Fred Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank, would like you to think that his organization provides assistance to a broad range of American companies for the good of our nation’s economy. In reality, the Export-Import Bank directly finances foreign companies at the expense of domestic U.S. industries. It is an organization that harms the United States’ ability to compete in foreign markets and | Read More »
This week, one year ago, Japan slashed its corporate tax rate, leaving the United States with the highest effective rate among our competitors: 39.2 percent. With a struggling economy and sluggish job growth, Americans can no longer afford to be apathetic about our global competitiveness. In a 2012 editorial, Joseph Mason – Moyse/LBA Chair of Banking at LSU’s Ourso School of Business and a senior | Read More »
The Internet’s proliferation has dramatically transformed the way we work, communicate and even shop. In fact, by the end of 2013, online shopping will consume 9 percent of total U.S. retail sales, generating $250 billion in industry revenue. Some of this growth is attributable to as much as a 10 percent market advantage the federal government has given e-commerce over its brick-and-mortar counterparts. This is | Read More »
With more words dedicated to comprehensive tax reform than the highly-publicized (and politicized) immigration debate during the President’s State of the Union address last night, the President has put a sense of momentum behind the issue – kind of. After all, he’s called for some degree of corporate and individual tax reform in his previous State of the Union’s. Unfortunately, however, other than a few | Read More »
When it comes to growing our economy and making Washington, D.C., interfere less in our lives and the lives of entrepreneurs and business leaders, the obvious first step is reforming our tax code. Senator Rob Portman wrote an op-ed on this very topic this morning and hits the nail on the head: There is a broad and growing consensus that our tax system is plagued | Read More »
Matt Damon’s anti-fracking flick “Promised Land” hits box offices today – just one day after a New York state Health Department report was leaked, which demonstrates that hydraulic fracturing (better known as “fracking”) can be done safely. Fracking has long faced opposition from environmentalists and Hollywood; however, as energy experts began drilling for facts, a growing body of research has emerged that shows when proper | Read More »
In the Vice President’s own words, the middle class has been “buried” during the last four years. With an unemployment rate over 8 percent and millions of Americans who have simply given up on looking for employment, America’s unrelenting economic recession has forced families and small businesses to make difficult financial sacrifices. Union workers have largely been left unscathed, however – even if that meant | Read More »
One doesn’t have to listen closely to hear the growing chorus of radical environmentalists calling for stiffer and stiffer job-killing regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. More and more each year, new green policy initiatives are crafted world-wide. But all too often, these policies do more harm than good, usually by implementing destructive rules and creating new taxes, ultimately hampering economic growth. The European Union Emissions | Read More »
In an ad released this week, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren explains, “Our kids owe a trillion dollars in student loan debt. That’s more than all the credit card debt in America combined. Our kids are crushed by debt – and they didn’t go on a shopping spree; they got an education.” She’s right. America’s students are drowning in debt. The Project on Student Debt | Read More »
While Obama’s creative rhetoric promised economic recovery and job creation, the President has neglected the Jobs Council, wasted $1 trillion on a failed stimulus, awarded foreign countries job-creating military contracts and “invested” in renewable energy that created jobs overseas. The results? This morning, the U.S. Department of Labor announced just 163,000 jobs were created in the U.S. this July, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.3 | Read More »
A decade after the towers fell, America remains under attack. Just weeks ago, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) thwarted a plot to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner by an al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen. Now, national security experts are asking whether American agents would have been as successful if the attack were carried out through “bioterrorism,” or the “intentional release or dissemination of biological agents.” “Right | Read More »
Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Marketplace Equality Act (H.R. 3179) – a critical piece of legislation that will finally level the playing field between brick-and-mortar shops and online retailers when it comes to state sales tax. Currently, online retailers are not required to collect state sales taxes, giving these institutions a taxpayer-funded 10 percent price advantage over our local | Read More »
Senator Jim DeMint is a leader in the conservative movement, consistently fighting to limit the federal government’s size and scope and deferential to states’ rights – positions and views that many others, including myself, share with the Senator. Nonetheless, I was concerned when I read the Senator’s remarks on Twitter and on his blog about the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). More specifically, he asked his | Read More »
