CEI Weekly: An Optimistic Economic Growth Agenda

Friday, February 17, 2012

Feature: Wayne Crews presents an alternative to President Obama's proposed budget.

FEATURE: An Optimistic Economic Growth Agenda President Obama's proposed new federal budget would increase spending without boosting the country's chance for a true economic revival. CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews critiques the President's plan and presents an alternative federal agenda in his Forbes column this week. Read the column here.  SHAPING THE DEBATE Making Sure Corruption Remains "Made in America" Bill Frezza's column in Forbes How is the FDA Really Doing? Henry I. Miller's article in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News Orwellian Doublespeak Dominates Economic Policy Bill Frezza's op-ed on RealClearMarkets Obama's Contraception Compromise Doesn't Quell Debate Hans Bader's letter to the editor in The Washington Post Testimony on "Where the Jobs Are" John Berlau's Testimony Before House Subcommittee Comment Letter on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Economy Standards Marlo Lewis' submitted comments to the EPA and NHTSA Heartland Burned by DenialGate Memos Myron Ebell's citation in Politico Highway-Oriented House Transportation Bill: Why It's Hated by Everyone Marc Scribner's citation in The International Business Times

CEI PODCAST February 16, 2012: Washington's Prescription Drug Shortage Patients are suffering from a nationwide shortage of more than 260 different prescription drugs, many of them for different types of cancer. Senior Fellow Greg Conko explains why the biggest culprit for the drug shortage is Washington. DEA and FDA regulations make it difficult to ramp up supply, or to change prices to more accurately reflect demand. BEST OF THE BLOGS Will Markey's Keystone Export Plan Come Back to Bite Him? By Marlo Lewis Lame Duck Sen. Herb Kohl Continues Quixotic Battle Against Rail Carriers in Senate Highway Bill By Marc Scribner EPA Publishes Absurd Mercury Reg; Sen. Inhofe Counters; House Sleeps By William Yeatman California Considers "Public Employee Bill of Rights" By Jack Mann

CEI Today: Barriers to jobs, economic growth, foreign bribes, Obama contraception mandate and more

Wednesday, February 15, 2012
In the News Today

Media Contacts: Christine Hall 202.331.2258 Nicole Ciandella 202.331.2773 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   Also featuring... CEI IN THE NEWS THE "FRED WEEKLY" February 10, 2012: Fred at CPAC! Panel discussion of EPA over-regulation with Myron Ebell and Marlo Lewis

JOBS & THE ECONOMY - JOHN BERLAU Today's Testimony Before House Subcommittee With unemployment still stubbornly high and the economy still in tenuous shape, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade is seeking answers to those problems, launching the first in its series of hearings entitled, “Where the Jobs Are.”  Wednesday's hearing features John Berlau, Director of CEI's Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs. "Of all the regulations out there facing entrepreneurs, among the most important are those affecting access to capital," Berlau explains in written testimony submitted to the subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Berlau notes recent research showing that firms less than five years old are responsible for nearly all net job growth. Yet these are the very firms hit by crushing regulations that make it very difficult to raise capital by going public. > Read the full testimony by John Berlau   > Interview John Berlau FOREIGN BRIBES VS.DOMESTIC INFLUENCE PEDDLING - BILL FREZZA Forbes.com:Making Sure Corruption Remains "Made In America" If the U.S. government really wants to use its influence to get the world of global business to operate on a level playing field, instead of terrorizing American corporations for doing in Rome as do the Romans, perhaps it should run training sessions for foreign governments on how to construct a legalized system of influence peddling as subtle and backhanded as the one we have here. I sat in on such a training session in the winter of 2008 run by the venerable K&L Gates LLP, the nation’s ninth largest law firm, which boasts on its website of its ability to “seamlessly integrate lobbying and regulatory implementation.”  > Read the commentary on Forbes.com > Interview Bill Frezza   OBAMA CONTRACEPTION MANDATE - HANS BADER Openmarket.org:Misconceptions about the Obama Administration’s Contraception Mandate for Religious Employers There are a number of misconceptions about the Obama administration’s recent rule requiring employers’ health insurance policies (including those of religious schools and hospitals) to cover contraceptives and certain abortifacients. First, as a commentator notes, it’s not true that states in general already require such coverage. Second, it’s just not true that the Obama administration’s rule must be legal because it is supposedly modeled on state insurance rules in states like California. Under basic principles of federalism, there are things that states can require, but the federal government, which has only enumerated powers, cannot. > Read the full commentary on Openmarket.org > Interview Hans Bader CEI COMMENTARY ROUND-UP The Hidden Cost of Fuel Economy Regulations: Constitutional Vitiation Strange Bedfellows Coalition Urges Congress To Drop Drilling for Roads The Problems with the STOCK Act Maryland Weighs Discriminatory College Child Support Mandate Openmarket.org      Globalwarming.org Ten Thousand Commandments By Wayne Crews Welcome to The Other National Debt -- The Cost of Regulation -> Read Today's Decrees 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.

