IPI senior fellow Dr. Lawrence Hunter will appear Friday on Florida’s “The Marc Bernier Show” to discuss what’s caused State Farm Insurance to leave the Florida homeowners insurance market, and what the impact will be for consumers.
The last time an American president dared someone to "make my day," he and the American people lived to regret it. Now, the governor of Florida is reaping the whirlwind, and Floridians are suffering, for his challenging insurance companies two years ago to make his day by pulling out of the Sunshine State. He found it detestable that they might want to flee a state that was forcing them to write actuarially unsound homeowners' insurance policies and face financial ruin if they continued doing business in the state.
Governor Crist blustered: "When these insurance companies threaten us with this "We're going to leave your state stuff,' we say, 'Go ahead.' We don't need that kind of business in Florida."
The governor's bravado rings hollow today. Yesterday, State Farm Insurance Company, Florida's largest writer of homeowners' insurance (933,000 policyholders) announced it is going to discontinue writing homeowners' policies in the state. Read More...
These days it seems that almost every discussion includes the word “stimulus.”
But about all most of the proposals coming out of Washington would stimulate is higher taxes in the future. They aren’t what most economists consider “economic stimulus,” much less have the ability to produce any jobs and grow the economy.
There is, however, at least one available option with a track record of success that so far has been excluded from consideration: allowing companies to bring capital from abroad back to the U.S.
Many U.S. companies, especially those in the pharmaceutical or technology industries, have significant financial assets overseas. Why? Because in our global marketplace companies need to grow and compete in those markets with the greatest opportunities … wherever they are located. Many companies earn more than 50 percent of their revenue, and sometimes as high as 80 percent, outside the U.S. Read More...
In a brand new op/ed featured in National Review Online, IPI’s Peter Ferrara explains why McCain-Feingold and the Fairness Doctrine hurt more than just a speaker when it comes to the constitutional right to listen.
Ferrara writes:
“We usually think of freedom of speech as involving the right of speakers to speak, whether through public addresses, in writing, or over radio and television airwaves. But the courts have recognized an additional dimension to First Amendment free speech rights: the right to listen and watch. This right takes center stage in a current challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law and could play a role in the debate about the Fairness Doctrine.
Every circuit appeals court has acknowledged the right to listen and watch. Read More...
Posted in Government|| 0 Comments » Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
In a new op/ed featured today in TCS Daily, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson discuss that while Russia’s gas prices are low, Europe should take heed, diversifying its energy supply and increasing competition.
They write:
“In his inaugural address, President Obama observed that, 'Each day brings further evidence that the way we use energy strengthens our adversaries'. Tell it to Europe, Mr. President.
Russia has resumed delivering Gas to Europe—for now. The latest crisis, with dramatic visuals from freezing Bulgarians, is out of the headlines, but the issue is only becoming more important. Europe's future will be shaped, if not determined, by how soon Western politicians realize the need for a sound, non-ideological energy policy. Read More...
Posted in Trade|| 0 Comments » Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
In a new op/ed featured today in the DC Examiner, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson write:
“Everyone’s favorite New Year’s resolution (aside from “quit smoking”) is to get thin, slim, or at least less fat. Statistics show that will power is in rare supply, but good intentions abound.
If good intentions can’t cut it, how about a kick in the rear from your government? Our politicians have many plans to help you lose weight. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed (not enacted) taxing soft drinks on anti-fat grounds, and New York’s Governor David Paterson counts on similar Cola-revenue in this year’s budget. Read More...
Posted in Deregulation|| 0 Comments » Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
Huawei Technologies Co., a major telecommunications company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in southern China, filed 1,737 international patent applications under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty in the reporting year, followed by Japan's Panasonic Corp. with 1,729, the report said.
The U.S. is still the largest filer of patents by country. Read More...
How Can We Get Consumers Spending Again? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says former President Bush avoided this problem
The economy is struggling as consumers, even those with jobs and money, are cutting back on spending.
And now the question around Washington is, “How can we get consumers spending again?”
We were faced with a similar situation nearly eight years ago, right after the 9/11 terrorist attack. In an effort to keep consumers from hunkering down and holding onto their money, President Bush encouraged the public to go shopping.
Well, liberal commentators have ridiculed him repeatedly for that comment. They opined that in a war patriotic consumers should stop spending and keep their cash—which is exactly what they’re doing now. Read More...
In a brand new op/ed featured today in American Spectator online, IPI’s Peter Ferrara discusses why the “economic recovery bill” is no stimulus bill at all.
Ferrara writes:
“Now what we have is not only a stimulus bill that will not work. What we have is a fraudulent bill that is not even focused on stimulus at all, but on runaway spending for liberal, big government spending programs, meaning more welfare, overgrown bureaucracy, pork, political payoffs, and waste.”
