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Archive for August, 2018
August 30th, 2018 at 11:10 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Google Bias
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

August 27th, 2018 at 4:37 pm
This Week’s “Your Turn” Radio Lineup
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.” Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT:  Angela Logomasini, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute – Plastic Straw Ban;

4:15 CDT/5:15 pm EDT:  Jason D. Delisle, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – Student Loan Programs;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT:  Cleta Mitchell, Partner and Political Law Attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP – Mueller’s Partisan Witch Hunt?;

4:45 CDT/5:45 pm EDT:  Tori K. Whiting, Jay Van Andel Trade Economist, Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation: NAFTA;

5:00 CDT/6:00 pm EDT:  Diante Johnson, President of the Black Conservative Foundation – Advances President Trump and the GOP have made in the Black Community;

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT:  Robert M. McDowell, Former Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission – Proposed T-Mobile and Sprint Merger; and

5:45 CDT/6:45 pm EDT:  Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs – Union Coffers Post SCOTUS Decision.

Listen live on the Internet here. Call in to share your comments orStudi ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

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August 24th, 2018 at 12:56 pm
Quote of the Day: From Obama Stagnation to Trump Acceleration
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Obama apologists desperately claim that the current economic acceleration is somehow attributable to him, never mind that the acceleration began as soon as the Trump Administration began reversing Obama policies by cutting taxes and reducing regulation.  In The Wall Street Journal today, two Arizona State University professors – Nobel laureate Edward Prescott and Lee Ohanian – debunk that claim in a commentary entitled “The Good Times Can Roll On.” As an ASU alumnus, it offers particular pleasure to recommend their entire piece for reading and passing along to others who may need it:

It’s clear the recovery ended in 2014 because the two hallmarks of recovery –  investment’s share of gross domestic product and labor input relative to the adult population – stopped increasing.  This left a large gap between actual output and the output level that would have occurred had the economy recovered to its prerecession growth path.  According to our calculations, the U.S. cumulatively lost about $18 trillion in income and output between 2007 and 2016.  Everything suggested this shortfall would persist or even grow.

Yet economic performance began to improve beginning in the first quarter of 2017.  Real GDP growth accelerated to about 2.7% between the end of 2016 and the second quarter of 2018, up from about 2% between 2014 and the end of 2016.”

Oh, and as football season approaches, go Sun Devils.

August 22nd, 2018 at 3:30 pm
ALERT: Urge Your Member of Congress Not to Become Pelosi’s Next Puppet on Internet Regulation
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Democrats in the House of Representatives – led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) – are pushing to reinstate Obama-era, big-government Title II regulations on the internet through a legislative procedure known as a Congressional Review Act (CRA). Now they are pressuring some Republicans to help them get to the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on the CRA.

The Pelosi-Doyle CRA is not about sound internet policy; it is a politically motived, partisan effort to restore a stifling “Mother-May-I” regulatory framework on the internet that has already proven to slow private investment in internet network infrastructure and cost well-paying jobs.

Call your representative in Congress now.  Tell her/him to not become Pelosi’s next puppet on internet regulation.  Ask her/him to oppose the Pelosi-Doyle CRA.

Make no mistake, Title II regulation is NOT “net neutrality.” Indeed, there is widespread agreement and support – Republicans, Democrats and stakeholders alike – for the core principles of “net neutrality.”

But instead of working on commonsense, bipartisan legislation that will truly protect those principles while at the same time enabling the internet to thrive, Pelosi, Doyle and others want to politicize the issue and are pushing for the internet to be regulated like a public utility under a bureaucratic framework that was crafted way back in the 1930s, well before the internet was ever invented.

Adding insult to injury, the Pelosi-Doyle CRA gives a free pass to big tech companies, like Facebook and others, for how they treat consumer privacy and data online – what most consumers really care about when using the internet.

Unfortunately, Pelosi and Doyle have managed to convince one Republican congressman thus far – Representative Mike Coffman (R – Colorado) – to sign their discharge petition and support the CRA.  And right now, they’re using Coffman’s support to pressure other Republicans to join their effort.

