CEI Today: Battered Business, the Euro Crisis, and Italian Labor Reform

REGULATION - RYAN YOUNG

OpenMarket.org: CEI's Battered Business Bureau

It was a short work week because of the July 4 holiday, but 71 new final rules were still published, down from 101 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 22 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 2,055 final rules have been published in the Federal Registerthis year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 4,001 new rules.

>Interview Ryan Young

EUROPE - SASCHA TAMM CEI Web Memo - Freeing Europe From the Euro German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated repeatedly that there is no alternative to the euro. She is right—up to a point. Today, people inside the euro zone do not have any alternative to the euro for an all-purpose currency, but that is because governments have barred any alternatives. Chancellor Merkel and many other European leaders want to defend the euro at any price, calling the single currency the foundation for the rise of a “United Europe.” The opposite is true. The euro is, in fact, one of the major causes of the problems besetting Europe today. And things could still get worse. Maintaining the currency union in its present form may cause the breakdown of Europe’s single market over the long run. Is there a solution? Yes. The basic principles of the common market could save the European Union, if they were applied to monetary policy. Europe’s currency future lies in competition. >Interview CEI Analysts on the Euro Crisis

LABOR - MATTHEW MELCHIORRE Openmarket.org: Italy Kicks the Can on Labor Reform In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, Melchiorre writes: In “Italian Labor Minister Works on Cultural Shift With New Law” (June 26, 2012), Christopher Emsden writes that the reform championed by Italian Labor Minister Elsa Fornero has “dismantled” the centerpiece of Italy’s rigid labor law and signals a cultural change towards a meritocratic workforce. Not so. Although firms may now fire workers in times of financial distress, businesses must prove their financial straits to a labor judge. Firing takes 696 days on average. It is still illegal for firms to fire employees for incompetence. And the law still explicitly faults the firm for poor worker performance, not the employee. > Interview Matt Melchiorre

Also featuring... Video: Update on Fight against EPA’s Regional Haze Power Grab Save The Planet By Expanding Fracking: Abolish Regulatory Barriers to Its Growth Politicians’ Incentives to Give in to Government Union Demands A Dream Deferred: An Independence Day Story About Becoming An American Citizen Against the First Amendment: How Public-Sector Unions Neglect Free Speech CEI Podcast for July 5, 2012: Relic of Prohibition Have a listen here. Prohibition ended 79 years ago, but in Washington, D.C., it is still illegal to buy liquor on Sundays. Fellow in Consumer Policy Studies Michelle Minton thinks these blue laws need to be modernized.

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.

State Budget Solutions Releases Guide to Collective Bargaining Reform

Alexandria, VA - Today, State Budget Solutions (SBS), a nonprofit organization advocating for fundamental reform of state budgets, released its recommendations for reforming collective bargaining laws for government employees. Author and President of SBS, Bob Williams, delved into the history of collective bargaining, problems associated with bargaining and reforms for unions.
 
“Government employees’ salaries and benefits, particularly pensions, are financially unsustainable in most states and collective bargaining reform is desperately needed,” said Williams. “Our goal with this paper is to simplify how state governments can reform collective bargaining and ensure that government employees are able to receive their pensions.”
 

State Budget Solutions found that the problems with government sector collective bargaining include monopoly power as private-sector bargaining is constrained by competition, globalization, lack of stability in management, difficulty with discipline and conflict between public records transparency and collective bargaining secrecy.
  
Suggested reforms for government unions include: voluntary association; no forced political speech; no state collection of union income; increased fiscal transparency and opening negotiations to the public.

 
“Wisconsin has made terrific stride in improving their budget stability since implementing collective bargaining reforms. Governors from across the country have realized the Day of Reckoning is now and are pushing for strong pension and/or collective bargaining reforms. State Budget Solutions urges state government to begin reforming collective bargaining before it is too late,” said Williams. “Collective bargaining reform is a power struggle, not a rights struggle. Now the only people with no power at the bargaining table are taxpayers.” 

To read Bob Williams’ full white paper click here. 

To set up an interview with Bob, please contact Meghan Tisinger at Media@statebudgetsolutions.org or 703-965-1145.
 
Bob Williams, President of State Budget Solutions, is a former state legislator, gubernatorial candidate and auditor with the Government Accountability Office. To read Bob Williams full bio click here. 
 
About State Budget Solutions
The State Budget Solutions Project is non-partisan, positive, pro-reform, proactive and anchored in fundamental-systemic solutions. The goal is to successfully engage political journalists/bloggers, state officials and opinion leaders in a new way of thinking about state government and budgets, fundamental reforms, transparency and accountability. Sharing studies and articles, data sets, anecdotes, and compelling narrative about what is happening in state and local budgets, The State Budget Solutions Project presents and disseminates information about every aspect of coming fiscal and economic disasters and, more importantly, highlights fundamental reforms to avoid them.
  
Check out StateBudgetSolutions.org for more information.

CEI Today: Highway bill, labor law reform, Obama budget and more

Tuesday, February 14, 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

CONGRESS & LABOR LAW - RUSS BROWN & IVAN OSORIO Spectator.org:Busting Union Reform Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is touting the recent passage of his "compromise" bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that oversees U.S. air transport. Unfortunately for airline workers, Congress missed a rare opportunity to enact needed reforms to America's labor laws. After months of heated debate, leaders finally reached a deal late last month when House Republicans' promised to drop controversial labor language from the bill in exchange for Reid's concession to remove some particularly onerous provisions. But those concessions amount to mere Band-Aids on a labor regime that systematically favors powerful unions at the expense of individual workers -- and the flying public.  > Read the full commentary on Spectator.org   > Interview Ivan Osorio TRANSPORTATION BILL - MARC SCRIBNER CEI.org:Coalition Letter Urges Congress to Reject Linking Drilling Revenues to the Highway Trust Fund The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and Natural Resources Defense Council sent a joint letter to members of Congress urging them reject the unprecedented linking of onshore and offshore oil and gas revenue with the Highway Trust Fund. In their letter, the groups note that creating this new revenue stream would undermine the longstanding user-pays/user-benefits highway funding principle that has guided infrastructure investment for nearly six decades. Further increasing the reliance of the Highway Trust Fund on revenue streams not connected to use, they argue, would threaten the future health of America’s highways. > Read the coalition letter on the highway bill at CEI.org > Interview Marc Scribner   OBAMA BUDGET - WAYNE CREWS Forbes.com:How to Swap the Obama Budget for an Optimistic Economic Growth Agenda New spending in President Obama’s $3.8 trillion fiscal year 2013 budget would increase investments in education, manufacturing and R&D, transportation projects, electric vehicle incentives and the like. While those upticks apparently lie within discretionary spending caps he’s agreed to with Congress, taxes would rise regardless. This escalating “declaration of dependence” on federal dollars by our most crucial manufacturing, infrastructure and frontier industry sectors should concern us. Republicans will pounce, of course, but they too vote to boost government investment in “basic science,” technology and manufacturing (such as the America COMPETES Act). > Read the full commentary on Forbes.com > Interview Wayne Crews CEI COMMENTARY ROUND-UP Regulation of the Day 209: Playing on the Beach Global Biotech Crop Acreage Up, Plus Clayton Yeutter on the Miracle of American Agriculture Orwellian Doublespeak Dominates Economic Policy Government Thwarts Cancer Cures and Production of Life-Saving Drugs First, They Came For My Toilet Paper Doubling Down on DOE: President Puts Our Money Where His Mouth Is The Price of Obama's Fairness 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.