TCS Daily : November 2010 Archives
The Set-Aside Boondoggle
Here's a fat target for any member of the new Congress who wants to make his mark rooting out government waste, fraud, and abuse: minority set-asides.
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Let's Not Internationalize Fairness
The UN's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was the subject of hearings on Sep. 18. Why is there suddenly interest in a treaty that has been moribund for a generation-and this in a lame-duck session of Congress?
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Lessons From A Capitalist Thanksgiving
The members of the Plymouth colony had arrived in the New World with a plan for collective property ownership. Their charter called for farmland to be worked communally and for the harvests to be shared. You probably will not be surprised to hear that the colonists
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The 'Build America' Debt Bomb
In a poll taken before the election, half of the respondents said that members of Congress who supported the '09 stimulus didn't deserve to be re-elected. Many weren't. Yet the lame-duck Congress might extend one of the key elements of that stimulus: "Build America
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Shrink the Fed Before It Shrinks the Dollar
At Tea Party rallies and at other get-togethers over the last two years, one could often see placards reading: "End the Fed." One might conclude that there's a movement afoot in America to abolish our central bank, the Federal Reserve.
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Liberty Starts in School
American public schools are not currently producing students who can think independently. How can we expect to maintain our liberty when our citizens lack the ability to reach independent conclusions on the issues of the day?
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Pence-Corker Inflation Target Aimed at QE2
House leader Mike Pence and Sen. Bob Corker submitted legislation to end the Fed's dual mandate of balancing employment and inflation. Instead, they want to rewrite the late-'70s Humphrey-Hawkins act to mandate an inflation target for the Fed, dropping the employme
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The Done-Nothing 111th and Taxes
As the Done-Nothing 111th Congress waddles back to Washington for its "lame-duck" session, its most pressing issue is taxes. Will Congress allow income, capital, and estate taxes to rise, or will it pass full or partial extensions of current tax rates?
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Strong Retail Sales Warn the Fed: Cease and Desist
During the 19th century, many presidential campaigns were fought on the issue of the dollar and its gold or silver backing. So history may repeat itself. Will we have Keynesian fine-tuning, or stable money backed by commodities including gold?
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Reinventing Public Housing
It is easy to despair over the persistence of black poverty. The depth and complexity of its causes leads, understandably, to indifference born of frustration. That makes what's going on under the aegis of the Atlanta Housing Authority so unusual - and so hopeful.
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The 77% of Income Fallacy
When Congress returns next week for a "lame-duck," post-election session Harry Reid will try to muster the 60 votes he needs to block a filibuster of a vote on the misnamed Paycheck Fairness Act. It would be better titled the Paycheck Rareness Act, because it would
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How Republicans Can Break Obamacare Before They Repeal It
As they exult in their smashing victory in last week's midterm elections, conservatives must resist the temptation of assuming that President Obama's health-care reform law is on the road to repeal. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Power Failure at NATO
In the face of skyrocketing debt, America's NATO allies are planning massive cuts in their defense budgets. It's a worrisome prospect given the swelling number of challenges on NATO's plate.
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The World Against Bernanke
The great Bernanke QE2 debate continues to heat up. In the run-up to the G-20 meetings, China, Russia, Germany, and others are all coming out against the Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing agenda. They don't want hot-money excess dollars to flow into their highe
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How Would Congress Balance the Budget In Just One Day?
If an emergency arose where Congress had to balance the federal budget in just one day, how would they do it without printing money? Congress couldn't do it by increasing revenue, as economic growth takes time to work and tax hikes would tank the economy. Congress
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Less Bad Stuff Is Good
The real meaning of the new Senate-House-Obama triangle is not yet clear. The bad stuff will be stopped. That's good. But how much good stuff can be legislated remains to be seen. This might be what's slowing down the stock market.
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What Just Happened? Probably Not What the Democrats Think
After the whipping the Democrats just received in the midterms, it does seem appropriate to ask what just happened. How did a political party take a popular president, a filibuster-proof Senate majority, a willing public, and a slavish media and ride them in only t
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Final Nail in the Democrats' Coffin
The White House bet the ranch on a massive government pump-priming plan, but the scheduled economic recovery has simply not occurred. And that's why a Republican Tea Party tsunami lies just over the horizon. That tidal wave could be even greater than current pollin
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The Other Election Issue
While Americans contemplate "fights to the finish" and "tense battles" between Democratic and Republican candidates in Tuesday's midterm elections, let's be sure to remember the real wars being waged against America and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and
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