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May 2009
As state legislative sessions begin to close, states continue to modernize their regulation of the communications industry. Recognizing that decades-old regulations are no longer appropriate, states are eliminating requirements, simplifying governing structures, and otherwise making it possible for companies to compete with each other on near-level playing fields as they try to please consumers with new products, new services, and competitive prices.
As broadband is being rolled out, it gives consumers and businesses not only new products and services, but also introduces new competition in phone service, Internet access and video service.
In a typical market today, consumers can choose to purchase video and broadband services from two different satellite providers, a cable provider, and often from one or more “phone companies” such as Verizon, AT&T and Qwest or from hundreds of smaller, regional phone companies.
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Can the Government Help You Get Thinner? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says not if it’s getting fatter.
The Obama administration wants to spend billions of dollars pushing us to be healthy.
But the town of Sommerville, Massachusetts, has found an easy and inexpensive way to encourage healthier lifestyles. It changed some of the foods in the public schools, replacing French fries, candy and sodas with fresh fruit, skim milk and other healthy foods.
The city also built some bike and walking paths.
When the program started seven years ago, 44 percent of the elementary school children were either overweight or at risk of becoming so. Within just one year the city noticed significant weight changes among the children. Now other cities are adopting the model.
We don’t need the government monitoring our calories. Read More...
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Regular readers know that we tend to promote less government spending. But there are a few areas where current spending levels are justified; even an increase might be warranted. One such case: the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).
Under the previous administration, Labor Department Secretary Elaine Chao fought for more transparency in labor union accounting practices—and got it.
Labor unions have been heavily engaged in political activities for decades, spending millions of dollars in union members’ dues supporting political candidates and labor-friendly policies.
But when reporting time would roll around, union management would report little or no political activity. The whole process was a complete sham.
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Congratulations to all of those who have been worried for the last several years about America's "trade deficit"--for the first three months of 2009 our trade deficit has dropped dramatically, running at a rate of $359.7 billion, compared to last year's trade deficit of $681.1 billion.
So, if you're worried about trade deficits, there's nothing like a smacking-good economic collapse to remedy our trade deficit problems. Hope all you trade deficit hawks out there are happy.
(End obvious sarcasm)
No, the fact is that trade is the solution, not the problem. A drop-off in trade is associated with a drop-off in economic growth, and trade deficits in the United States for the last several decades have been associated with healthy economies, not sick economies.
Those who fear trade really fear that the U.S. is not able to compete globally, and fear that U.S. workers aren't able to adapt to changing labor markets. Read More...
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Note: The Institute for Policy Innovation will be highlighting trade issues this week in recognition of World Trade Week.
Why are domestic policies, both here and abroad, threatening to tear apart the most globally competitive companies? Rather, we should be doing all we can to encourage their success, especially now.
The European Union has been on a tear, swinging a wrecking ball at U.S. globally competitive companies. Just last week the EU fined Intel a record-shattering $1.45 billion for “anticompetitive practices”—the largest fine ever imposed for any breach of EU antitrust law. The previous record-smashing fine was $677 million, imposed on Microsoft in 2004.
Which U.S. companies are next? Could it be: - IBM facing a new complaint after settling a decades-old case?
- How about Rambus or Qualcomm, which are under an ongoing inquiry?
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Is The Swine Flu Crisis Made Worse by the Uninsured? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says some politicians are using an epidemic to promote their agendas.
Some health care reform advocates are using the swine flu outbreak to claim that a government-run health care system would have minimized the problems. Everyone would have a family doctor rather than going to an emergency room.
But that’s just nonsense!
Family doctors are important, but accidents and illnesses often happen at nights and on weekends, when the doctor’s office is closed.
Plus, insured people frequently go to emergency rooms. One ER study found that 85 percent of the emergency room patients had insurance.
Yes, the ER can be overcrowded—and abused. A recent study in Austin, Texas, found that just nine people used the ER nearly 2,700 times in six years.
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While Iraq may have been “Bush’s War,” it increasingly seems that “Obama’s War” will be a trade war.
The $787 billion stimulus package included a “Buy American” provision requiring companies, governments and agencies receiving stimulus funds to buy products that are “made in America.”
While such provisions are being touted as a way to reduce unemployment, they’re simply back-door protectionism, which allows the president to maintain he both supports global trade while simultaneously undermining it. As a White House spokesperson said recently, “The president is committed to creating jobs in America and committed to global engagement with our trading partners and does not see any contradiction between those two goals,” according to a recent story in The Washington Post.
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Note: The Institute for Policy Innovation will be highlighting trade issues this week in recognition of World Trade Week
A Texas company, Dallas-based Mary Kay, Inc., is wondering what’s going on with Congress.
Mary Kay’s concern: What were the people’s representatives thinking when they decided to make U.S.-made personal care products less attractive and saleable in the Mexican market?
Here’s the deal: U.S. truckers wanted to kill a pilot program, set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), for resolving safety concerns about Mexican trucks driving on U.S. roads. So Congress, with a nod from the Obama administration, used this year’s omnibus spending bill to kill the pilot program; no more “threat” of Mexican truckers bringing us Mexican goods on Mexican trucks. Read More...
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Patent reform has been stalled on Capitol Hill for years. Nearly everyone agrees that reform of the system is needed to some extent. From patent fees being diverted away from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for better, more innovative operations, to great concerns over how damages in lawsuits are apportioned, there is room for improvement in this critical area.
Yes, critical. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) about 40 percent of current U.S. economic growth tends to be attributed to intangible assets. As a result, in part, the Department of Commerce has had an innovation metrics committee, which along with BEA, has tried to identify the value of intangible assets. In absolute terms, intangible assets have accounted for approximately 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the post-WW II era, but in the last few years have swelled to between 6.5 percent and 8.5 percent of GDP.
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Is Your Social Security Check Safe? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, but for how long?
When some of us raised concerns about Social Security’s financial soundness, liberals always accused us of being fear mongers.
Well, the fear is here. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal reports that President Obama’s budget says this year Social Security will pay out $8 billion more than it’s taking in.
It wasn’t supposed to hit this point for 10 years, but the economic downturn has hurt government revenues.
Defenders claim there’s still a Social Security trust fund to draw from. True, but the government has borrowed all of that money and spent it.
So Social Security is broke in fact, if not on paper. Monthly checks will no doubt still be paid, but it’s borrowed money—and borrowed time. Read More...
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Now we’re beginning to see how President Obama plans to “create or save 3 million jobs.” He’s just going to make government employees out of them.
Trying to get an accurate tally of all of the new government hires isn’t easy; in many cases they are simply part of the beefed-up funding for various departments and agencies.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes government employment, thinks the administration needs to add 200,000 new government jobs. Our bet is that the president’s well on his way to reach that goal—and more. The Wall Street Journal reports that:
• The president’s budget creates 33,600 new defense department jobs by 2015, while it envisions cutting many of its current contractors.
• The Department of labor gets 1,000 new jobs.
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Who needs Weight Watchers, 24 Hour Fitness and cardio kickboxing when the Texas Senate is on the job?
State senators want you to eat right, just like they … er, well, like they should.
Prompted by El Paso Sen. Eliot Shapely—oh, sorry, Shapleigh’s the name, but you can understand our confusion on this point—24 good and true dietitians who moonlight as state senators voted last week to ban the use of most trans fats in Texas restaurants by 2011.
It’s good to know that with all the economic problems facing the state, what with unemployment, an explosion in Medicaid applicants, energy, and so, that the senators have the time to deal with the really important stuff—like outlawing trans fats.
Shapleigh’s bill now goes to the House, which is weighing its own version of the ban. Read More...
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On your local oldies radio station, when you hear Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons’ hit song “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night),” neither Frankie Valli nor The Four Seasons receive any income from the broadcast of their performance.
Now, Bob Gaudio, the songwriter/composer, makes some small royalty for his musical work (the song itself). When the song is included in the stage production of “Jersey Boys” along with the background history of the song, the playwright is compensated. If “Jersey Boys” was ever made into a movie, that audiovisual work would enjoy a full performance right. If the book Jersey Boys by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise is ever made into a book on tape they will get compensated for that, as will whoever performs the reading. But for the over-the-air broadcast of the sound recording, the basis of all the derivative products, performers do not get compensated for their creativity.
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Do You Smell a Foul Odor? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says that smell may be pork-barrel spending.
In these hard economic times, at least the government is being careful with your tax dollars, right?
Well, Citizens Against Government Waste has released its 19th annual “Pig Book,” which identifies all of the pork-barrel spending projects in the federal budget, some 10,000 of them.
- Like spending $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research in Iowa.
- And $4.5 million for wood utilization research.
While there’s about 1,500 fewer pork-barrel projects in this year’s budget, spending on them is up by 14 percent.
Yes, there are projects the federal government can and should fund.
But before we spend your tax dollars studying swine odor in Iowa, how about we figure out how to stop the stink from Washington Read More...
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President Obama is proposing a radical restructuring of how the federal government taxes money earned and held by U.S. companies overseas.
U.S. multinational companies often leave their earnings in the countries where they’re earned and taxed by those foreign governments as a means of limiting their tax exposure in the United States, which has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Mr. Obama appears to think companies that leave their funds overseas are unpatriotic for not returning that money to the U.S. and doubling down their tax obligations by paying an exorbitant corporate tax on the repatriated funds, after already paying taxes in the country of origin.
While Obama is using rhetoric about attacking the “tax havens” and other countries that don’t want to play the administration’s game, what he’s really attacking are America’s most globally competitive companies.
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When Texas Governor Rick Perry alluded to secession during an April 15 Tea Party tax protest, the media were all over him like a liberal on a tax increase.
Of course, he was joking, as we in Texas occasionally do about the notion of separating from the union. But there are some less radical and far more reasonable ways of severing our ties with the feds. And Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has one of them.
The senator has this weird notion that what a state pays into the tax system should closely resemble what it receives. Texas sends about $3 billion annually to Washington in motor fuel taxes. For every one of those dollars, Washington thoughtfully remits to Texas about 92 cents. Some deal: pay more, get less! (Though, we have to say “pay more, get more government” doesn’t sound all that appealing either.)
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In 1990, Congress substantially increased the fees associated with obtaining and maintaining patents and trademarks. But what Congress gives it can also take away—which is exactly what it’s been doing.
The fee increase was designed to recover the costs of processing patent and trademark applications. While user fees may cover more than the cost of operating the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), some of those fees may be siphoned off to a general revenue pool to fund other government programs.
This diversion of user fees to fund unrelated government activities is unfair to those who pay the fees, and it’s damaging to our nation's economic health and progress.
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Author: TechBytes || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA