Last week, Capitol Confidential reported that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is considering hiking taxes on non-cigarette tobacco products in an effort to bring in more revenue from tobacco users who have apparently rejected heavily-taxed cigarettes in favor of cheaper options such as rolling their own or using products such as snuff.

On Monday, it emerged the Cook County Board endorsed Preckwinkle’s tobacco tax proposal by a 10-7 vote.  The Cook County Board is set to take a final vote on the proposed budget on Friday.

Now, it is being reported that separate to this proposed tax hike, Chicago aldermen are looking at their own tobacco tax hike. From the Chicago Trubune:

Two aldermen looking for last-minute ways to head off painful budget cuts proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel floated the idea Wednesday of extending the city’s cigarette tax to other tobacco products.

Ald. Matthew O’Shea, 19th, and Leslie Hairston, 5th, brought up that option at a City Council meeting in an effort to soften spending cuts at city libraries, mental health clinics and the 911 center.

[...]

Aldermen and administration officials weren’t sure how much new money could be raised by broadening the tobacco tax — as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle plans to do so she can raise $12 million for the county next year.

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This week, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) targets Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren and her self-professed ties to the #Occupy movement in a new television ad running in the Boston, Springfield-Holyoke, and Providence, RI markets for a total buy of $596,000.

The ad, “Foundation,” can be viewed here:

When Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) was convinced by a retailing giant to enact legislation imposing price controls on credit card transactions he engineered a massive wealth transfer from credit card companies to retailers – a cost that would ultimately be borne by consumers.  Opponents of Durbin’s fee warned of the consequences of his actions including increased costs for consumers and elimination of credit card incentive programs.  As Milton Friedman said, “there is no free lunch.”

After the government imposed their fee cap, the marketplace responded predictably.  Banks, including Bank of America, raised fees on consumers in order to cover the cost imposed by the Durbin Amendment.  Caught with his tail between his legs, Durbin and his allies declared war on the banks.  In a letter to the newly codified Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Durbin accused banks of trying to “sneak fees past” consumer and “urge[d]” the CFPB to “swiftly require financial institutions to post on their websites a standardized, concise and consumer-friendly disclosure form that lists the fees and key terms associated with checking accounts.”

Whether Durbin is successful in fighting back remains to be seen but what we do know is we now have a government agency at the disposal of elected officials that will police marketplace policies, fee structures and pricing decisions.  If it’s not bad enough that the Bureau will make regulatory decisions based on the political whims of politicians, their own justification for regulations are worse.  Much worse.

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Five years after Cook County, Illinois, last hiked cigarette taxes, it has emerged that revenues from cigarette taxes have substantially declined, contributing to the county’s budget challenges.

In 2006, the county collected about $200 million in cigarette tax revenue, but that dropped to about $126 million last year.

The County reportedly faces about a $300 million budget gap heading into next year. Locals say the decline in cigarette tax revenue is not the result of smokers quitting using tobacco products.  According to Sheriff Tom Dart, “There’s probably some people who have given up smoking, but I don’t think that accounts for $74 million [less].”  Rather, it seems to be the result of smokers looking to save money on tobacco however they can — including buying from sellers who offer cigarettes without relevant tax stamps, buying cigarettes in neighboring Indiana, and even rolling their own or switching to non-cigarette types of tobacco.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is now looking to raise taxes on tobacco users who take the latter routes in an effort to keep their costs down, as well as purchasers of alcohol:

Like it or not, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says her cash-strapped county needs higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco to solve a deep deficit.

[...]
Preckwinkle also wants to close the loophole on the current cigarette tax to include loose tobacco, rolling papers and snuff.

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This week, former Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln (D) lead a cadre of small business owners from a number of states to Washington in an attempt to convince Congress that their commitment to over-regulating American entrepreneurs is a surefire way to destroy the American economy.

From The Hill:

Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Dan Danner, the chief executive of the National Federation of Independent Business, signaled Wednesday that taking some of the regulatory load off smaller companies would help in the current battle against high unemployment.

“The message that we’re trying to leave is that if we want to create more jobs and make the economy better, how do we somehow get this disproportionate burden of ever increasing new regulations off the backs of the people who create the jobs?” Danner said at an event launching his group’s Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations campaign.

