Posts By Author » Brian Garst
NLRB Drops Boeing Complaint, Damage Done
11 Dec 2011 
6:12 pm
The National Labor Relations Board, which once targeted a dead CEO for union infractions, has dropped its frivolous challenge against Boeing’s plan to open a plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. All’s well that ends well, right? Unfortunately, no. Despite the withdrawn complaint, the damage has been done.
The NLRB only dropped its case after Boeing reached an agreement with the union, which ought to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth who believes in free enterprise and honest government. Essentially, the NLRB used their frivolous case as leverage on …
Can One Want to Follow Even An Imperfect Constitution?
4 Dec 2011 4:15 pm
Politico reporter Reid Epstein is vexed by Republican presidential candidates who promote constitutional fidelity, but yet also call for amending the document:
To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, the U.S. Constitution is the guiding light of democracy, a bedrock document so perfect and precise that it shouldn’t be challenged, interpreted or besmirched by modern-day judges.
Except for all the parts the GOP candidates themselves want to change.
The same candidates promising to appoint strict constructionist judges clearly think the Framers, for all their wisdom and foresight, forgot a few things, which …
Now is Not the Time to Be More Like Europe
19 Nov 2011 7:04 pm
The ongoing crack-up of Europe, and the pending collapse of the Eurozone, is an ugly thing to behold. But their failure can be our gain, if we just learn from their mistakes.
A new video by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity provides 5 lessons from the European fiscal implosion that US policymakers should take to heart. In short:
1) Higher taxes lead to higher spending, not lower deficits.
2) A value-added tax would be a disaster.
3) A welfare state cripples the human spirit.
4) Nations reach a point of no return when the …
How’s That Constitutional Rule Working Out?
1 Oct 2011 10:47 am
When the new Congress took office, they instituted a rule requiring newly introduced legislation to cite Constitutional authority. So what has been the result? Not surprisingly, a significant number fail to properly identify specific Constitutional authority for legislative action. Research by the Republican Study Committee found that:
3 bills cite only the Preamble to the Constitution
84 bills cite only Article 1, which creates the Legislative Branch
58 bills cite only Article 1, Section 1, which grants all legislative powers to Congress
470 bills cite only Article 1, Section 8, which is the list …
We Don’t Need an Investor-in-Chief
26 Jun 2011 5:09 pm
How was anything ever invented before government started “investing” in new technologies? One wonders these things, given the seriousness with which Keynesians seem to believe that if they don’t choose the economic winners and then throw large sums of money at them – other people’s money, of course – then there will be no innovation or growth. The latest example of this faulty attitude involves a plan by the President to spend $500 million “investing” in manufacturing, or something:
President Obama on Friday will announce the …
Obama Blames Everyone Else on Oil Prices
24 Apr 2011 6:53 pm
Despite public demand for increasing domestic oil production, the current White House has sent a clear signal that the U.S. will not be increasing production into the future, despite growing demand. While simply one of many factors impacting the global price of oil, it is a factor. But rather than acknowledge that the price of oil reflects the realities of supply and demand, including anticipated changes in the future, Obama is lashing out at anyone and everyone in an attempt to distract from his …
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Obama’s Department of Injustice Targets Popular Republican Governor
27 Feb 2011 7:22 pm
Eric Holder’s DoJ is not interested in prosecuting the Black Panthers, but they are pulling out the stops to take out a rising star in the Republican Party – Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The legal harassment is ostensibly to enforce “voting laws,” but political motivations are evident.
From The Washington Examiner:
Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has targeted Gov. Bobby Jindal’s, R-La., administration as part of a rushed investigation into whether Louisiana is complying with federal voting laws. Undercover investigators …
British Manbeast Sues NHS for not Surgically Removing the Burgers from His Hands
8 Jan 2011 2:41 pm
The culture of entitlement is an ugly thing (in more ways than one).
Paul Mason has stuffed himself full of food for years, eating ten times the calorie intake of a healthy person. While it sounds like NHS has been its typical slow, bureaucratic self in scheduling his surgery, there’s no excuse for his lawsuit blaming them for “letting [him] grow,” as if it’s anyone’s responsibility but his own to make the right choices.
Paul – once the world’s fattest man – vowed to use any compo to help other patients …
Do Not Fear the Chinese Economy
19 Dec 2010 4:23 am
Hand-wringing over Chinese economic growth is both common and bipartisan. Commentators and politicians from the left and right alike find something fearsome in the rise of China as an economic force to be reckoned with. From Paul Krugman to Pat Buchanan, we are told to be concerned. Be very concerned. But these concerns are almost entirely based on faulty economics, and are therefore misplaced.
Before I get into some of the specific arguments, I want to make a simple point that few seem to truly accept: the economic success of another …
Spending and Deficits
12 Dec 2010 5:42 pm
Suddenly the likes of Bernie Sanders care about the debt. Republicans, he and the angry left claim, are being hypocritical by not raising taxes. This is nonsense. Keeping tax rates the same is not, as he claims, adding anything to the debt. Sure, Republicans have agreed to Obama’s costly extension of unemployment insurance, but that’s a reasonable price to pay for not allowing the tax hikers to truly wreck the economy. The latter would, in the long run, result in less government revenues anyway.
