By Sallie James
House legislators have reached a “compromise” deal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States until 2014 and at an increased funding level ($120 billion, with a possible increase to $140 billion). The compromise builds on a bill crafted by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) I blogged about in March, but seems to largely be a win [...]
Ex-Im Reauthorization Vote Expected Tomorrow is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Daniel Ikenson
Those of us who view import tariffs as distortive taxes on consumption and production tend to find merit in any effort to reduce them. That’s why Senator Jim DeMint’s opposition to the perennial import duty suspension process known as the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) seems a bit misplaced. DeMint has – according to Cato’s Congressional [...]
Misguided Misgivings about the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Alex Nowrasteh
Under current law unauthorized immigrant spouses or children of U.S. citizens can gain lawful permanent residency (LPR) status if they return to their home country to apply at a U.S. consulate or embassy. The Catch-22 is that unauthorized immigrants who have lived here are barred from returning for up to ten years once they leave [...]
Unlawful Presence Waivers Are Not Amnesty is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Sallie James
A group of 30 House Republicans, including a few members who ran as Tea Partiers according to this article by CQ, have sent a letter to the House Republican leadership calling for the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. (I’ve written here and here on why that’s a bad idea.) Their names are right there at the bottom, [...]
House Republicans—Including ‘Tea Partiers’—Support Ex-Im is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Sallie James
When the Environmental Working Group released the 2011 edition of its groundbreaking farm subsidy database, they asked for my comment to use in their press release. I was more than happy to do so, and I had this to say: I can think of fewer initiatives that have had as big an impact on the [...]
Save the EWG Farm Subsidy Database! is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Ilya Shapiro
Yesterday’s argument in Arizona v. United States (my preview here), which in a non-Obamacare world would be the case of the decade, revealed among other things yet another bizarre legal position taken by the Obama Justice Department. That is, the solicitor general stood there and straight-facedly made the claims that: (1) local law enforcement could make ”ad hoc” [...]
Justice Sotomayor: “[Mr. Solicitor] General, I’m Terribly Confused by Your Answer” is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Alex Nowrasteh
Michael Barone had an excellent piece in today’s Examiner where he wrote that the Mexican unauthorized immigration problem is going away because net Mexican migration is around zero for the first time since the Great Depression. Barone points out many reasons for this change: the size of the Mexican emigration cohort is remaining steady (Mexican [...]
Incentives for Unauthorized Immigration Remain is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Ilya Shapiro
For anyone suffering from post-Obamacare-argument Supreme Court withdrawal, this Wednesday the Court takes up Arizona’s controversial Senate Bill (“SB”) 1070. See my blogpost from when the Court granted review for some background. SB 1070 is much-misunderstood: it has nothing to do with sexy political issues like racial profiling and everything to do with boring legal ones like whether a given [...]
Immigration Laws at the Supreme Court: Constitutional but Bad Policy is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Jim Harper
I know little about a House Judiciary Committee hearing tomorrow on E-Verify, but the title of it has a peculiar odor: “Document Fraud in Employment Authorization: How an E-Verify Requirement Can Help.” You see, the immigration policies Congress has set are the source of the problem. Document fraud is made more likely by employment authorization [...]
‘How an E-Verify Requirement Can Help’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Daniel Ikenson
Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach is no fan of the World Trade Organization. But her mischaracerizations of how that body operates require correcting. Wallach published this piece on April 9 on the Huffington Post blog under the title, “WTO Orders U.S. to Dump Landmark Obama Youth Anti-Smoking Law.” Here are some excerpts followed by commentary. Behind closed doors in Geneva, a [...]
How Naysayers See the World Trade Organization is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
