Author: Phil Kerpen

President Obama campaigned in 2008 and again in 2012 on tax hikes for the rich. The rich, he told us constantly, weren’t paying their fair share. But to assure us he meant nothing radical, he also frequently clarified he favored “going back to the tax rates that existed under Bill Clinton.” Yet less than two […]

You wouldn’t know it from all the perpetual doom and gloom in our media and culture, but we have nearly eradicated pollution in the United States. So much so that most Americans are blissfully unaware of how severely polluted the world was for all of human history up to the time of our grandparents.:  The […]

The Supreme Court struck down Obamacare’s mandatory Medicaid expansion as an unconstitutional commandeering of the states, setting off bruising battles over the issue in state capitals. No place has been more brutal than Maine, where a liberal attack group actually sent out a mail piece criticizing Dale Crafts, a wheelchair-bound state legislator, because he “failed […]

Angry liberals are set to descend on the Federal Communications Commission to disgrace themselves by shouting down the proceedings. The lead group involved, Free Press, has sent out an invitation asking people to bring “pots, pans or whatever else you can bang on so the FCC hears our message loud and clear.” Banging on pots […]

While the national media is mostly focused on the Federal Communications Commission’s latest net neutrality follies (still a regulatory solution in search of a problem), the far bigger policy challenge the Commission faces is executing the most complex spectrum auction in the agency’s history. Unfortunately, the FCC seems more concerned with picking winners and losers […]

Quite simply, from pharmaceuticals to motion pictures to software, India is stealing our stuff. India ranks dead last among major economies in protection of intellectual property rights, according to a comprehensive analysis by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And despite lots of talk and visits from Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe […]

Democrats confronted by the massive problems caused by Obamacare – millions of plans canceled, spiking premiums, lost doctors – have retreated to a vague promise to fix the law. But how can the American people trust the very politicians who told the infamous “if you like your plan, you can keep it” lie to actually […]

In a blockbuster Associated Press story your local paper may have skipped, Kelli Kennedy reports that patients with cancer and other serious diseases all over the country are being hammered by the same problem: the one-size-fits-all structure of Obamacare plans imposes outrageously high out-of-pocket costs for their specialty drugs. Kennedy tells us about breast cancer […]

In 2003, I opposed the Medicare prescription drug bill, in large part because I expected that – like all other government entitlement programs – it would end up costing far more than initially projected. I was wrong. The program’s structure, based on competing private plans, made Part D unlike all entitlements that had come before. […]

Eighteen years ago, the Internet was a pretty different place. AltaVista had just launched in 1995 and was rapidly becoming the dominant search engine. The 56K modem was invented that year, but wouldn’t be commercially available until 1997. And Congress passed the 1996 Telecom Act, with the rare foresight to largely insulate the Internet from […]

The House will soon consider H.R. 3865, which would prohibit the IRS from rushing a final rule regulating 501(c)(4) organizations in the middle of the current tax year. If the floor debate looks like the bill’s markup in the Ways and Means Committee, it will be split right down party lines. Republicans will condemn the […]

President Obama laid out his personal standard for approving the presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in his global warming speech at Georgetown University on June 25, 2013. If the project increases global warming, he’ll veto it. Based on that standard, he should now approve the project – immediately.   “Allowing the Keystone pipeline […]

As an American, I laugh at those archaic British spellings. Colour? Honour? Their inferiourity, if you will, is obvious. Centre? Theatre? Ridiculous. Most of these barbaric forms were corrected in America hundreds of years ago. Yet one galling Britishism is appearing on my computer screen all too frequently of late: “cancelled,” with a gratuitous extra […]

Last year, officials of a local Teamster union alleged in a state court lawsuit that Michigan’s new right-to-work law violates the state constitution’s prohibition on slavery. Teamsters Local 214 union lawyers claimed that nonmember workers who want to file a grievance with the company must pay a $150 fee because, even though they have chosen […]

The big health insurance companies played a high-stakes double game throughout the 2009 health care fight, funding attacks on the so-called public option – an explicitly government-run competitor – while otherwise supporting the central elements of the bill that ultimately passed: vast taxpayer-funded subsidies flowing to their potential customers and a mandate requiring every American […]

All three judges in Verizon v. FCC agreed that the net neutrality order regulating the Internet was, as I’ve said all along, illegal. The heart of the rule, a requirement (contrary to the history and structure of the Internet) that all bits be treated equally, was a bar on diverse business models and a de […]

Just before Christmas, the Obama administration issued a blanket waiver for millions of Americans from the individual mandate requiring purchase of government-approved health insurance. The waiver, whose announcement was choreographed to give political credit to Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, was limited to individuals and families whose health plans were canceled by Obamacare. As […]

With Democrats cratering in the polls over their collapsing health care law, they are trying to pivot to the only part of their policy agenda that still enjoys broad public support: the minimum wage. But their advocacy and its popularity rest on the incorrect belief that a significant number of families live on the minimum […]

You might not be able to keep your plan and you might not be able to keep your doctor. Even President Obama has now apologized for his infamous statement to the contrary. But the promise was worse than untrue. It was used to obscure a moral wrong at the heart of Obamacare. Democrats usually send […]

Senate Democrats, in a desperate attempt to change the subject from their willful destruction of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, decided to destroy the basic principles of the Senate that have served the country well for over 200 years. We can look forward to a new era of even more divisive, bare-knuckled partisan […]

The federal Healthcare.gov website, serving 36 states that chose not to build their own sites, has been – to quote its boss, Kathleen Sebelius – a “debacle.” Its estimated cost to taxpayers stands at $394 million so far and will likely rise as the “tech surge” pours millions of additional taxpayer dollars into trying to […]

Because of a regulation designed to make nearly every plan rapidly lose grandfather status, millions of Americans have received letters informing them their health plans have been canceled. Many of them are unable to even get through the first steps of Healthcare.gov to see what their options there are, and others who are able to […]

It seems every major scandal, abuse of power, and spectacular failure in President Barack Obama’s administration happens, we’re told, without the president’s knowledge. When Lois Lerner first confessed to improperly targeting tea party groups via a planted question at a conference, she blamed it on “rogue agents” in Cincinnati. We later found out that Lerner […]

The United States federal government is now mandating, under penalty of law, that millions of Americans purchase a product through a broken website. Is that fair? Is it moral? An estimated 16 million people recently received letters indicating that their health plans are no longer available. So they head to Healthcare.gov to see what plans […]

It was Cory Booker’s constant sneering attack in the first New Jersey U.S. Senate debate – Steve Lonegan is a “tea party leader.” What does that mean? It’s true, Steve Lonegan has long been one of the Garden State’s strongest leaders for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and constitutional government – the core values of the […]

Syria has taken over the top of the agenda, but very soon Congress will necessarily return to high stakes fiscal negotiations, not just over the continuing resolution to fund the government, but also over the federal debt ceiling. Speaker John Boehner is committed to the principle that has so effectively constrained discretionary spending since the […]

Republicans have largely squandered an August that should have been spent preparing the American people for a showdown with Democrats over the president’s health care law. Instead, efforts have largely been diverted to a damaging internecine fight between proponents and critics of the defund strategy. Give credit to the defunders for stepping up with a […]

On May 11, 2013, Indian President Pranab Mukherhee said “The future prosperity of India in the new knowledge economy will increasingly depend on its ability to generate new ideas, processes and solutions.” He was right not just about India, but indeed about the whole world; we need strong incentives to innovate, invent, and create – […]

In the first Democratic primary debate Cory Booker deigned to participate in, he placed an unwise bet on his economic record in Newark. On every economic question, Booker responded with a confident “we did it in Newark!” But does his record in Newark qualify him for promotion to the United States Senate? The facts say […]