenger Rail Affordable Fellow in Land-use and Transportation Studies Marc Scribner discusses a new CEI study arguing that regulations make passenger train cars unnecessarily expensive. > Interview Fran Smith

MORE IN THE NEWS... The Real Reason Amazon Flip-Flopped On Internet Sales Taxes France Needs a “Power-Up” When It Comes to Labor Reform

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI OnPoint: Reducing Passenger Rail Costs The FRA's Outmoded Safety Regulations Should Be Repealed, By David Edmondson, Marc Scribner American passenger railways are forbidden from purchasing trains in the most cost-effective manner possible. > Read more

TEN THOUSAND COMMANDMENTS An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State This year marks the publication of the 20th anniversary edition of the CEI’s annual survey of the federal regulatory state, Ten Thousand Commandments.  cei.org/10kc > Follow 10kc on Twitter > See also: Wall Street Journal editorial, Red Tape Record Breakers

INTERVIEW A CEI EXPERT CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation

   

CEI Today: White House denies private email accounts, regulations getting worse, and US-EU trade talks

WINDSORGATE - CHRISTOPHER HORNER

White House Claims on Emails 'Outrageously False,' Says CEI Senior Fellow

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney finally got asked about the growing email scandal in the Obama administration on Tuesday, a scandal begun several months before when a CEI senior fellow revealed the widespread use of private accounts, false identity and other tools to frustrate recordkeeping and disclosure laws. But Carney’s answer didn’t square with the facts. “Jay Carney claims nobody in the administration uses private accounts? We’ve proven over and over that is outrageously false,” said Christopher Horner, who uncovered use of fake employees and misuses of email accounts in research for his book, “The Liberal War on Transparency.” > View more

> Interview Christopher Horner

> Follow Christopher Horner on Twitter

REGULATIONS GETTING WORSE - WAYNE CREWS & RYAN YOUNG American Spectator: Twenty Years of Non-Stop Regulation As the just-released 20th anniversary edition of Ten Thousand Commandments shows, every year, agencies continue to issue thousands of regulations costing billions of dollars. What is new is that the costs of federal regulation are at an unprecedented level. The total estimated burden is now up to $1.8 trillion per year, or roughly half the size of the federal budget. This is larger than Canada’s entire economy.  > Read more   > Interview the authors

TRADE - FRAN SMITH Openmarket.org: U.S.-EU Trade Talks — The Precautionary Principle Rears its Ugly Head Even before substantive negotiations have begun, a major problem has surfaced in talks on a U.S.-EU trade agreement. Last month, the European Parliament passed a resolution stating the EU’s objectives and positions on major issues relating to a proposed trade agreement. One provision in that resolution started an outcry by the U.S. agriculture, food, dairy, and meat producers. Even when there is a lack of scientific evidence that products are likely to cause harm, the EU can take action to ban the import of those products. > Read more > Interview Fran Smith

MORE IN THE NEWS... The Real Reason Amazon Flip-Flopped On Internet Sales Taxes France Needs a “Power-Up” When It Comes to Labor Reform

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI OnPoint: Reducing Passenger Rail Costs The FRA's Outmoded Safety Regulations Should Be Repealed, By David Edmondson, Marc Scribner American passenger railways are forbidden from purchasing trains in the most cost-effective manner possible. > Read more

TEN THOUSAND COMMANDMENTS An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State This year marks the publication of the 20th anniversary edition of the CEI’s annual survey of the federal regulatory state, Ten Thousand Commandments.  cei.org/10kc > Follow 10kc on Twitter > See also: Wall Street Journal editorial, Red Tape Record Breakers

INTERVIEW A CEI EXPERT Media Contacts: Christine Hall 202.331.2258 Nicole Ciandella 202.331.2773 Brian McNicoll CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation