Vote 'NO!' to Government Regulation of Privacy at The Economist

Currently, several members of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are pursuing onerous regulations concerning government regulation of online privacy.Two privacy bills are up for consideration amidst Senator Kerry’s pledge to regulate online privacy.

The Economist is currently hosting a live online debate over online privacy. Read as the debate unfolds here.  We encourage you to sign on and vote NO on government regulation of your privacy.

In the debate, Jim Harper from the Cato Institute makes an excellent argument against privacy control, refering to the “couch potato” for whom it seems easier to ask the government to take a problem off their hands than to become proactive themselves.  However, the government mustn’t be trusted with this task and Internet users are best off using the myriad of tools already available to protect themselves. Harper’s opposition, Marc Rotenberg, is the one to note the threat that the government itself has posed in the past to our privacy (NSA’s Clipper Chip and harmful and ineffective airport body scanners).

The government is too distanced from our needs, as evidenced by the ‘Do Not Track List.’ Tracking helps study preferences and cater to individual consumer needs. Harper states that more of a priority towards privacy would “undercut consumer welfare as indicated by the best evidence available: consumer behavior. People appear generally to prefer the interactivity and convenience of today's web, and the free content made more abundant by ad network tracking.”  It is precisely the free content that would be impacted by onerous federal privacy regulations.

Harper is correct in his assertion that the most efficient and cost-effective measure would be to get consumers educated and involved in their own privacy protection. We are our best protection.  That’s why you should join the debate and vote ‘NO’ at economist.com.

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FCC Stalls on Internet Regulation; Asks for More Comments

Against immense pressure from left-wing groups, yesterday the FCC announced that instead of adopting onerous Internet regulations, more study is needed.  This is a breath of fresh air, but it certainly doesn’t spell the end of the FCC’s needless foray into regulating the Internet and the flourishing industry that has built it.

In its public notice, the FCC asked how or whether mobile broadband should regulated, as opposed to wired Internet connections.  It also asked how to treat “specialized” services offered by service providers that run over the same broadband connection, such as teleconferencing, health IT, and gaming.  The questions stem from a consensus proposal on Net Neutrality by Google and Verizon, which had exemptions for wireless and specialized services.

Yet, the questions carried the hostile and hypothetical tone that exemplifies the regulation-hungry government agency.  They suggested service providers will use the “specialized service” designation to “supplant” the Internet.  Despite prior assurances that their regulatory scheme would not focus on pricing, the FCC questioned the value of usage-based mobile data pricing as a means of preventing congestion and allocating bandwidth.  They asked if regulations were necessary to prevent wireless carriers from blocking data-heavy applications or certain devices (that could frankly crash or congest mobile networks).  The tone stems directly from the Commission’s obvious desire to make the Internet a one-size-fits-all public utility, killing the currently dynamic and innovative free-market where consumers decide which services, pricing plans, and content is the best and worst.

Immediately, the far left was up in arms.  Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge said the questions “were extensively explored in not one, but two proceedings.”  Media Access Project’s Matt Wood remarked, “The commission asks the same questions time and time again… instead of providing basic answers.”  Free Press’s S. Derek Turner declared, “We don’t need more questions from the FCC, we need more answers.”  Is this an admission that they didn’t supply correct answers during prior proceedings?  Or are they just concerned that the Commission may deviate from an authoritarian approach that regulates the Internet from the top down under an arcane 1930’s law?  Regardless, for a bunch of “consumer interest” groups, they obviously don’t think consumers should have anymore say in a public proceeding about how the Internet is (or isn’t) regulated.

The FCC’s move is a welcome sign that they may adopt a more consensus-based approach, as opposed to their originally proposed Title II regulations.  But it also raises a few red flags.  Given the wording of the notice, no one necessarily expects the FCC to adopt a proposal with limited regulations.  The FCC also appears to be punting the issue until after the election, when all the other horrid and unpopular ideas are passed in Washington.  This would provide some cushion should they decide to adopt the heaviest regulations possible.  In the meantime, the FCC is continuing what has become a multi-year regulatory saga that has left businesses looking to invest in broadband with infuriating uncertainty as to their regulatory fate.

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Why was the Volcker Commission Constrained by Obama’s Tax Pledge, but not the Simpson-Bowles?

During his campaign, President Obama made a “firm pledge” not to raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year.  White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has said the pledge “didn’t come with caveats.”  