According to the Small Business Administration, regulations on American small businesses, which comprise 60 percent of all private-sector jobs and account for about two thirds of jobs created each year, deprive the American economy of $1.75 trillion annually. By reducing – or at least compromising – on current regulations and letting go of the nearly 4,200 regulations on the table right now to be passed this session, Congress could stimulate one of the fastest-growing American industries. Unfortunately for Blanche Lincoln and her team of American business owners, Congress will be hard to convince.

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Washington public policy is replete with examples of government regulators thinking they know best, imposing new government rules that then exacerbate the existing problems. As things become worse, they blame the free market and call for more government regulations to fix the burdens they created.  Of course, just as it was the first time, the cure is worse than the disease. And the vicious cycle continues.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren could be the poster child for the law of unintended consequences.  Warren’s career was built upon advocacy of government regulations that created bigger problems than those she initially addressed.  As the problems compound, so does her call for even more government red tape.

All of this mader her a hero to the progressive community, a Harvard professor, an advisor to the president and a creator of a new regulation-pushing agency of government known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  Maybe once, she will get something right but don’t hold your breath. The housing market collapse is a case in point.

In 1994, President Clinton and his cronies laid the groundwork for the creation of the Housing Bubble and the Wall Street crisis a decade later.  The Investors Business Daily uncovered a “smoking gun” memo that declared war on a near invisible enemy – racism is mortgage lending:

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Most Americans have heard of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) through its ill-conceived scheme to prevent Boeing from building a new plant in South Carolina because the Palmetto State has a right-to-work law. The board’s actions have created a huge backlash against the Obama Administration and its pro-Big Labor policies.

But how much do most Americans know about Obama’s other labor board?

Most Americans haven’t heard of President Obama’s other labor board, the National Mediation Board (NMB). This board is specifically focused on labor relations between the railroad and airline industries. And just like the NLRB, the NMB is aggressively pushing Big Labor’s agenda.

Last July, the NMB overturned nearly a century of precedent and issued a new pro-union rule regarding union elections. Instead of requiring the traditional democratic practice of a simple majority of members to unionize, now the rules only require a majority of votes cast for unionization.

If a company has 2,000 workers and only 400 people vote but 201 of them are pro-union, the entire workforce of 2,000 people are forced to unionize. Couple that with the fact that it is nearly impossible to decertify a union, and those 201 votes in effect mandate unionization for good. (more…)

The #OccupyWallStreet movement has an agenda and has made it available for all to see.  Among their demands is that government eviscerate existing contracts by “eliminating all debt, everywhere.”  Imagine there was a government agency with the power to make decisions like that.  With a sleight of hand, one person could vitiate contracts and overturn years of business decisions, destroying marketplaces through government intervention.  You don’t have to imagine very long.  If President Obama and his progressive supporters get their way, the Director of the newly created regulatory agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will have similar powers.

Created by the flawed Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, the CFPB Director will be the most powerful regulator in government with little checks and balances from Congress.  President Obama said last week that if confirmed, the Director of the Bureau would be able to overturn any private market action it deems abusive.  Obama specifically cited the increase in debit card fees as an example of an area where the CFPB could take action to overturn the fee.

Let that sink in for a moment. A legitimate, legal business in America raises its prices by $5 and some bureaucrat would veto it, or worse, punish the business for raising its prices – in order to “make less profit,” as the president said.  This is the world Obama and the Democrats seek, a world in which an elite few are empowered to override the marketplace based on their own whims or, in this case, to mollify their voters.

No one likes bank fees, but in a market economy, you could take your money from one bank and move it to another. Avoiding this and keeping you happy is what keeps your bank in line. That’s how the market works, but that’s not good enough in Obama-world. On this fantasy island, the government singlehandedly keeps the electoral mobs happy through the utilization of a financial death squad. It’s government by organized mob.

This case becomes even more ridiculous when you consider the fact that the reason the banks are adding new fees is to cover the cost of a new federal price fixing law that took billions from banks and allocated it to giant retailers like Wal-Mart. And even more absurdly, the pricing fixing law that caused the fee increase is the very same law that created the agency that Obama wants to use to overturn the fee increase.

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Earlier this month, while South Korean President Lee Myung Bak was visiting the United States, his military commanders were back home watching out for ammunition boxes.

North Korea’s military had moved combat aircraft, mobile ground-to-air missiles and missile launchers to attack positions near the border with the South. Had those ammo boxes – the final step in preparations for an attack – appeared, whether for war-making or simply for live-fire exercises, it might well have triggered a resumption of the shooting war that began in the 1950s and never truly has ended.