There are more cellphones in America today than citizens and 13 times more text messages sent annually than pieces of mail. The wireless revolution has transformed the way relationships and business works and resulted in one of the most successful and innovative sectors of the U.S. economy. While the overall economy lost millions of jobs during the ongoing recession, the wireless industry exploded, leading to | Read More »
After months of acrimony and debate, President Obama signed the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2012 into law last May, which increased the Ex-Im Bank’s exposure limit by 40%. And while the legislation also included measures to increase oversight, a close eye must still be kept on the activities of the bank. Ex-Im has been holding a number of events for small businesses claiming “attendees | Read More »
President Obama renamed the summer of 2010 “Recovery Summer,” but two years later, our economy sits at a standstill and millions of Americans remain unemployed – many of which have not been able to find work since the since the so-called “Recovery Summer.” This morning, the U.S. Department of Labor reaffirmed what the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans already know: our economy has not | Read More »
The Obama administration has announced a new scheme, which places one set of standards on for-profit colleges and universities and another – or rather none on traditional four-year non-profit colleges and universities. This approach skews the playing field, rewards the President’s political allies in academia and punishes those who are educating less traditional higher education demographics. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized today: “President Obama | Read More »
Today, President Obama is visiting Nevada (translation: a battleground state) to discuss student loans (translation: to court the youth vote) and sign a memo focused on student loan repayment options (translation: repackage another spending proposal that lacks accountability as a new idea). In less than a month, student loan interest rates, an industry controlled nearly totally by the federal government, are set to double, increasing | Read More »
In the next few weeks, millions of students will graduate from college or high school, seeking opportunities to join the American workforce. Most will remain unemployed for months – or longer. Today, the Labor Department announced just 69,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy this month, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent and failing to provide the necessary opportunities for the millions of | Read More »
Everyone has heard about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now many are familiar with their cousin – the Export-Import Bank, which, as currently structured, is hurting American companies, costing jobs, and making open and fair competition impossible. Ex-Im Bank was established in 1934 “to assist in financing U.S. trade with the Soviet Union” by executive order, with a stated mission to support export financing | Read More »
Through the stimulus package, President Obama promised to get the unemployment rate under 8 percent. While we’re heading closer to that “magic number,” the reduced rate is not a result of economic growth, but rather because thousands of Americans have simply given up when it comes to finding a job. When tallying the unemployment rate, the federal government only counts those individuals who are actively | Read More »
State governments are the lottery’s real “big winners,” collecting $17 billion of revenue annually from ticket sales, which are really a deceptive and hidden tax that expand the government’s influence. While the ticketholder’s chances of winning the recent Mega Millions jackpot were about one in 176 million, state governments are always guaranteed huge payouts. Last December, the Obama administration once again bypassed Congress, unilaterally opened | Read More »
Each month the accuracy and implications of the new unemployment data is debated in opinion columns, cable news shows and political campaigns. When even minimal job growth is recorded, pundits claim that we are now getting back on the right track. This short sighted outlook ignores our economy’s fundamental problems – such as our growing debt, sustained deficit and outdated corporate tax code – that | Read More »
Americans for Job Security (AJS) has urged the Obama Administration to explain its abrupt disqualification last fall of Wichita-based Hawker Beechcraft from bidding on an almost one billion dollar defense contract to build US military aircraft, a contract the Administration later awarded to Brazilian-owned Embraer without warning. That is, until recently. Last week, the U.S. Air Force announced an unprecedented reversal, suspending its contract award | Read More »
America’s economy is lying idle and today’s job numbers only underscore that. Just 227,000 jobs were added in February 2012, which pundits will certainly celebrate as positive growth. However, when you consider that more than half of those jobs must be added simply to maintain the status quo, the true gain hardly moves our nation in the right direction when more than 12 million Americans | Read More »
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