Biden's New 'Prevailing Wage' Rule Will Cost Taxpayers, Benefit Unions, and Hike Inflation
The Labor Department is officially undoing changes made to help combat inflation in the 1980s.
The Labor Department is officially undoing changes made to help combat inflation in the 1980s.
It's a short-sighted approach that distracts us from the more important question.
How not to distribute federal funds
More than 90 percent of Americans already have access to high-speed internet.
Texas's $200 annual E.V. fees seem like a lot of money but is largely in line with what owners would likely pay in gas taxes.
The rail lines servicing Washington, D.C.'s Union Station are carrying as little as a quarter of their pre-pandemic ridership. Officials still want to triple the station's capacity.
A new report from Reason Foundation shows that in 2020, highway quality improved while spending stayed flat. Inflation is now wrecking that progress.
It'll be another five years before it's operational.
Industrial policy is never as simple as it seems.
Excessive government interference in the market hurts consumers and thwarts policy goals. It also gets in the way of the government itself.
Big corporations and entire industries constantly use their connections in Congress to get favors, no matter which party is in power.
True abundance requires a minimal state and free markets.
Politicians say they want to subsidize various industries, but they sabotage themselves by weighing the policies down with rules that have nothing to do with the plans.
An escalator in a subway station is considered a "component" but a fire suppression system in the same station is considered a "finished product." Why? Because the bureaucrats say so.
The president's State of the Union address re-upped a tired, old promise to spend more tax dollars on less infrastructure.
If you look closely, you'll find a lot of contradictions.
The Federal Communications Commission uses broadband coverage maps that are so severely flawed, states started shelling out to make their own.
State governments already want relief from the "Buy American" mandates included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
From immigration to drug reform, there is plenty of potential for productive compromise.
The West Virginia senator had proposed a series of exceedingly modest tweaks designed to speed up the yearslong environmental review process for new energy projects.
The current franchise dealership model does not benefit consumers. It also may not benefit dealerships.
Government should not penalize investment, thwart competition, discourage innovation and work, or obstruct production.
Associate Editor Christian Britschgi breaks down how zoning restrictions distort the housing market.
Why should we believe that this boondoggle will produce better results than hundreds of other corporate welfare programs?
California should build infrastructure, not shame water users.
Under Biden, Trump, and Obama, government federal spending almost doubled.
A new GAO report finds that the government lacks a "national strategy with clear roles, goals, objectives, and performance measures."
The White House is making it harder for people to request waivers from cost-increasing Buy America requirements in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration made changes to the Davis-Bacon Act to help control inflation. The Labor Department is planning to undo them.
The president touted his support of cost-increasing 'Buy America' requirements for American infrastructure projects.
The issue has never been a lack of funds for infrastructure; it's that the money frequently ends up getting spent on something else via a highly politicized decision-making process.
Taxpayers will pay the tab for spruced-up bridges and rebuilt freeways, doubling down on a worrying trend.
A federal gasoline tax holiday would undermine the user fee system for funding highways and could worsen inflation.
Nothing new under the sun as Biden decides to extend Trump's solar panel tariffs for four more years.
Pennsylvania has one of the nation's highest gas taxes, but those user fees haven't helped fix the state's poor roads and bridges.
Too Many (Government) Dollars Are Chasing Too Few Goods.
It's unwise to try to force consumer spending habits in defiance of the market.
It's even worse than the widely-skewered broker provision.
The 90-year-old Davis-Bacon Act artificially makes federal projects more expensive, and Biden seems to want to strengthen it.
The legislation will have a negative impact on the labor supply and send high prices soaring even higher.
Virginia spends around $35,000 per mile of state-controlled road. In New Jersey, it's $1.1 million. Both states are about to get a lot more federal funding.
Get ready to pay for new nanny-state technology and for bypassing the unwelcome intervention.
"Even products as simple as a pencil have to use wood from Brazil and graphite from India before it comes together at a factory in the United States," Biden said.
The one thing that would most help increase efficiency at America's lagging ports is also the one thing that Biden's union allies dislike the most.