Free Republic

Most bad policies harm the economy in one identifiable way. But the Labor Department’s new overtime rule, released on May 18, harms the economy and the American worker in three different ways. The new rule requires employers to pay white collar workers overtime if they earn less than $47,476 annually, instead of less than $23,660, the case at present. (Manual workers generally have to be paid overtime at all earnings levels.) The effect will be (1) to raise costs to employers, discouraging employment; (2) to prohibit flexible time for employees; and (3) to stunt American productivity and economic growth. Consider...

There’s a lot of pearl clutching on the political right this week, so much so you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate it from the constant pearl clutching on the left. Facebook, it is alleged, “censors” conservative news. But does it really? And does it matter? There are not many people in the United States younger than 50 who don’t have a Facebook account. Exactly none of them were forced to open one. When they did they accepted the fact that they were playing in someone else’s backyard. Facebook owes the government no justification as to how it conducts its business as...

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The Obama administration unveiled new regulations on offshore drilling on Thursday, rules that were several years in the making. The regulations stem from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a well blowout that resulted in the death of 11 workers and one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. The regulations call for new well-control measures, limits the volume of fluids that can be injected into wells, and requires heightened well monitoring. ExxonMobil and other companies say the rules will impose costs as high as $25 billion over the next decade, pushing many offshore projects...

Annapolis Update #4 - Outlook for Maryland Businesses There is some truly bad legislation coming through the Maryland General Assembly which will have a huge negative effect on businesses presently in the State and on businesses considering moving here. 1. HB 610 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act - Reauthorization has passed the House and is now in the Senate. These greenhouse gas initiatives will continue to punish conventional utility producers (coal and natural gas), forcing them to pay fines for carbon output. These fines will be passed on to the rate payers -- residential and commercial -- which will drive...

WASHINGTON, PRNewswire — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles-Phase 2.” The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles,...

The massive Leviathan gas field, nestled deep inside the Levantine basin off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is considered a game-changer for both Israel and Europe, but a wide range of roadblocks is threatening development, and now production will be delayed by at least a year. Political hurdles, regulatory approvals and tricky investment decisions have already put production off until 2019, and there are now fears that all the problems surrounding a discovery that put Israel on the energy map for the first time in history will impact prospects for future foreign investment in the country. As the project landed in controversy,...

Ever since the financial crisis, many outside the wealthy elite (sometimes referred to as populists) have argued that the largest banks are too big and too risky. Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari recently echoed those beliefs.Yet if a new Federal Reserve proposal goes through, Wells Fargo and other large banks might get even bigger and riskier, adding billions to their balance sheets that could increase the banks’ risk profiles.The Federal Reserve says the proposal, which specifies the amount and kind of debt that systemically important large banks must hold, could help make sure that those banks can be wound...

The old politician saw is: “The most dangerous place for you in Washington – is between (fill in name of pol) and a camera.” We’ll coin a government saw: “The most dangerous place for you anywhere on the planet – is government between you and the free market.”Any and every tax, law and regulation – is government placing itself between you and the free market. And, conversely, between the free market and you. And, of course, it makes the market less free. It’s inherent. The bigger the tax – the less money you have for the market, and the less...

Labor Department adds 'transgender status, gender identity' to workplace discrimination listThe Department of Labor is seeking to remove the terms "he" and "she" from a regulation prohibiting discrimination in the workforce in an effort to "avoid the gender binary." The agency is also adding "sex stereotyping, transgender status, and gender identity" to the list of types of employment discrimination banned under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. If adopted, the regulation would cost job training centers millions of dollars to change their equal employment opportunity posters to include "gender identity."

Last Friday, a new regulation was proposed by the Obama administration that will make it harder and more expensive for employers to hire and promote white males, enrich class action lawyers, and do absolutely nothing to accomplish the ostensible goal of raising the pay of women relative to men.

