Green Jobs Promises Dwindle As Policies Backfire

by Bonner R. Cohen

Once touted by the Obama administration as the wave of the future, green stimulus programs are rapidly falling out of favor with the administration as jobs fail to materialize. With unemployment at its highest level in 27 years, faith in taxpayer-funded green initiatives as a way to help end the recession is on the wane.

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Obama plans to be in office "8-10 years" ?

The Bill Gates Sr. Income Tax

If Washington's most famous billionaires are really worried about their state's finances, they'd write personal checks to the government and leave everyone else alone.





by Arthur Laffer

Framed on a wall in my office is a personal letter to me from Bill Gates the elder. "I am a fan of progressive taxation," he wrote. "I would say our country has prospered from using such a system—even at 70% rates to say nothing of 90%."

It's one thing to believe in bad policy. It's quite another to push it on others. But Mr. Gates Sr.—an accomplished lawyer, now retired—and his illustrious son are now trying to have their way with the people of the state of Washington.

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"Gainful Employment" Proposed Regulations Gone Awry

by Lanny Davis

Suppose that a conservative Republican Administration, in the middle of high unemployment and an economic slowdown, proposed new regulations that would most hurt lower income people and minority groups and the for-profit colleges and universities that serve them? Can you imagine the cries of outrage from liberal critics, condemning "hard-hearted" Republicans targeting the most vulnerable young people in our society?

Yet that is exactly what the Department of Education's proposed "gainful employment" regulations would likely do.

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Annoying Regulations for Every Room in the House

by Ben Lieberman

The Obama administration isn’t satisfied giving the American people several big things we don’t want — the stimulus package, expanded bailouts, Obamacare — but it is also hitting us with a multitude of bothersome regulations. Perhaps most annoying of all is Washington’s attempt to redesign home appliances. Just weeks after taking office, the president announced an accelerated process to create stringent new energy efficiency standards for nearly everything around the house that uses energy. The Department of Energy is well on its way towards accomplishing this goal, boasting of more than 20 such regulations since President Obama came to office.

If past experience is any guide, these regulations will raise the purchase price of appliances — in some cases more than is ever likely to be earned back in the form of energy savings. Worse, several may adversely impact product performance and reliability. There are potentially problematic regulations on the way for virtually every room in the house.

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GE Closes Last Light Bulb Plant, Jobs Sent to China

by Kenneth Artz

General Electric has closed its last major factory making incandescent light bulbs in the United States, a victim of a 2007 law banning sale of the light bulbs by 2014. Environmental activist groups promised the restrictions would create green jobs, but workers at GE’s Winchester, Virginia plant are finding the law is merely creating red jobs overseas in China.

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