Call your representative in Congress now.  Tell her/him to not become Pelosi’s next puppet on internet regulation.  Ask her/him to oppose the Pelosi-Doyle CRA.

Congress has a golden opportunity to come together on commonsense legislation that holds all internet companies to the same standards and preserves the core principles of “net neutrality” without the hyper-regulatory approach of the CRA and Title II.

The Pelosi-Doyle CRA must be rejected. Please call your representative in Congress now.

August 20th, 2018 at 1:20 pm
Image of the Day: What Deregulation and Tax Cuts Do for Job Growth
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Here’s what a steady diet of deregulation and tax cuts have done in terms of job creation expectations from even the notoriously wet-blanket Congressional Budget Office:

Deregulation + Tax Cuts = Jobs Boost

Deregulation + Tax Cuts = Jobs Boost

August 17th, 2018 at 9:41 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Cuomo
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

August 13th, 2018 at 3:58 pm
This Week’s “Your Turn” Radio Show Lineup
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.” Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT: Thomas Jipping, Deputy Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Senior Legal Fellow: What Kind of Justice Will Judge Brett Kavanaugh Be?;

4:15 CDT/5:15 pm EDT: John Shu, Attorney and Legal Commentator: The Senate’s Unprecedented Obstruction;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT: Tim Wyrosdick, Santa Rosa County School District Superintendent: Start of a New School Year;

4:45 CDT/5:45 pm EDT: Matthew Hennessey, Associate Editorial Features Editor at The Wall Street Journal: “Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millenials”;

5:00 CDT/6:00 pm EDT: Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute: Single Payer;

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT: Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers Union President: Republican Tax Reform 2.0; and

5:45 CDT/6:45 pm EDT: Ryan Mauro, Clarion Project’s Shillman Fellow and National Security Analyst: Radical Compound Found in New Mexico.

Listen live on the Internet here. Call in to share your comments orStudi ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

August 9th, 2018 at 12:09 pm
Image of the Day: Wrong, Socialist – the Upper Middle Class Has Grown, Not Disappeared
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Courtesy of James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute, a splendid visual refutation of budding socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York, who recently and bizarrely said that the “upper middle class doesn’t exist anymore in America.”  Well:

Sorry, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez:  Upper Middle Class Growing, Not Shrinking

Sorry, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Upper Middle Class Growing, Not Shrinking

August 6th, 2018 at 3:41 pm
Image of the Day: Private Investment Skyrocketing Following November 2016 Election, Tax Cuts
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A helpful image of the day, comparing private investment during the final two years of the Obama Administration to the immediate aftermath of the November 2016 election, and even more the tax cuts enacted one year later:

Cut Taxes, Watch Investment Skyrocket
August 2nd, 2018 at 12:48 pm
Even Leftist Economist and Clinton Administration Adviser Admits Need to Index Capital Gains Taxes for Inflation
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The Trump Administration is contemplating a move to improve the way the federal government taxes capital gains by indexing rates for inflation, which amounts to a de facto tax cut.

It’s a no-brainer in terms of fairness and efficiency, as illustrated by the fact that even leftist economist and former Clinton Administration adviser Alan Blinder acknowledges the need for it today in The Wall Street Journal:

Why index gains?  Suppose you own a stock for many years, during which time overall prices have doubled because of inflation.  Over the holding period, the value of your stock has also doubled.  When you sell, the proceeds have precisely the same purchasing power as the original purchase.   There’s no gain, no loss.  But under current tax law, you owe taxes on the phantom ‘gain.’   Worse, if your stock went up by less than the cumulative inflation, you’ll still get taxed despite your loss.  This is unfair and dysfunctional.”

We’ll admit that it’s amusing to see a man who played the role of cheerleader for Barack Obama, who openly circumvented the Constitution and legislative process using his “pen and phone” to enact policy, demand that Trump refrain from making the change and instead allow Congress to act.  Nevertheless, we’ll gladly celebrate his support for the underlying need for change.