As the battle rages over the federal debt ceiling, more pundits and even some politicians are taking a serious look at a solution that any private organization would have considered from the beginning: selling off assets to satisfy creditors.
Contrary to the doomsday rhetoric of Treasury Secretary Geithner, it is simply not true that the Congress needs to raise the federal debt ceiling, lest Uncle Sam default on existing obligations. On the contrary, large (but feasible) spending cuts, coupled with aggressive privatization of federal assets, would balance the books. There is no need to raise taxes or the debt ceiling.
The bonus to privatization is also market entrepreneurship in place of bureaucratic management. So the asset transfer would be good for both taxpayers and the private sector writ large.
I’ll outline the numbers, then focus on the possible objection to privatizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a topic that should be of the most interest to readers of Master Resource.…
Continue ReadingEditor note: The first post in in this three-part series was titled A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview); the third is“Federal Energy Policy for America (Part III: Cato’s priorities–and a few more).”
The Obama Administration has been implementing an anti-energy agenda since coming to Washington. From day one, Obama and his “dream ‘green’ team” have worked to increase the cost of traditional energy to reduce usage and try to make uneconomic consumer-rejected energy (wind, solar, ethanol, electric vehicles) more economic.
The effects of these policies are now playing out in front of the American people: rising energy prices, tens of thousands of jobs destroyed, and increasing dependence on foreign state-owned energy companies. In response, the free market community has been playing defense.
But even before Obama, multiple-hundred-page interventionist legislation has been signed time and again by Republican presidents.…
Continue ReadingBackground:Earlier this year, I wrote about a new, tentative California Superior Court decision that threw a monkey wrench into California Air Resources Board’s climate regulatory scheme.
… Continue Readinga California superior court once again ruled against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for failing to comply with environmental law pursuant to AB 32, California’s global warming law. The tentative decision directs CARB to rewrite its California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documentation, and to cease implementation of the AB 32 Scoping Plan until the violation is corrected.
The decision is based on violations of process only and does not address any scientific or economic substance of either the CEQA documentation or of the scoping plan. Reactions have been mixed from “no big deal” to “hallelujah.”
The judge’s decision states that CARB violated state environmental law with its 2008 plan to reduce greenhouse gases and its more recent cap-and-trade regulatory schema.