To read the full op/ed, please visit American Spectator online. Read More...
Out of the $825 billion House version of the proposed economic stimulus package, $157 billion is tagged for health care. But roughly 75 percent of that spending really does nothing for the uninsured. Rather, it goes to projects like:
$20 billion to improve health information technology (HIT);
$1 billion for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to create a comparative effectiveness research program that’s supposed to compare different medical devices, prescription drugs and specified medical procedures to see which are the most effective, including the issue of cost;
$2 billion for renovations at NIH facilities and new agency research grants and $1.5 billion for renovations at university laboratories that conduct research sponsored by the agency;
There is $30 billion to help workers losing their jobs pay their COBRA premiums, but is that a good thing? Read More...
In a new op/ed featured this week in Massachusetts’ My Backyard News, IPI resident scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews explains why a new law in the Bay State could hurt biotech industry.
Matthews writes:
“The economy is in turmoil. So it’s more important than ever for state governments to support vital industries. But a new law could end up hurting the Bay State’s still-bustling biotech community.
Signed by Gov. Deval Patrick this past summer, the new law is designed to prevent drug and medical device companies from unduly influencing the decisions of physicians. Consequently, it bans certain gifts and requires the disclosure of any payments of $50 or more to physicians…”
"Liz Kennedy, deputy director of communications for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the industry makes every effort to be evenhanded in each download case.
"This is about deterrence," she wrote in an email, "protecting the rights of labels and artists and helping the legitimate marketplace."
Music piracy causes $12.5 billion in losses each year, according to the association, citing a study by the Institute for Policy Innovation..."
The cost of Obama’s stimulus package is now approaching $1 trillion. The entire budget adopted for fiscal 2008 was $3 trillion, so Obama is proposing a massive increase in Federal spending of one-third in just his first two months in office! In a couple of weeks, Obama’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year will be released. I expect it to show a budget deficit of about $1.5 trillion, which is half as large as the entire federal budget for 2008!
This should have been expected from electing the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate as President, a man with a very left wing intellectual history. But during the campaign, many people bought off on the Obama spin that those old labels don’t matter any more. These people have now been exposed as suckers.
But even after Obama was elected, many commentators soon started saying he was chartering a moderate course. The numbers cited above show he is no moderate. Read More...
In a brand new op/ed featured today in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, IPI president Tom Giovanetti tells taxpayers there’s still time to fight against the misnomered “economic recovery” plan.
Giovanetti writes:
“In the last six months the productive, taxpaying sector of the U.S. economy has been bullied and intimidated by its government as never before. Government mistakes, ranging from bad decisions about the money supply and lack of oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purposely distorting the housing and credit markets for political purposes, were responsible for the economic crisis.
But has anyone in the federal government yet apologized or accepted at least fractional responsibility for the disaster? Not that I’m aware of. Read More...
Democrats have proposed an economic stimulus package that takes us one step closer to a system in which price controls determine innovation. The key provision is $1.1 billion going to the federal Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research for so-called “comparative effectiveness research,” or CER.
Ostensibly, comparative effectiveness research is an effort to compare two or more prescription drugs to find out which ones are most effective with the fewest side effects.
But there is a dirty little secret to CER when it comes to prescription drugs. When the government sets up a process to do the research, there may be an ulterior motive: to save money, even at the expense of patient health and satisfaction. Read More...
Have You Gotten Your Farm Subsidy Yet? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says just get in line … behind the Saudis.
The great thing about farm subsidies is they help so many people, like millionaires in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
The Associated Press reports that a recent government study found that between 2003 and 2006, some 2,700 millionaires got farm-subsidy money, and some of them were Saudis.
Even though they don’t do a lot of farming in the sands of Saudi Arabia, U.S. taxpayers are apparently helping them out.
Back in the U.S., people are eligible for a farm subsidy if their average adjusted gross income doesn’t exceed $2.5 million.
So if you have been unsuccessful in getting a bailout from the federal government, you might try for a farm subsidy. If it’s good enough for a desert sheik, it’s good enough for us. Read More...
In a new op/ed published in American Spectator, IPI’s Peter Ferrara analyzes the economic policies of the brand new Barack Obama presidency, writing:
“It is the same question the people asked the last time liberal Democrats held dominant power for an extended period -- the 1970s. Obama's political forebears back then produced both roaring inflation and soaring unemployment, along with stratospheric interest rates. If Obama and his liberal allies do that again, yes, indeed, the people will be asking what happened to government that works?
It is, in fact, the exact same question that Ronald Reagan asked the people in 1980, Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Read More...
The new Congress has a housewarming present ready for President Obama—a whopping $825 billion spending package that reflects the majority’s spending priorities and also helps the new president fulfill some of his campaign promises.