On March 25, 2009, Peter Orszag, the director of The Office of Management and Budget stated that the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would be limited in their recommendations by President Obama’s “firm pledge”: 

DIRECTOR ORSZAG:With regard to the task force, the only constraints on its activities are that there will be no tax increases during 2009 or 2010, and the proposals should not raise taxes on American families making less than $250,000.

Despite saying new taxes were off the table with Paul Volker and the president’s Economic Recover Advisory Board, the White House has not held the Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission to the same standard. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, debt commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles had the following exchange with host Chris Wallace:

CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR:  Mr. Bowles, Barack Obama — I don't have to tell you — campaigned in 2008 for president on a flat pledge that he would not raise any taxes — not income taxes, not any taxes — on people making less than $250,000 a year. Do you feel bound by the president's pledge?

ERSKINE BOWLES, DEBT COMMISSION CO-CHAIRMAN:What I feel bound by is the president looked Senator Simpson and me in the eye and he said, everything is on the table.

Obama was first walking, and is now running away from his most famous pledge to taxpayers.  We’ve been discovering a no tax promise with a loophole becoming bigger than the promise.  Said Grover Norquiest.

Bowles also refused to rule out a Value-Added Tax. 

Did President Obama simply forget his tax pledge to the American people or is he making a play for political cover?  He seemed to remember it when instructing Paul Volcker and the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.  Maybe if the debt commission recommends a tax increase, he thinks he will not have to be accountable to his pledge not to raise taxes anymore.  

Access the [PDF]

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Daily Media Spotlight September 2, 2010

From Nevada News and Views: "ATR Comes Back Swinging at Dina ' Tax-Us'."  Democrats seem to be truly committed this election cycle to misleading the American people about what the Taxpayer Protection Pledge means.  Besides Dina Titus, Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Mich.) and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have made similar blatantly false attacks.  

Is Pennsylvania’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato suffering from short term memory loss?  According to WITF: “For months, Onorato has decried Republican Tom Corbett’s pledge not to raise taxes as a “gimmick” and a stunt. But starting last week, Onorato began flat-out promising not to raise revenues, if he becomes governor next year. During a Capitol press conference today, Onorato was blunt. ‘I don’t plan on raising taxes,’ he said.”

RedCounty.com highlights a recent International Policy Network study showing that the political talking point saying we should invest in “green jobs” is bunk.  Investing in “green jobs” is actually a terrible investment. The article notes: “ATR [Americans for Tax Reform] previously stated that ‘it is estimated that for every government mandated ‘green energy job' created, 2.2 jobs in the private sector were prevented from being created’.”

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Harry Reid Looks to Resurrect RES During Lame-Duck

Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made news Tuesday when he announced that he would try to pass an energy bill during the lame-duck session. This comes as a surprise to most as Reid pulled his energy bill right before recess began as he couldn’t muster up the requisite votes. Even more surprising is that Reid said a key component of his lame-duck bill would be a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), a contentions policy amongst Members.

RES requires that a percentage of a state’s energy production be derived from “clean” energy sources, generally understood as wind and solar. Government imposed RES are necessary because wind and solar are not economically viable, they need government subsidies and mandates to compete with cheaper forms of energy.

While some think this is a political move to drum up support from the environmental lobby--Mr. Reid is currently involved in a heated primary debate with Republican Sharron Angle—let’s take Reid at his word. What are the economic implications for a national RES?

Heritage Foundation scholars crunched the numbers and found that instituting a 35 percent RES by 2035 America would loose 1,000,000 jobs.

Click read more to continue...

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Daily Media Spotlight September 1, 2010

Victory!  FlashReport celebrates the defeat of California’s “bag tax” in the state legislature.  FlashReport’s Publisher Jon Fleischman: “I want to express my personal admiration to…Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform… all of the legislators who voted no on this bill, and all of the other patriots out there who stood up publicly against this bad bill.”

From EducationNews.org, “An Interview with Ryan Ellis – Very Important News for Teachers.”  Americans for Tax Reform’s tax policy director, Ryan Ellis chats with Michael Shaughnessy about the January 2011 tax increase and the financial pain it will cause teachers across America. 

Appearing in Forbes, Americans for Tax Reform’s Ryan Ellis notes how Obamacare will actually hurt many of those it purports to help, especially our wounded veterans, “The health care overhaul… signed into law by President Obama earlier this year contains a new tax on medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, pacemakers and wheelchairs… Senate Democrats specifically refused to exempt veterans from the tax.”

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Obama Tax Commission Report:
Baby Step Toward IRS Tax Preparation

Last week, President Obama's tax reform commission came out with their long-overdue report--buried on a Friday during the August recess.

