The Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act by a 69-27 vote on Monday, bringing us one step closer to state taxes on Internet commerce. The House has its own version of the bill, so there’s a pretty good chance it will reach the President’s desk, and of course you had Barack Obama at “new tax.” It will be a wonder if he can keep from | Read More »
It’s funny how the same House Judiciary Committee that took up SOPA is now taking up IRFA, opposed by a growing list of groups including Taxpayers Protection Alliance, ATR, CAGW, and ACU. SOPA of course would have grown government in the name of strengthening copyright. IRFA makes government meddle more in a way that weakens copyright. And not in a good way, either: IRFA would not encourage innovation or content creation. It just favors Internet broadcasters over everyone else.
Also yeah, the RSC paper on Copyright that I backed before it was wrongly pulled, it is not a statement against property rights nor is it against copyright at all. If the side favoring ever-lengthening copyright cannot argue honestly with us, and has to mischaracterize those of us who favor an approach to copyright that balances the interests involved, then that to me suggests a deficiency in their position.
Read More »We all understand that elections have consequences and that there are certain issues which are ceded with an electoral loss. Obamacare is not one of them. If Obamacare is allowed to survive, then our Constitution has no meaning and our Republic is finished. It will engender a takeover of 1/6 of our economy, create permanent dependency, induce unsustainable inflationary pressure on the cost of healthcare | Read More »
Why Mitt Romney must win the election: Dianne Feinstein is urging Barack Obama to defy the Congress, which refused to pass the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act, and rule by decree on the matter.
And I know it’s a lot of inside baseball, some of the details of which I’m not entirely up on, but the FCC has been making hay before the election, and it’s not even pretending to make sense. Much as I’ve previously noted the left-wing advocacy groups do, the FCC uses whatever argument it must for the immediate issue at hand. Consistency across issues is not required.
Read More »Through Obama’s truculent special interest campaign of division and derision, he is rapidly exhausting his check list of demographic groups. He’s already targeted women, Hispanics, gays, blue collar workers, and all sorts of minorities. Now he is going after the ‘commuter vote’ in northern Virginia. Politico is reporting that Obama is up with a 60-second radio spot in northern Virginia claiming that Paul Ryan’s budget | Read More »
The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own. (HT: Yahoo News) I’m thinking President Obama regrets two of his decisions right about now. He wishes he wasn’t about to hold the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC and he’d rather have Opus The Penguin as a Veep right now | Read More »
As we’ve noted throughout the past year’s imbroglio over transportation spending, it is clear that complete federal control over transportation spending in a post-interstate highway era (post 1992) is inefficient, costly, anti-federalist, and precludes state and private innovations. Yet, Congress continues to buckle down on a policy that has failed in recent years, exposing taxpayers to future bailouts and tax increases. Worst of all, it | Read More »
As we approach the March 31 expiration date for surface transportation projects, we can take solace in the fact that the House will not vote on two bad bills; Boehner’s original 5-year $260 billion reauthorization and the Senate’s 2-year $109 billion bill. While we push for a more prudent long-term solution, the House will pass a 90-day stopgap bill to continue spending at current levels | Read More »
One of the numerous legislative deadlines that Congress will be forced to confront this session is the expiration of the 8th short-term extension of the 2005 surface transportation authorization law (SAFETEA-LU). With federal transportation spending growing beyond its revenue source, an imbalance between donor and recipient states, inefficient and superfluous construction projects popping up all over the country, and burdensome mass transit mandates on states, | Read More »
Earlier today, Barack Obama decried the gridlock that has prevented Congress from passing a long-term surface transportation bill (highway bill) as unacceptable and inexcusable. He also asserted that we must formulate a policy in which funding would be directed to those districts that need it the most, instead of politically motivated pork, such as the bridge to nowhere (which he supported in the Senate). Well, | Read More »
Here’s a cautionary tale for you from the states — and specifically the state of Texas. By way of full disclosure, I serve as the VP for Communications at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. From April 25th through May 20th, the Texas Public Policy Foundation ran a series of television advertisements — all available on the TPPF YouTube Channel — urging Texans to head to | Read More »
Do progressives believe in States’ Rights and the idea of Federalism? Not Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. During a discussion today about the Filibuster sponsored by the American Political Science Association, and shown on C-SPAN, Ezra Klein made a very radical assertion about the issue of States’ Rights and one that should worry conservatives who treasure the idea of federalism.
California’s going to have a busy ballot in November. In addition to voting for Governor, Senator, and more statewide offices than you can shake a stick at, we’re going to have a long list of initiative statutes and constitutional amendments to deal with. One of the more interesting ones is numbered 19. Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, if passed | Read More »
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