At any other time and under any other administration, this would be called the largest pork-barrel spending bill ever to emerge from Congress. But in some sort of Orwellian “newspeak,” the spending package is being referred to as a “stimulus bill.”
Most economists believe there are certain actions the government can take to stimulate the economy in the short term. But this bill includes few of them, instead focusing on enormous increases in spending on education, experimental energy programs, mass transit, airports, lakes and parks, and a number of provisions that would probably embarrass even Keynes. Read More...
The so-called "stimulus" bill that came out of the House last week contains federal subsidies for companies that will use the money to rollout broadband networks to areas determined to be under served in some way. Many of these companies are salivating at the prospects of these subsidies, and many of these companies are my friends. I like companies that are in the business of providing broadband access, and are constantly rolling out new products and services, higher speeds, and doing it all through market processes and with their own money. These are the champions of the information age, in my opinion, and I vigorously defend them against government and activist attempts to regulate their businesses and dictate their business models. Read More...
With anticipated state revenues falling, more than a few fans of bigger Texas government are whispering about the need for a state income tax.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy study group with tentacles in Texas and other states, says, “Texas needs to address its antiquated tax system.” The center suggests in another essay considering “new sources of revenue as part of a balanced approach to our budget.”
Expect more of the same if voters come to embrace Keynesian-Obamanomics responses to the economic crisis: that is to say, spend, spend, spend.
Odd. Texas, despite a recent jump in joblessness, isn’t having a “crisis.” The state government’s budget isn’t in the red, unlike the budgets of income-tax-levying states like New York ($15.4 billion) and California ($40 billion). Indeed, it’s been in the black for a while. Read More...
In a brand new op/ed published inAmerican Spectator, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses what works in order to get the economy booming again.
Ferrara writes:
“We know how to get the economy booming again. The fundamental, practical principles of economics have worked over and over again, wherever they have been tried, throughout human history. Reagan's economic recovery program was based on these principles, with 4 concrete components reiterated over and over again throughout his campaign, and implemented after he was elected.
Those components were (1) across the board reductions in tax rates to provide incentives for saving, investment, starting and expanding businesses, job creation, entrepreneurship, and work, (2) removing the costs of unnecessary regulation, which today would especially mean Read More...
A groundbreaking report released Tuesday by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a group formed to take an in-depth look at both the latest sociological research on on-line safety, and also to evaluate the efficacy of various proposed software solutions, found that when it comes to protecting children online there is no technological substitute for the role of law enforcement and parents in keeping society safe. IPI was named to the Task Force last March to serve alongside other organizations and Internet companies to research effective Internet safety technologies for protecting children online. Read More...
Posted in Technology|| 0 Comments » Author: TechBytes || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
Bartlett Cleland, director of the IPI Center for Technology Freedom, will appear this morning at 10:45 am ET/7:45 am PT on San Francisco's number one rated morning radio program on Newstalk KGO 810 AM with anchors Ed Baxter and Jennifer Jones.
Cleland will be discussing the research found in the report released yesterday by the Internet Safety Technical Task Forceon child online safety.
Why Is Congress so Upset with Bernie Madoff? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says Congress has its own scam going...
Congress is upset with Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff for scamming thousands of trusting investors out of perhaps $50 billion.
But Congress has been doing the same thing for 70 years. It’s called Social Security.
Ponzi schemes like Madoff’s take money from current investors and hand it out to others. There are no real assets because the money is never invested.
That’s pretty much how Social Security works. The government takes current workers’ 12.4 percent payroll tax and immediately hands it over to current retirees. But Madoff’s $50 billion scam is chump change compared to the $2.2 trillion Social Security is supposed to have, but doesn’t.
Of course, most of those who trusted Madoff will lose their money. Read More...
The media reports that President-elect Barack Obama plans to propose a whopping $310 billion in tax cuts as part of his overall $775 billion stimulus package. But the “tax cuts” Obama is considering are not going to stimulate anything, much like the rest of his stimulus package.
Tax cuts stimulate the economy when they involve reductions in tax rates. The reduction in rates encourages savings, investment, business creation and expansion, job creation, entrepreneurship, and work by allowing people to keep a greater percentage of the reward produced by these activities.
These types of cuts improve the economy not just by the dollar amount of the tax cut. When they occur at the margin, the improved incentives affect every economic decision and every dollar in the entire economy. Read More...
IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara will appear today at 4:05 pm EST on "Let's Talk Frank," discussing the state of U.S. entitlement programs.
Listen live online at 4:05 pm today by visiting www.leeandterryfrank.com. Read More...
If you follow technology issues, you know that 2009 is the year that all of the various “privacy” issues are expected to mature and bloom into new attempts at legislation and regulation.