Elsewhere recently, a North Korean diplomat at low-level talks at the University of Georgia said war on the peninsula seems closer now than it has in decades, and Iran was linked to a clumsy attempt to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington. The Iranians also are “playing” in hot spots throughout the Middle East – from Syria to Yemen to Egypt and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and working feverishly to overcome a cyber attack on its nuclear weapons development program.

Clearly, this is no time for the United States to let down its guard on missile defense. Congress – which is under pressure to cut defense spending but maintain capabilities – must show resolve to ensure our nation, troops and allies are protected.

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When most people think about the Yellow Pages… well, do most people even think about the Yellow Pages anymore? Actually, you’d be surprised. Nearly 75% of Americans referred to the Yellow Pages for a phone number or business recommendation last year. Even given all of the Internet resources that are available right at hand, most adults chose to look up essential information in that gigantic book that most people born after 1995 remember only as a makeshift booster seat. Even in the face of rampant technology, the Yellow Pages soldiers on as one of the most used local resources and one of the most effective means of direct marketing to consumers.

But learning that about the Yellow Pages takes a bit of research–research that liberal city councils across the country aren’t doing as they undertake a massive war on what they deem not only an irrepressible nuisance but an environmental disaster as well. That’s right, of all of the societal ills local governments could address, they’re looking to take on the Yellow Pages. San Francisco, of course, has already led the way, and Berkeley, Alameda, Cleveland and other cities would like to follow suit. According to BanthePhoneBook.org, a site set up by those who seek to see the Yellow Pages (radical environmentalists among them) banished from existence, nearly five million trees are murdered per year just to bring you reliable information about plumbers and personal injury lawyers.

But is banning the phone book really the best way to save trees? A quick rundown of some key statistics puts two very key holes in the “ban the phone book” theory of environmental reclamation. First, as it turns out, the Yellow Pages aren’t actually made from five million fresh trees, cut down in their peak to bring the phone book to your door. They’re actually made from mostly recycled material or the byproducts of other paper manufacturing, non-toxic dyes, and inks, and unused directories are “upcycled” into other things. You know that coffee cup that your non-fat soy latte with non-dairy whip comes in every morning, that says it comes from “90% recycled materials?” It’s likely made out of your old phone books. (more…)

The current administration’s controversial federal regulatory policies (the US Treasury Department’s stunningly bad bet on Solyndra, the NLRB’s tone death sanction against Boeing, the EPA’s onerous new rules imposed on, well, everything) place heavy-handed bureaucrats in Washington squarely behind the wheel on the road to America’s economic future.  In each of these cases, the White House has empowered federal regulators to decide outcomes best left to the free market.  Washington, it seems, knows best. Against this backdrop of regulatory overreach, we await another major decision – the approval by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission of the potential merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Of economic concern, however, is not the Federal government’s decision to approve or reject the deal, but whether the FCC will use its responsibility and power to approve the deal to also impose new regulations on the entire telecom industry. Doug Holtz-Eakin warns, “already we are seeing calls for a presumptive regulatory response.” He worries that “the U.S. will continue down an overly regulatory, prescriptive approach to competition that is doomed to fail.”

The greatest risk to a free, wide-open Internet is that overreaching regulators are using the merger review process to mandate new policy – circumventing the congressional review process to impose regulatory restrictions such as the controversial “net-neutrality” rules. “The job of regulators should not be to choose the best market strategy,” wrote James Gattuso, a Senior Research Fellow with The Heritage Foundation in a May report.  “It should be simply to make sure that the marketplace itself is working. In wireless, it’s working remarkably well, and there is every reason to believe it will continue to do so after the acquisition is completed.”

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Big Government has learned of a shocking new dimension to the emerging Fisker Karma scandal: not only is the U.S. taxpayer-backed car manufactured overseas, but it is far less fuel-efficient than its main American competitor, the Chevrolet Volt.

ABC News reports this evening that the U.S. Department of Energy gave $529 million in loan guarantees to Fisker Automotive to assist in the production of the sporty Karma, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

Instead of manufacturing the Karma in the United States, however, Fisker is building the electric vehicle in Finland–creating 500 jobs overseas with American taxpayers’ money:

“There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle,” the car company’s founder and namesake told ABC News. “They don’t exist here.”

