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George Will adds his thoughts, and some excellent arguing points, to the discussion of the NLRB v. Boeing.
…The NLRB’s complaint is not a conscientious administration of the law; it is intimidation of business leaders who contemplate locating operations in right-to-work states. Labor loathes Section 14(b) of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which allows states to pass right-to-work laws that forbid compulsory unionization. But 11 Democratic senators represent 10 of the right-to-work states: Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Bill Nelson (Florida), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Harry Reid (Nevada), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Kent Conrad (North Dakota), Tim Johnson (South Dakota), and Jim Webb and Mark Warner (Virginia). Do they support the Obama administration’s attempt to cripple their states’ economic attractiveness?
The NLRB’s attack on Boeing illustrates the Obama administration’s penchant for lawlessness displayed when, disregarding bankruptcy law, it traduced the rights of Chrysler’s secured creditors. Now the NLRB is suing Arizona and South Dakota because they recently, and by large majorities, passed constitutional amendments guaranteeing the right to secret ballots in unionization elections — ballots that complicate coercion by union organizers.
Just as uncompetitive companies try to become wards of the government (beneficiaries of subsidies, tariffs, import quotas), unions unable to compete for workers’ allegiance solicit government compulsion to fill their ranks. The NLRB’s reckless attempt to break a great corporation, and by extension all businesses, to government’s saddle — never mind the collateral damage to the economy — is emblematic of the Obama administration’s willingness to sacrifice the economy on the altar of politics.
In Pajamas Media, Christian Adams fills us in on the senate committee hearing the GOP hijacked to cover the NLRB/Boeing flap.
…But Senator Mike Enzi outfoxed Harkin. He called — as his sole witness — Michael Luttig, general counsel for the Boeing Company and former justice of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
…Luttig emphasized that a union strike in 2008 in Washington shut down production of the 787, costing Boeing more than a billion dollars and “damaging Boeing’s reputation for reliability with its airline customers, suppliers, and investors.” Boeing took into account many different factors in making a major assembly investment decision, and the recurring strikes in Washington was just one of them.
…Harkin was clearly annoyed at the turn that the hearing took. He muttered about his coal mining father and the unfair attacks on unions and the NLRB. But the political danger of the NLRB action was demonstrated by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who given his background in suing corporations, is not generally seen as “pro-business.”
Blumenthal went out of his way to be nice to Luttig and Boeing, the biggest American export company with $29 billion in overseas sales in 2009. That might also be due to the fact that Boeing suppliers spend more than a billion dollars in Connecticut. …
The Investor’s Business Daily editors comment on how the priorities of the Obama administration are creating a hostile atmosphere for businesses.
…what sane company would invest at a time when it’s in the government’s greedy cross hairs? Or when both the White House and Congress repeatedly criticize “millionaires and billionaires,” and threaten to crush small businesses — the engines of job growth — with higher taxes and new regulations?
As Obama spoke about jobs Thursday, oil CEOs were being grilled by Senate Democrats at a hostile hearing. Their crime? They’re making fat profits. Time was, profits were a sign of success. Today, far-left Democrats think “profit” is a dirty word.
For the record, oil companies’ profits are up because oil prices have soared. This isn’t due to “speculators,” but to the White House’s foolish policy of keeping hundreds of millions of barrels of offshore oil off-limits — driving up prices and boosting foreign dependence.
Instead, the White House subsidizes money-losing alternative energy sources, none of which is ready to replace our current energy supply. Prices can only go up. …
David Harsanyi looks at oil profits from several angles.
…Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the sponsors of the “Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act” in the Senate, says: “We’re going to face a lot of resistance when we try to take a few billion dollars in free taxpayer money away from them.” As is typical of the Left, McCaskill seems to believe that giving a company tax breaks is tantamount to giving that company taxpayer money. But who exactly does she believe is going to pay for a tax increase, anyway, if not consumers?
Granted, Republicans would do well to support removing — across the board — tax incentives that skew competition. Eliminating these subsidies is the consistent free-market position. And $18 billion is $18 billion — if it’s used to alleviate the debt crisis.
But it won’t be. Obama would rather divert “those dollars to invest in clean energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” In other words, Obama plans to reroute the money to a clean-energy market that not only is already massively subsidized, but has increased the cost of power.
So, in the end, this ruse has nothing to do with savings, nothing to do with bringing down the price of gas, and everything to do with casting government as moral arbiter of energy.
John Steele Gordon comments on increasing federal power.
…What’s wrong with our current street signs? They’re in all capital letters and the geniuses at the Department of Transportation have determined that street signs in upper- and lower-case letters (and a particular typeface—“Clearview”) are fractionally easier to read and thus a driver’s attention is diverted by a few milliseconds less than with the older signs. Multiply that by the billions of miles American drive every day and there should be fewer accidents.