A basket of issues falls under the rubric of “privacy,” from Internet filtering, packet inspection, behavioral advertising, and data collection and retention policies, and there are legitimate policy problems in each of these areas.
But before getting into the weeds of these various debates, let’s remember some first principles that should govern privacy discussions.
The primary concern of our Founding Fathers, and thus the primary purpose of the Constitution, was to protect private citizens from their government. Read More...
IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara will be featured on talk radio today across the country discussing President-elect Obama’s tax cut and economic stimulus proposals.
Dr. Merrill Matthews, IPI resident scholar and health care expert, is cited in a new medical news article discussing the pre-emption case recently heard in the Supreme Court, Wyeth v. Levine.
Merrill Matthews, Jr., PhD, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, said the outcome of Wyeth could change how drugs are regulated in America.
"If the Supremes rule against Wyeth," said Matthews, "local juries and trial lawyers could become the de facto authority on drug safety in the United States."
The justices will determine whether the principle of preemption applies in matters of drug safety. (Preemption holds that federal law supersedes state law when there's a conflict between the two.) Read More...
Posted in Health Care|| 0 Comments » Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
In a brand new piece appearing today in American Spectator, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara says Obama’s $310 billion tax cut plan is a mere “tax cut mirage,” and the key to real economic stimulus is to cut tax rates.
Ferrara writes:
"Obama Eyes $310 Billion in Tax Cuts" the headline blares. The Obama team comes to town to start the new year, and the run-up to his inauguration, with this announcement.
How sly.
This Obama tax cut package is to be part of the broader stimulus package now estimated to cost $775 billion. The problem is that there are tax cuts and there are tax cuts, and there are other things Obama calls tax cuts that are not even tax cuts. Read More...
Posted in Tax|| 0 Comments » Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA
How many times this past year did you hear some expert make some variation of the following statement: “We’ll never see gas prices below $X again.”
And yet, over the Christmas holidays, prices as low as $1.34 per gallon were spotted, and prices around $1.50 per gallon are typical at the time of this writing.
Ain’t a functioning market wonderful?
Back in August when gas prices were in excess of $4.00 per gallon, the cries were loud for government intervention.
The most popular among these proposals were windfall profits taxes on the oil companies and anti-gouging or caps on the price of retail sales. And it is remarkable how many otherwise intelligent people climbed on board. But whether by good sense, political reality or just plain dumb luck, these price-distorting policies were not enacted. Read More...
In the January 12 edition of Forbes magazine, Dr. Merrill Matthews, resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, discusses why India’s economic policies have led to the nation’s shortage of vitamin C.
Matthews writes:
“The Times of India reports that the country is facing a growing shortage of vitamin C. The reason? The Indian government imposed price controls on the vitamin in an effort to make it more affordable. But pharmaceutical companies making vitamin C tablets have seen the cost of the raw ingredients soar by 300% or more. That means it's costing the companies more to make the tablets than they can charge for them. So they've quit making them. While that vitamin C shortage may not affect the U.S., the economic policy behind it could. Democrats in Congress think price controls will lower the cost of prescription drugs here. Read More...
In a new op/ed featured in American Spectator online, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses what free market conservatives should now do with the dawn of the New Year.
Ferrara writes:
“…We don't need a lot of new ideas here. Our substantive agenda is intellectually well developed and sound. And a lot of the supposed new ideas for conservatives we are hearing about these days are not good.
The fundamental theme for conservatives is freedom and prosperity, including the freedom for those who believe in traditional religious and moral values to live their lives in accordance with those values. For long-term political success, the emphasis needs to be on economic growth, because that is what moves conservative political support from the mid-40s toward 60%, enough for a governing majority. Read More...
If ever there was a real world example that puts the lie to arguments against regulatory competition and in favor of regulatory centralization, Bernie Madoff's Ponzi Scheme did. As Wall Street expert Pam Martens puts it:
"Naturally, the Madoff money trail of special favors and exceptions leads straight to Washington. From 1998 through 2008, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities paid $590,000 lobbying Congress and the SEC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His lobby firm for most of those years was Lent, Scrivner & Roth, with Norman F. Lent III signing the disclosure documents in the House and Senate. One of Madoff's hot button issues during those years according to the disclosure documents was getting a single regulator. Read More...
In a new op/ed featured on Forbes.com, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson discuss why “costly carbon will dampen an economy that’s already down.”
“Barack Obama's energy and environment cabinet choices will likely also shape his economic policy.
Yes, the trio of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, climate change czar Carol Browner and Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson could well outweigh the impact of financial leaders Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Peter Orszag, thanks to the former group's determination to strip the U.S. economy of its carbon. Read More...
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Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA