Before the fiscal cliff nightmare came to a head, families across the globe were celebrating the holidays; thoughts of politics being far from the minds of many. Spending extra time with family is often one of the beloved highlights of the holiday break. Yet for so many families in the United States, this past season was heartbreaking. 46 families in particular were forced to focus on | Read More »
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss the new Obamacare taxes which begin in 2013, how they impact the average American family and why the definition of “affordable” may mean unaffordable insurance coverage for families.
Read More »From the diaries…
When conservatives complain about the federal government, we all know the usual litany. The government spends too much, taxes too much, borrows too much, and regulates too much. But there is another “too much” most people don’t even know about: The federal government controls too much spectrum.
Why is this important? Well, when you make a call on your cellphone, you’re using spectrum. When you listen to the radio or watch broadcast television, you’re using spectrum. And when you surf the Internet, send a text, download an app, watch a movie, or play a game on your smartphone or tablet, you’re using spectrum. Put simply, our daily lives are ever more dependent on the airwaves over which communications signals travel.
But guess who controls a majority of the best spectrum, the spectrum most suitable for mobile broadband? It’s the federal government itself. Almost 60 percent of that spectrum is in federal hands, primarily used by federal agencies for their own purposes.
Read More »Throughout the tax debate, we heard righteous indignation from both parties regarding the need to close up special interest loopholes in the tax code. Yet the special interest loopholes were the only items preserved in the cliff tax bill. The entire package of over $40 billion in corporate subsidies and green social engineering was taken from a Senate Finance Committee Bill, which unfortunately, was supported | Read More »
Hey La-Mulanites! I’m Neil, and let’s play Tech at Night.
Anyway. Yeah, I took a break, as you may have noticed. It turns out between Christmas, New Year’s and the Fiscal Cliff, not much happened for me to cover, anyway! So let’s get started.
Two legislative notes: the outmoded video privacy law passed, while the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act is dead in the water. I always said its best chance was President Romney and a Republican Senate, but now that’s not happening. Poor Amazon, bargaining with states on the assumption this would happen.
And in case you forgot, a Cybersecurity executive order would be a bad thing, per Marsha Blackburn and Steve Scalise.
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First of all, I hope so. But have they boxed themselves in? Consider that the fiscal cliff deal is playing badly with lots of folks, not just partisan Republicans and partisan Democrats. Congress playing brinksmanship with nothing to show for it really is aggravating the American public. If both sides are going to play at brinksmanship, at some point the base of the parties and | Read More »
The Washington Post is almost believably shocked to discover that the practice of rendition has returned to Clinton-era levels: …it is not known how many renditions have taken place during Obama’s first term. But his administration has not disavowed the practice. Hot Air called this a ‘surprise.’ I know that they’re being sarcastic, because those folks were as aware of the situation with regard to | Read More »
Georgetown Law Professor Louis Michael Seidman had a really awful op-Ed on December 30, 2012 in the New York Times (even by that newspaper’s low standards) titled “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution”. I say let’s give up on him, instead.
Why anyone thinks this guy is qualified to be a constitutional law professor boggles my mind. Maybe it’s time to give up on tenure, too.
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I will not try to convince any conservative that the final fiscal cliff deal that passed the Senate with only a few dissenting votes and needed Democratic votes to pass the House with a divided GOP caucus is a good deal, nor that it is the best deal available under the circumstances. It is, however, important to remember that this was a deal negotiated under | Read More »
Paul Ryan was a great pick for Mitt Romney’s Vice President. He’s a young, articulate guy the left has tried and failed repeatedly to paint as some sort of heartless monster. His “Ryan Plan” has some great points in it, though it is not as bold as the left would have you believe or as Ryan’s acolytes would have you believe. But this fiscal cliff | Read More »
Only in Washington could they concoct a scheme in which we are forced to increase spending on market-distorting subsidy programs lest we suffer the pain of further market distortions through government price controls. Yet, that is the case with the so-called dairy cliff that would have been crossed had Congress not passed an extension of the current farm bill. Last year, conservatives successfully blocked the | Read More »
Sociologist, Max Weber famously wrote about the good, the bad and the ugly facets of bureaucracies. He saw them as a necessary evil that needed to be kept in check. He feared a technocratic dictatorship of Nietzchean Last Men. Weber’s argument is described below.
Read More »Iron cage, a sociological concept introduced by Max Weber, refers to the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies. The “iron cage” thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control. Weber also described the bureaucratization of social order as “the polar night of icy darkness”.
In a turn of events that should be a surprise only if you’ve never heard of Mitch McConnell before, the Senate — with one heck of a lot of Senate Republicans, including nominal conservatives, agreeing — just decided to hike taxes on small businesses and skip any spending cuts of any kind, and over a third of the Republican caucus including the Speaker agreed. Indeed, | Read More »
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to break down the Fiscal Cliff deal, what it does and doesn’t address and the business community’s reaction.
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Many Republicans are trying ton convince themselves that they will make up ground on the spending side of the equation come the debt ceiling fight. Mr. Obama says he will not negotiate, but he is going to have to. The problem for the GOP is that its House leadership is working at cross purposes and really is in the disarray the “liberal media” keeps saying. | Read More »
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