In a State of American Business address, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said Thursday that the Obama administration is on a "regulatory tear" that will continue until President Barack Obama leaves the White House. [...] ... "How do we know? They've been telling us every day since the first of the year. It has unleashed a runaway EPA that has been stretching the law, and in some cases, breaking it in order to consume control over the local economic development across America," he said. ...

To achieve their political goals, the Left makes no apologies or attempts to hide its preference for government intervention. Just last week at the United Nations climate summit, Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) declared that the "coercive power of the central state" is needed to promote "good" public policy. The Governor professed that government regulations must force companies to do what progressives think is best. He believes there will be dire consequences if markets are allowed to run amok. Therefore, it is a moral imperative to use the power of the state. Progressives make their policy arguments in moral terms. Their...

A second major oil company has been forced to abandon plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska – and irresponsible, high-fiving anti-development activists, most of whom live thousands of miles away and will not be affected, could not be more thrilled. But for those who live close by, the ones who will be most affected, the news is devastating. Statoil recently announced that it's giving up 16 of its company-operated leases in the Chukchi Sea and abandoning its stake in 50 Chukchi leases operated by ConocoPhillips. The Norwegian company added that it would close its...

I’ve been convinced for a long time that the global warming issue is a religion. There are believers and non-believers and they both have their arguments. They try to use science to justify their positions. But basically, they believe no matter what evidence is presented. For example, a basic scientific fact is that the poles on Mars have been melting over the last decades, coinciding with that of Earth. There is NO man-made carbon on Mars so the believers in global warming must answer the question, is this just a coincidence or is it possible that the sun is influencing...

The left will tell you we need more government involvement in healthcare. What they don’t realize is that increased regulation and government involvement are exactly what caused healthcare costs to rise dramatically over the past 30 years. There are several reasons why government-run healthcare is a disaster. Economist explain how the government subsidized third party payer system separates consumers from prices and how such a system kills competition. But there is an even more immediate effect– the booming costs of administering a system of complex regulations. Government healthcare necessitates armies of bureaucrats. Take Medicare, for instance: not only does every...

Regulation: A consumer complaint portal launched earlier this year by the Obama regime to solicit anonymous, unverified gripes against banks is riddled with errors and practically unreliable. We warned as much. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau documents reveal the out-of-control agency is larding a first-of-its-kind national Consumer Complaint Database with bogus accusations against financial lenders. Over 1 in 4 of the publicly posted complaints are incorrect, according to an in-depth report by American Banker magazine. "More than 25% of the time, it turned out that the data we were looking at didn't really pan out, or it was just incorrect in...

President Obama is nothing if not predictable. Required by law to release plans for new regulations twice a year, the administration has consistently done so just before major holidays, when few are paying attention. Thus, it was no surprise to see his fall 2015 regulatory agenda released last Friday, as many Americans focused on Thanksgiving week with family and friends. [...] ... The regulations span the full scope of American life, ranging from labeling requirements for pet food, new test procedures for battery chargers, mandated paid sick leave for contractors, and automatic speed limiters for trucks to a dozen new...

Obamacare's menu labeling regulation promises to be a disaster for the food and restaurant industries, as its implementation is both costly and extremely onerous. While its deleterious effects on the pizza, restaurant, and grocery industries have been most well known, it also has the potential to shutter an industry near and dear to Americans' hearts: craft beer. Since beer has a few too many calories for bureaucrats, the health law dictates that all brewers include a detailed calorie count on every type of beer produced. Failure to do so, according to Americans for Tax Reform, "means craft brewers will not be able...

After a terrorist attack, it's natural to ask: What can politicians do to keep us safe? One thing they could do is actually focus on keeping us safe rather than devoting so much time, energy and hot air to the many things government does instead of protecting lives and property. My state's politicians are particularly bad. New York's legislators regularly go to jail for taking bribes to pass, or not pass, special regulations. One recent governor, Eliot Spitzer, perhaps because his rich father gave him money, didn't take bribes (to my knowledge). Instead, he had sex with prostitutes, meanwhile publicly...