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Where's That Inflation?

From September 2008 to September 2009, the Federal Reserve pumped an unprecedented $2 trillion into the financial system by buying Treasury bonds and assets from banks. According to most mainstream...

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Bernanke's Philosopher

When Ben Bernanke took charge of the Federal Reserve in 2006, the media made a few passing references that suggested he secretly subscribed to libertarianism. “I worked with him for years before I even...

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More Job Creation Discovered in Non-Existent Congressional Districts

Got to love transparency. Building on Sam Staley's post from earlier today—pointing out how MPI discovered the government was reporting job creation numbers in 12 districts that don't exist—there is...

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10 New Ohio Congressional Districts "Created" By Stimulus

The evidence of the strikingly poor data provided to the federal government on jobs "created" or "saved" from the stimulus continues to mount. Ohio Watchdog reports that according to recovery.org, the...

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Obama Said What About the Economy?

In a Fox News interview with President Obama to air later today, the president will make an interesting remark:"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst...

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Our Air Traffic Control System Is Outdated and Wasteful

As the holiday travel rush approaches, air travelers grounded by delays should take a moment to think about why they're stuck in airports or on the tarmac. There's a good chance Washington is to...

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That Darn Mandate

ObamaCare has nothing going for it anymore. With unemployment touching double digits, its economic timing is bad; with polls showing tanking support in every group outside of the narrow sliver of...

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National Journal Forum Spotlights Transportation Policy Reform

Several hundred people gathered in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday (November 17, 2009) to hear ideas and thoughts on the federal level transportation policy reform.U.S. Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del)...

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How Republicans can Kill ObamaCare

Republicans are trying to defeat ObamaCare by arguing that its public option -- or government-run insurance plan -- will drive private insurance companies out of business, leaving Americans with less -...

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Globalization With a Human Face

Free trade is never more necessary—or vulnerable—than in times of economic distress. The current global downturn is no exception. Protectionist barriers have shot up all over the world, including the...

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Menu Mandate's Missing Math

The most conspicuous effect you will see from President Obama’s health care overhaul won’t be at your doctor’s office or the hospital. It will be at your local Burger King.That’s assuming the Senate...

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My Body, Their Choice

"My body, my choice" has long been a rallying cry for abortion-rights advocates on the left, many of whom have recently been vocal supporters of the Democratic health care reform agenda. But as...

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Netherlands to Replace Car Taxes with Distance Charges

I reported yesterday that the Netherlands is proposing to replace its vehicle taxes with a distance- based charge closer to a real user fee. Today, I found an English language explanation published by...

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GAO: Stimulus Program Has Significant Reporting Problems

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government's watchdog agency, has taken a look at the numbers and found 10 percent of the jobs claimed as "saved" or "created" by the...

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Congress Plans "Too Big To Fail" Witch Hunts

Now Congress really is out for blood. Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee moved a step closer to giving regulators the power to break apart companies if they are considered too big to...

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Worse Than Taxes

Bill O'Reilly is mad at me because I'm not mad enough about taxes.Last week on The O'Reilly Factor, we talked about California's and New York's enormous budget deficits and planned tax increases. Those...

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The Packets Must Get Through

The Consequences of Net Neutrality Regulations on Broadband Investment and Consumer Welfare This essay originally appeared in "The Consequences of Net Neutrality Regulations on Broadband Investment and...

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Don't Let Banks Keep Disguising Risk

Systemic risk oversight is on tap up on the Hill. (Though you wouldn’t know it with all the health care talk.) The House is laying the groundwork for a new division of Treasury called the "Financial...

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Treating Wall Street Like the Mafia

Perhaps Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) thinks of himself as a modern day John Sherman. In 1890, Ohio Sen. Sherman set out on a mission to establish “just competition” laws and...

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New At Reason: Treating Wall Street Like the Mafia

I have a new commentary posted at Reason Online looking at how Sen. Dodd's new Agency for Financial Stability would be the financial equivalent for the FBI seeking to take down La Cosa Nostra:Perhaps...

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Air Traffic System Is Outdated and Politicized

Early Thursday morning a computer glitch disrupted the nation’s system which handles flight plan processing for air traffic controllers. For nearly four hours, flight plans filed by many pilots had to...

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Louisiana Streamlining Commission Should Reject Proposal for Legislative...

In an attempt to increase oversight over state contracting, some members of Louisiana's Commission on Streamlining Government are proposing a well-intentioned—but ultimately...

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Reading the ObamaCare Tea Leaves

Last night's Senate vote to move forward with the debate on the universal health "don't-care" bill left me deeply pessimistic that this monstrosity could be stopped now. The margin of resistance - mere...

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When will ObamaCare go into Cardiac Arrest?

With the Senate voting Saturday to allow debate on its version of ObamaCare to proceed, the only hope for defeating this monster now is a public outcry that is so huge that even the MedicoCracy in...

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Medical Innovation in Obama Land?

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest casualties of ObamaCare will be medical innovations. A recent Cato Institute study found that America leads the world in innovations in basic sciences, diagnostics, and...