One area of the report worth exploring is the section on "return free" tax filing--a polite way of saying that the IRS would do your tax return for you, calculate your balance due or refund, and leave it up to you to take on City Hall.  This is a bad idea because it puts the IRS in a conflict of interest.  The IRS has an interest in maximizing the legal amount of tax owed.  Taxpayers have an interest in minimizing the legal amount of tax owed.  This healthy friction, what we've called "benign adversarialism," is what creates our system of voluntary tax compliance.  To upset this balance would also reverse the default assertion (that made by the taxpayer) as the basis for compliance review.  Rather, the new baseline would be the IRS version of the tax return, and it would be up to the taxpayer (with his much inferior resources) to challenge the behemoth.

The Obama tax commission didn't see it that way.

More after the jump...

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Dina Titus Launches False Attack Ad on Joe Heck and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge

It appears that Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to campaigning against the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Yesterday, the Dina Titus for Congress campaign attacked Joe Heck for signing the “no new taxes” Pledge with deliberately misleading information. The Pledge is used as a tool to protect against tax increases and to promote revenue-neutral tax reform. The lower taxes supported by the Pledge protect jobs. Tax increases don't give anyone, anywhere a job.

It began with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee running ads in HI-01. Then the Mark Schauer campaign tried to malign the Pledge in MI-07 and the Democrat Party of WI took aim at the Pledge in WI-07. Now Dina “Taxus” Titus is misleading voters in NV-03 about the Pledge. It’s becoming something of a bad habit for liberals.

FactCheck.org’s Director Brooks Jackson wrote the following about Democrats’ attempt to distort the intention of the Pledge:

We find the ad to be false. The pledge only protects corporations from an increase in taxation overall. It explicitly allows elimination of any specific tax deduction or credit if matched dollar-for-dollar by an overall cut in rates. And it says nothing about jobs…This attack ad is false.

The Citizen-Patriot Journal in Michigan also deemed the attacks by Democrats on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to be “not true.”

To read ATR’s official statement on Democrats’ attempts to mislead voters on the meaning of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, click read more.

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Rally for Jobs Kicks Off Today in Texas

Since coming into office, the Obama Administration has taken an antagonistic stance against America’s oil and natural gas producers--energy sources that power our country-- barring exploration along most of our coastline and threatening to levy job-killing tax increases.

In an attempt to push back against this anti-growth agenda, the American Petroleum Institute has organized nationwide Rallies for Jobs throughout the month of September--the first of which are held today in Texas.

The message of these rallies is clear: higher taxes mean fewer jobs.

Responsible for more than 9.2 million well-paying jobs across the country, oil and natural gas production is one of America’s biggest industries. Furthermore, this industry is already taxed at an exorbitant rate: the effective tax rate for oil and natural gas companies in 2009 was 48 percent compared to 28 percent for the rest of Standard and Poor’s industries.

The taxes being floated by the Obama administration would undoubtedly result in job loss. With the unemployment rate already hovering around 10 percent, further taxing America’s energy producers would be imprudent and irresponsible.

If you cannot make it to the Texas rallies today, you can view them and forthcoming rallies at http://energynation.org/.

Below is a list of the subsequent rallies across the country, I hope you will be able to join the thousands of Americans uniting to rebuke the job-killing policies coming out of Washington.

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Daily Media Spotlight August 31, 2010

The Washington Times has the scoop on the growing tax battle between Barack Obama and the small business community.  Americans for Tax Reform’s own John Kartch weighs in regarding Obama’s January 2011 tax hike, “These are real small businesses. Raising taxes on these most successful of small businesses will cost jobs.”

The Daily Caller exposes Democrats and the AARP, arguing that both undermine the future retirement benefits for younger workers. “They’re major role seems to be that of obstruction,” said Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy with Americans for Tax Reform. “The people being affected are not current AARP members, and for some reason they feel they need to obstruct and demagogue to curry favor with their membership.”

J.E. Dyer writing in HotAir.com’s “The Greenroom” has a great story on Cost of Government Day and continues the trend of lamenting the “holiday”, “High taxes correlate with high-cost government… there is no discernible pattern of late Tax Freedom Days – high tax rates – yielding smaller calendar gaps between Tax Freedom and Cost of Government.  No matter how much the people are directly taxed, the gaps remain huge.  So much for the “raise taxes” argument.”

From the blog Doug Ross @Journal, “What say you SEIU AFL-CIO and AFSCME?” Do Unions think they can dupe their members and funnel $150 million in Union dues into Democrat campaign coffers for November?

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