Industry insiders have told Big Government that they are alarmed by another, largely unreported fact about the Fisker Karma: the car only gets 20 miles per gallon (mpg) of fuel when its gasoline engine is running.

Fisker revealed this week that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rated the Karma at 52 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent)–the car’s effective fuel efficiency range when its electric motor is combined with its range-extending gasoline engine.

However, Fisker communications director Roger Ormisher revealed that the gasoline engine itself only performs at 20 mpg.

Even General Motors’s Chevrolet Volt performs better, according to Green Car Reports:

The comparable figures for the 2012 Chevrolet Volt–which has a less powerful single 111-kilowatt (149-hp) drive motor and an 80-hp, 1.4-liter range extender–are 94 MPGe in electric mode, and 37 mpg on gasoline, with an electric range of 35 miles. (more…)

Last Sunday a local chapter of YAF affiliated with Principia College organized a small and peaceful counter presence to the ongoing Occupy St. Louis demonstration at Keiner Plaza in downtown. According to the organizer the group of mostly collegians and minors was met with violent language, intimidation, and death threats. The police, says the organizer, were contacted after self-identified occupy participants called the school and left a message in the voicemail box of Principia’s main line. The school, we’re told, has the message and is reviewing its options with law enforcement.

The organizer details further via email:

As you know, on Sunday, October 16^th a St. Louis area chapter of Young Americans for Freedom staged a counter protest against Occupy St. Louis in Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis. The message was one of freedom, capitalism, and limited government. The conservative group was met with a remarkable amount of verbal hostility while at the protest, however it remained physically peaceful.

The night after the protest, two death threats were made against the group of students (which includes a minor.) These threats were made through the students’ school, one was sent as an email, the other was a phone call.

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Earlier this month, news broke that a group calling itself the “Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative” is pushing a $1 per pack cigarette tax hike in the state. Via the AP:

A Maryland health group is planning to push for a $1 increase in the state’s tobacco tax.

The Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative says it will launch the campaign next week in an effort to build public support for increasing the tax to pay for public health needs.

[...]

Maryland last raised its tobacco tax from $1 a pack to $2 a pack during a special session in 2007.

Those who follow consumption tax policy will know that state cigarette tax increases have historically constituted a somewhat unreliable revenue stream.

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In the pitched battle over whether government should take over our health care system, a group of pro-life Democrat congressmen held the line to oppose the legislation because they knew the bill authorized funding for abortion.  Under intense pressure from the president and their pro-choice comrades in the Congress, the group, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) flip-flopped when they received a letter from the president ensuring that government would not spend money for abortion.  They were had.

Now Sen. Rob Portman appears ready to “pull a Stupak.”  Under pressure from Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, Portman appears ready to cut a deal to confirm former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to a five-year term to head the super-regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Word on Capitol Hill is that Portman has assured Cordray he has no problems with his nomination and is asking for assurances that his concerns about the Bureau will be address – not in legislation, but in a letter.  Has Portman learned anything from the Stupak incident?  Apparently not.

Unlike Portman, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is taking a principled stand against the creation of a new super regulatory agency and is not shaking in his boots.  Shelby has organized his colleagues who have pledged to oppose the nomination of Cordray or any other nominee unless the Bureau is reformed.  Unlike Portman, apparently, Shelby is smart enough to demand real statutory changes as opposed to “promised” changes.

The CFPB was structured in a way to give huge, and perhaps unconstitutional, power to its Director.  Alan Raul, who served as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget and associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan, described the CFPB’s power as “an independent agency on steroids because Congress essentially exempted the director from any meaningful accountability or strong presidential oversight.”

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They might have a notoriously thin grasp on their demand list. They might totally miss the irony of wearing $150 Ray Ban sunglasses while carrying signs denigrating “corporatism” and “consumerism.” Some of their members may, in fact, see the protest as nothing more than a way to exhibit their least attractive qualities, including but not limited to anti-Semitism. Heck, they’re pretty sure even they don’t know what they’re doing (aside from asking America to pretty, pretty PLEASE bail them out of the student loans they racked up in four years studying foreign film at the New School).

But they may have a long-term effect on your pocketbook and the financial stability of the nation if any of the concrete items on their rambling, incoherent list of demands makes it to the level of national governance. Although the protesters themselves might be a loose collection of Communists, socialists, card-carrying ANSWER members, SEIU stooges, English department mainstays and professional grievance-mongers, some of the “big names” pulling the strings behind the scenes and influencing #occupywallstreet with New York Times editorials are suggesting that the “occupiers’” attempt to influence Washington movement on some key issues contained in the jobs bill.