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Housing Keeping Us Down?

The government is trying to fix the housing market. They're giving you money to buy houses. They are rewriting contracts to save you from the consequences of bad mortgage judgement. They are even...

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Aim Your Travel Frustrations at Washington

The new AOL News site Sphere published my commentary on the ongoing failures and recent computer glitches that are bogging down air travel in this country.

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Banning Laptops In Cockpits Would Be More Congressional Meddling

Poorly informed members of Congress respond to aviation problems by proposing hare-brained interventions. And surely one of the most hare-brained is to ban portable electronic devices such as laptops...

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On Aviation, Secretary LaHood Should Look to Plans From the Clinton Era

I got a very bad feeling when I saw the announcement that DOT Secretary Ray LaHood had convened a closed-door meeting of aviation stakeholders. And my misgivings only increased when I read the...

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23 Percent of Mortgages Are "Upside Down"

A report commissioned by the Wall Street Journal and conducted by First American Core Logic estimates that 10.7 million residential mortgages, or about 23 percent are "upside down"--what is owed on the...

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GDP Growth Revised Down to 2.8 Percent

The "recovery" in the third quarter this year was downgraded today, from 3.5 to 2.8 percent GDP growth:The government’s new reading on gross domestic product was not as energetic as the 3.5 percent...

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Who Decides If Breast Tests Are Best?

“The USPSTF [United States Preventive Services Task Force] recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years.” This simple statement, published on the website of the U.S....

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Webinar on Conservatives and Public Transit set for December 7th

Reconnecting America and the Free Congress Foundation have co-published a collection of essays by the late Paul Weyrich and William S. Lind on public transit called Moving Minds: Conservatives and...

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Privatization News Roundup, Nov. 24, 2009

Some privatization news highlights from the last two weeks that haven't been covered elsewhere on the blog:FEDERAL"The Upside of Outsourcing,"Defense News"Work stops again on TSA infrastructure...

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For Sale: Orange County Fairgrounds

The State of California's General Services Division has issued a Request for Proposals for the sale of the 150-acre Orange County Fairgrounds site in Costa Mesa. See Reason Foundation's recent...

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These Boots Are Made for Talking

According to a report from a shoe store in Campbellsville, Kentucky, the Army Corps of Engineers “created or saved” nine jobs when it used money allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act...

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It's A Mighty Long Climb Out of this Hole

This article in the New York Times lays it out.Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and...

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Transportation and Mobility Links

The American Dream Coalition's e-newsletter American Dream Communicator has a number of useful links to transportation and mobility stories in the news recently. (Note also their annual conference will...

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Bernanke Defends the Fed

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stepped back into the realm of politics yesterday with an op-ed in the Washington Post. In his piece he defends the Federal Reserve's response to the crisis as "distasteful...

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Housing and Land Use News Links

The American Dream Coalition's most recent edition of its e-newsletter, The American Dream Communicator, has these useful links to growth management, land use, and housing issues in the news:Housing...

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Cashless Toll Systems Face Potential Customer Backlash

One of the more important problems facing tollroads is creating a seamless and user-friendly system of charging users for the services of the facility. This is easy and relatively cheap for regular...

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Internet Gambling Rules Get a Stay

The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have pushed back the deadline for banking industry compliance with regulations pursuant to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA)....

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A Job Stimulus Is a Bad Idea

I agree with Paul Krugman on at least one thing: the continued prospects for high unemployment in America is a bad thing. In his NYT column yesterday, Krugman the Keynesian wrote:The damage from...

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Do You Know How the Stimulus Is Screwing You?

Do you know how the stimulus is screwing you?Recovery.gov, the website supposedly tracking the spending of the stimulus money, has a feature on the left side of the page called "Did You Know?" Today's...

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A Reason To Be Skeptical

Who knows? In the long run, global warming skeptics may be wrong, but the importance of healthy skepticism in the face of conventional thinking is, once again, validated.What we know now is that...

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Genachowski Widens the Net Neutrality Loophole

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski linked spectrum management, universal service and network neutrality in a speech yesterday at the Innovation Economy Conference in Washington, and in the process may...

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What "Climategate" Reveals About the Humanity of Scientists and the State of...

By now, many readers of this page have probably read about "climategate"--the controversy over thousands of hacked emails that appear to reveal a conspiracy among climate change researchers to...

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California Voters Were Railroaded on High-Speed Rail

San Diego Union Tribune In theory, it sounded like a good idea. Who wouldn't want sleek new trains zipping up and down the state at high speeds for cheap fares? The only problem is that the assumptions...

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Five Keys Issues Facing Aviation and Transportation Secretary LaHood

National's Journal's Transportation Experts Blog asks, 'What should Secretary LaHood's new aviation advisory committee focus on?'Let me suggest five guiding principles.First, do no harm. By that I mean...

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How Might TSA Screw Up Repair Stations?

We know that the TSA doesn't know how to set security priorities or spend money wisely. They've focused on security theater instead of real, risk-based security. In this podcast with Paul Plack of...

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