ALG to Obama: Put up or shut up on unemployment extensions

Feb. 6, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement urging Congress to restore unemployment benefits extensions back to 27 weeks:

"It's time for Obama to put up or shut up on unemployment benefits extensions up to 99 weeks. He wants to claim that the apparent drop in the jobless rate means the economy is turning a corner. If he really believes that the emergency is over, then it is time to rescind these extensions that have cost taxpayers an additional $275 billion since 2009.

"A failure by Congress to roll back this welfare program will be seen as an acknowledgement that the most recent jobs report is much weaker than Obama is suggesting.  4.7 million Americans who were a part of the labor force have simply given up on looking for work since Obama took office, which is artificially keeping the unemployment rate down. If those people were included, the real rate of unemployed working age adults would be 11.01 percent, and the underemployed would be 17.6 percent.

"Even if one were to look at the data honestly, 99 weeks of unemployment benefits have already run out for millions Americans anyway and the program should be repealed. The welfare state has failed to restore real growth to the economy.   

"The solution to the problem is not perpetual extensions of welfare, but for government to enact pro-growth policies that will have a job-creating effect.  These include rolling back the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, undoing the harsh regulatory climate in health care, the environment, and energy, lifting restrictions on capital creation, and restoring sound money."

###

Americans for Limited Government is a non-partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms, private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at www.GetLiberty.org.

ALG: Obama Claim of 3 Million Jobs Created in 22 Months a Lie

Jan. 26, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today in a statement dismissed Barack Obama's State of the Union claim that "[i]n the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs," citing data from the government's own Bureau of Labor Statistics:

"The Obama Administration is entitled to its own opinion, but not its own facts.  Since February 2010, when Obama starts measuring his claim that 3 million jobs were created, the amount of people employed has only increased from 138.66 million to 140.79 million, a net increase of only 2.13 million.  While that sounds nice, that is a pace of just 96,000 a month, which does not even keep up with the growth of the population, let alone replace the 8 million jobs that were lost in the recession.

"That means, when population growth and the loss of 4 million working age adults from the labor force who have simply stopped looking for work are fully taken into account, the unemployment situation has not improved at all. 

"We have an effective unemployment rate of 11 percent, and an underemployed rate of 17 percent. There are over 27 million working age adults who still cannot find full-time work, no thanks to Obama's 'stimulus' policies.  To lie about the horrific state of our economy and the plight of 27 million Americans who cannot find work is a crime against humanity. 

"It is time for new leadership who will honestly evaluate the situation, and prescribe the pro-growth policies to turn the Ship of State around from sinking into the Abyss."

Attachments:

Number of Persons Employed, Seasonally Adjusted, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan. 26, 2012 at www.getliberty.org/files/BLSEmployed2001-2011.xls .

"Obama's Lost Labor Force," Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson, Jan. 6, 2012 at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/01/obamas-lost-labor-force/ .

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

Freedom Action State of the Union shows President Obama is still clueless about restoring economic growth

President Obama's Policies are the Biggest Obstacle to Restoring Prosperity and Creating Jobs

Washington, January 24, 2012--Freedom Action President Myron Ebell made the following statement about President Barack Obama's speech to Congress on the state of the Union:

After killing the Keystone Pipeline project last week, President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech provided further evidence that his policies are the biggest obstacle to restoring the United States economy to a path of long-term, robust growth. After three years, the President seems to have learned nothing from his mistakes. In particular, President Obama remains clueless about the disastrous impact of the long list of his policies and new EPA regulations that are raising energy prices and thereby making consumers poorer, scaring away investment, and killing jobs. On top of all of his regulations designed to raise energy prices, he now proposes to impose a "Clean Energy Standard" that will make gasoline and electricity even more expensive.

President Obama claimed in his speech to Congress that he approved fewer new regulations in the first three years of his term than did President George W. Bush in his first three years. While the Bush years were not an era of light-handed regulation, President Obama's statement is spectacularly false. The Obama Administration has finalized more than four times as many major regulations (those with an economic impact of more than $100 million annually) in its first three years as the Bush Administration did during its full eight years. The costs of President Obama's regulatory onslaught on the private sector are colossal. To get the economy going again, the Congress must halt and overturn the Obama Administration's avalanche of job-killing regulations.