We …
Be Weary of Politicians With a Sudden Change of Heart
5 Dec 2010 2:47 am
I was quite disappointed in 2006 when Republicans slipped the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into the unrelated SAFE Port Act (yet that isn’t stopping them from hypocritically attacking others for possibly using the same method to undo it), thus passing the liberty-reducing legislation without significant notice at the time. Government has no business reaching into my computer and telling me what I can spend my money on, and Republicans really ought to know better. Such legislative moralizing only legitimizes the power of government to force people to behave a …
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Class-Warfare Propaganda Will Be Ramping Up Again
13 Nov 2010 2:40 pm
With a major tax fight looming around the corner, we can expect the usual class-warfare rhetoric from the White House and the punditsphere. Phrases like “for the rich” will be bandied about without second thought, while many question whether these so-called rich deserve to be “given” tax cuts.
This is the argument made by Austan Goolsbee of the Council of Economic Advisers a month ago in a video released by the White House, where he says that it’s “expensive” to “give” a tax cut to the successful, even though the “cuts” …
John Stewart’s Speech Served Conservative Ends
31 Oct 2010 7:02 pm
It’s easy to be critical of the attendees at the recent Stewart/Colbert non-political but political non-rally rally, and for good reason. As a group, they are hard to take seriously. Egged on by Stewart’s Daily Show, they routinely confuse conviction for extremism, and the possession of neither information nor principles with moderation. Most of them are actually just standard liberals pretending to be moderate, anyway. There is also room to be critical of the rally itself, as Cat …
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You Have the Right to Choose Who You Live With in a Free Society
24 Oct 2010 3:35 pm
We’re not allowed to discuss it in polite company, but the dirty secret of anti-discrimination law is that it violates free choice, as well as the very civil rights it is ostensibly designed to protect. Take the case of a Michigan woman who advertised for a roommate with whom she would be compatible. Specifically, she wanted a Christian roommate. Now, she’s facing a “civil rights” violation.
A civil rights complaint has been filed against a Grand Rapids woman who posted an advertisement at her church last July seeking a Christian …
Understanding Obama’s Fear of the Creator
23 Oct 2010 10:00 am
For the third time, Obama has elected to redact “endowed by their Creator” from a recitation of the text of the Declaration of Independence. No longer a possible fluke, this omission is now a clear pattern. What does it mean?
The reason Obama refuses to say that rights are endowed by our Creator does not come from any religious animosity. The statement itself, after all, was religiously ambiguous. Rather, the point of the phrase is to acknowledge that true rights come from our status as …
Free Labor For Me, But Not For Thee
30 Sep 2010 10:00 am
Government bureaucrats think it is their business to prevent individuals from entering voluntary contracts with companies or organizations if the level of compensation does not meet some arbitrary threshold. Congress has used minimum wage laws to prevent certain arrangements, while the Department of Justice has a set of rules detailing when unpaid internships are considered legal. Naturally, these rules do not apply to government.
At CEI’s Open Market, Brian McGraw points to these rules from the DoJ that won’t apply for the currently advertised unpaid …
Cramer Wrong on Death Tax
12 Sep 2010 11:58 pm
On his Mad Money program, Jim Cramer recently listed 8 items to get the economy moving. He was dead wrong to include a retroactive reinstatement of the death tax in the list. For the sake of argument, I’ll pretend like he didn’t contradict himself by also calling for a freeze on the Bush tax cuts (which included the elimination of the death tax) through 2013, and instead just focus on the incorrect claims he made regarding the death tax.
Cramer said that the death tax is …
Report Sheds Light on Incestuous Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying
12 Sep 2010 9:43 pm
Illinois, like many states, is broke. Its credit is even worse than that of California and its highly publicized financial quagmire. In such a fiscal environment, taxpayers are rightfully demanding that governments tighten up and are increasingly zealous about ensuring that money is spent productively. One way in which they may be surprised to find that local Illinois governments, along with those all over the country, collectively waste millions of dollars is by lobbying other governments for handouts.
Thanks to a recent report conducted …
Don’t Burn The Qur’an, Read It
9 Sep 2010 11:51 am
Way too much coverage has been given to some pastor of a tiny Gainesville church just because he plans to burn the Qur’an on 9/11. While I have no objection to the content of that coverage, which has consisted of near universal condemnation, it’s not surprising to me at all that protecting Muslim sensibilities seems to immediately launch the media into high gear. As far as I’m concerned, this pastor has gotten more attention than he deserves. But the damage is done on that …
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The Short-Sightedness Of The Talking Heads
6 Sep 2010 10:45 am
It’s election season. That means every paper, TV news show, magazine, or blog is full of predictions, prognostications and prophesying. More often than not, it seems, the talking heads engaging in such speculation are incredibly short-sighted.
Take this New York Times article which notes the “double-edged sword” the Tea Party poses to the GOP. The author worries about what it will mean for the GOP with Tea Party candidates opposing establishment pols in moderate or blue states, such as Mike Castle in Delaware. The author …
Debbie Spend-it-now is selling America’s future to the Chinese
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