I’ll presume that that is true. My objection is with the fact that the Constitution does not give the federal government authority over highway signage. But because the federal government hands out money to the states for highway construction and maintenance, it can—and does—attach conditions, such as mandating the typeface of street signs and requiring a drinking age of 21. These federal payments to states have been the royal road to ever-increasing federal control of American life and have gone a long way to reducing the once sovereign states to mere federal administrative districts. …
State politicians find federal money irresistible. After all, they get credit for building the new bridge or repaving the highway and Uncle Sam gets the bill. But every dollar of federal money is paid for in lost power and sovereignty. In the long run that makes the “free” federal money very expensive indeed.
The Economist Blogs – Schumpeter looks at how licensing cartels hurt entrepreneurs. And who fights for them? Our heroes at The Institute for Justice.
…Some occupations clearly need to be licensed. Nobody wants to unleash amateur doctors and dentists on the public, or untrained tattoo artists for that matter. But, as the Wall Street Journal has doggedly pointed out, America’s Licence Raj has extended its tentacles into occupations that pose no plausible threat to health or safety—occupations, moreover, that are governed by considerations of taste rather than anything that can be objectively measured by licensing authorities. The list of jobs that require licences in some states already sounds like something from Monty Python—florists, handymen, wrestlers, tour guides, frozen-dessert sellers, firework operatives, second-hand booksellers and, of course, interior designers—but it will become sillier still if ambitious cat-groomers and dog-walkers get their way.
Getting a licence can be time-consuming. Want to become a barber in California? That will require studying the art of cutting and blow-drying for almost a year. Want to work in the wig trade in Texas? You will need to take 300 hours of classes and pass both written and practical exams. Alabama obliges manicurists to sit through 750 hours of instruction before taking a practical exam. Florida will not let you work as an interior designer unless you complete a four-year university degree and a two-year apprenticeship and pass a two-day examination.
…You might imagine that Americans would be up in arms about all this. After all, the Licence Raj embodies the two things that Americans are supposed to be furious about: the rise of big government and the stalling of America’s job-creating machine. You would be wrong. Florida’s legislature recently debated a bill to remove licensing requirements from 20 occupations, including hair-braiding, interior design and teaching ballroom-dancing. For a while it looked as if the bill would sail through: Florida has been a centre of tea-party agitation and both chambers have Republican majorities. But the people who care most about this issue—the cartels of incumbents—lobbied the loudest. One predicted that unlicensed designers would use fabrics that might spread disease and cause 88,000 deaths a year. Another suggested, even more alarmingly, that clashing colour schemes might adversely affect “salivation”. In the early hours of May 7th the bill was defeated. If Republican majorities cannot pluck up the courage to challenge a cartel of interior designers when Florida’s unemployment rate is more than 10%, what hope has America? The Licence Raj may be here to stay.
In Popular Mechanics, Christopher Cox discusses the logistics of handling the Mississippi flood waters.
The devastation wrought by an epic Mississippi River flood nearly a century ago—more than 500 people dead, another 700,000 displaced and 26,000 square miles underwater…now, as the Mississippi River flirts with levels and flow rates not seen in decades, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will try to avoid any kind of encore of that long-ago flood as they rely on an enormous infrastructure system unknown to most Americans outside of southern Louisiana.
The Corps is pulling out the stops of its Mississippi River & Tributaries Project, a sprawling set of levees, revetments, spillways and floodways devised to control a restless river fed by the third-largest watershed in the world. Robert A. Thomas, director of the Center for Environmental Communications at Loyola University in New Orleans, says this federal flood-control plan was enacted after the 1927 catastrophe to protect the river and its communities. “It’s all pretty monumental,” he says. “It was foresight on their part, to look that far down the road. All it took was the 1927 flood.”
Now, though, the system is facing its toughest test in decades. Earlier this week, as the Mississippi was cresting in Memphis, Tenn., engineers opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway 30 miles above New Orleans for only the 10th time in its 80-year history.
Andrew Malcolm compiles some recent jokes, in the LA Times.
… Letterman: Osama bin Laden’s Diary: ‘April 12 – Dear Diary, Awful TV reception. Death to Time Warner!’ April 20 – Dear Diary, three wives and one bathroom. You do the math.’
…Conan: President Obama says the Bin Laden raid was the longest 40 minutes of his life. With the possible exception of every time he asks Joe Biden, ‘Hey, what’s up?’
…Letterman: We’re learning more about Osama Bin Laden’s plans. He wanted to create chaos in Washington. Well, thank God that didn’t happen! …