Watcher: August 8, 2006

Aug 9, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Senate Defeats Estate Tax Giveaway...Yet Again

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Donors Are Scared to Send Money for Lebanese Relief

Aug 9, 2006 by Guest Blogger

There are donations of food and medicine for Lebanon, but charity leaders are finding that no one wants to give them money. Why? From the Washington Post: The problem, according to relief groups, is that many people who are inclined to write checks for emergency aid and reconstruction in Lebanon are afraid of ending up in some government database of suspected supporters of terrorism. [...]

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Katrina Woes

Aug 9, 2006 by Matthew Madia

The 1-year anniversary of the Katrina disaster is coming up, and the New Republic is featuring the plodding recovery effort in its most recent issue. From the editor's take on it (free registration required):

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Keep Your Eye on Dudley

Aug 8, 2006 by Guest Blogger

... with DudleyWatch, your home for analysis, background, news, and more about the White House's decision to nominate industry-backed extremist Susan Dudley to the chief regulatory policy job in the White House.

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Get to Know Susan Dudley

In the coming weeks, we will post more straight from Dudley herself. For now, check out this sampler of her positions on important public protections.
  • On Davis-Bacon: "The prevailing wage requirement does not offer net benefits to society, but rather reflects a transfer from low-skilled and low-wage workers to skilled and union workers . . . . There is no economic justification for a federal role in defining construction practices and determining wages, as required by the Davis-Bacon Act." DOL's Proposal Governing Helpers on Davis-Bacon Act Projects (June 8, 1999)

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What Mercatus Doesn't Want You to Know

The Mercatus Center website has a listing of Dudley's work -- but that listing has recently been revised, and now some of Dudley's comments, testimony, and other materials are gone. UPDATE: Mercatus has silently restored the missing documents, and added more, to Dudley's profile page. Aug. 10, 2006

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Latest Watcher

Aug 8, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Be sure to check out the latest issue of our biweekly newsletter, The Watcher. Reg policy articles this time: Bush Nominates Anti-Regulatory Zealot to Head Regulatory Policy Sunset Legislation Delayed Until September

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Contracts and Grants Disclosure Bill Fast-Tracked

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously passed the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) on Aug. 8. The bill would create a searchable website that provides information about all federal spending, including government contracts and grants. Following the quick committee action, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the committee's chair and ranking member respectively, jointly requested that the bill be fast-tracked and brought to the Senate floor for a unanimous consent vote.

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Industry-Backed Lobbyists Use YouTube to Attack Climate Change

Aug 8, 2006 by Guest Blogger

Lobbyists are trying some new media tactics to sway public opinion about climate change. In the latest effort, a video released on the video-sharing site YouTube mocks Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The short, entitled "Al Gore's Penguin Army," is a vapid animation that turns Gore into a fat penguin who bores audiences to death and hypnotizes them into thinking climate change must be stopped.

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Economists Rethink Minimum Wage

Aug 8, 2006 by Craig Jennings

Ezra Klein, writing on Tapped, points us to this Bloomberg article about an emerging consensus among economists regarding the minimum wage: Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Prominent economists of all ideological persuasions long believed that raising the U.S. minimum wage would retard job growth, creating unintended hardship for those at the bottom of the ladder. Today, that consensus is eroding, and a vigorous debate has developed as some argue that boosting the wage would pull millions out of poverty.

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