Specifically, the progressive thinkers want their unwashed hippie army pushing D.C. to ram through a provision called “Carried Interest” which they define as “punishing the rich” but which is more closely defined as “destabilizing the American real estate and investment markets.” From the #OccupyWallStreet “Manifesto”:

2. Currently, the 1% takes bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continues to give executives exorbitant bonuses…

Close the “carried interest” and “founders’ stock” loopholes, which allow our wealthiest citizens to pay very low tax rates by pretending that their labor compensation is a capital gain.

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The EPA has justified much of its job-killing regulatory agenda by citing promises of improved public health and reduced health care costs to treat respiratory illnesses it claims are exacerbated by airborne pollution. They’ve even recruited advocacy groups like the American Lung Association to publicly endorse the rules.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

However, the medical community remains unconvinced.  Medical professionals and U.S. Reps. Paul Broun, Larry Bucshon, Michael Burgess, Bill Cassidy, John Fleming, Phil Gingrey and Paul Gosar have written a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging her to delay implementation of the proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule (MACT), which imposes stringent new standards on coal-fueled power plants.

Why this particular policy? Well, the Utility MACT rule is expected to cause widespread shutdowns of power plants across the country.  The letter signers state that the proposed rule will actually hurt public health by raising electricity prices and thus health care costs, therefore negating any supposed longer-term health benefits.

From the letter:

We ask that the EPA take into account the direct and indirect costs associated with the proposed rule and withdraw the rule until we can be assured of its positive contribution to public health…

It is well established that additional costs placed upon the healthcare and economic sectors of our country may actually damage public health and raise premature death rates.  Given the extremely high cost of the Utility MACT proposal – perhaps the most expensive in the Agency’s history – we ask that the EPA take into account the direct and indirect costs associated with the proposed rule and withdraw the rule until we can be assured of its positive contribution to public health.  The American public deserves no less.

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When President Obama announced his jobs plan back at the beginning of September, he focused almost exclusively on what the government could do for Americans. He mentioned thousands of “shovel ready” projects that needed the strong arms and constitutions of Americans willing to lend their hands to government-run projects across the country. From his speech, you’d think there were no possible projects in the private sector about to provide thousands of jobs to the growing number of unemployed.

Of course, that perception would be incorrect. While President Obama is pushing government-funded jobs across the country, he is ignoring at least one such private sector initiative awaiting his approval: a private sector initiative that could employ thousands, boost the GDP and help provide the US with energy independence…at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer. The $7 billion Keystone pipeline project – an oil pipeline spanning the continental United States from the oil sands in Canada to the heart of Texas – is just that project.

Unfortunately, because of the Obama Administration and its cronies in environmental groups, Nebraska government and elsewhere, the Keystone pipeline project, which has the potential to create thousands of jobs, may be in jeopardy.

The Keystone Pipeline would originate in Canada, transporting nearly 150,000 barrels of oil per day from the oil sands in western Canada, down through the United States to refineries in Texas and projects in a handful of other states. Once the Obama Administration approves its construction, it could bring over a million barrels of oil per day to American refineries, boosting a severely lagging oil industry in the Gulf and possibly millions of dollars in revenue to the US. Plus, it would severely decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

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If the American Left has a Joan of Arc, her name would be Elizabeth Warren.  The Harvard professor was the designer and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the independent regulatory agency that was given the power to regulate every financial transaction in America without proper checks and balances from Congress.

The plan was for Warren to head the Bureau and conduct a reign of regulatory terror on the economy.  But even President Obama got cold feet.  Warren was too radical to be confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  So Warren picked her replacement, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, packed her bags back to Massachusetts and declared a run for the US Senate.

The arrogance of power and the ignorance of history may be the best way to describe Warren and the government agency she concocted.  The philosophy behind the Bureau is simple – the learned and intelligencia must control the marketplace in order to protect the simple-minded.

We were given a little insight into her philipsophy by a person who videotaped a recent campaign appearance.  In Warren’s worldview, your success is dictated not by your efforts to work hard or your ingenuity, but by the state.

Warren addressed the issue of class-warfare in a manner appropriate for the Harvard faculty lounge.

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own —nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

This arrogance extends beyond a philosophical debate.

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