Closer to 60 votes for the Employee Free Choice Act?  Well, yes, by definition, but …

Seth Borden at EFCA Report reaches a conclusion that we tend to share:

Expect a renewed wave of enthusiasm by the bill’s supporters in the days to come.  Still, once Franken is seated as the second Senator from Minnesota, EFCA in its current form faces an uphill battle.   Many of the 60 votes possibly controlled by the Democrats have openly questioned the bill’s current provisions – Sens. Lincoln, Feinstein, and Bennet to name but a few.  Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), whose recent famous party switch put the Democrats this close to the prospect of cloture on any given measure, has consistently criticized EFCA as currently drafted. 

With lots of links, including more speculation about Specter’s position and Sen. Tom Harkin’s “compromise.”

While promises to increase taxes on businesses, particularly those with operations overseas, may play well on the campaign trail, it’s clear that, when the dust settles, the rhetoric has no basis in reality. 

In today’s Washington Post, columnist Geoff Colvin does a good job of dispelling any notion that U.S. corporations are up to no good when it comes to the tax code.  In fact, the tax changes proposed by the Administration represent a major change in long-standing tax policy designed to “level the playing field” in a global economy where most countries tax business income at a lower rate.  At the end of the day, these proposals amount to a hefty tax increase on U.S. multinational companies.  The international tax changes, combined with other tax increases like the repeal of “LIFO” and the new carbon “tax and trade,”  are bad news for all of us.  As any economist knows, corporations don’t pay taxes, we—customers, shareholders and workers— do.

Continuing on the topic of regulations, the left-leaning-leaning-leaning-oops-it’s-toppled-over magazine, The Nation, envisions a newly emboldened and empowered and progressive Federal Trade Commission now making common cause with the Justice Department against “corporate gigantism.” From “The Little Agency that Could“:

Congress needs to take action to unleash the FTC’s full potential. First, it remains a small agency with broad and complex responsibilities and cumbersome procedural burdens, especially in rule-making. Here, the FTC’s champions in Congress can make certain that Congress supplies more resources and streamlines the FTC’s authority. The agency also has a chronic problem of setting priorities: wherever it turns, there are corporate malefactors, large and small, deserving of prosecution. Last year then-chair Kovacic prepared a broad review of the FTC’s effectiveness on the occasion of its approaching 100th anniversary. In his report he called for a larger staff and mission for the FTC’s independent Policy Planning Office to set priorities for the agency–especially apt to its mission of helping to restore a healthy and competitive economy. But the effort needs more than planners; it needs many more prosecutorial troops on the ground.

The second problem facing the FTC is the hangover from eight years of reactionary Bush judicial appointments hostile to FTC cases. (These cases invoked innovative legal theories that aimed for such goals as denying mergers or breaking up huge conglomerates and cited not only traditional anticompetitive theories but broader theories of harm to the economy and the public welfare.) This impediment, too, could be significantly ameliorated by clear legislative authority.

Just what America needs to stay competitive and create jobs: More prosecutorial troops to pursue innovative legal theories.

A couple of posts about regulation over at Point of Law:

One comments on Sen. Chambliss’ hold on Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House, which is not a good idea. The folks at OMB Watch seem to agree (and how often does that happen)?

The other notes an aggressive will to power by at least one new appointee at the Federal Trade Commission. Yes, the guy used to sue for Public Citizen is now running the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Oh boy.

President Obama has announced his intention to nominate George Cohen for a role that not too many folks outside of Washington have ever heard of: the Director of Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. So what’s the big deal? Why is this post important?

Well, if the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act becomes the law of the land, the Mr. Cohen will be the one that oversees the agency charged with forcing government contracts on newly unionized private employers.

You may think that’s outrageous, but I refer you to read the details of the legislation:

S.560
Section 3
`(2) If after the expiration of the 90-day period beginning on the date on which bargaining is commenced, or such additional period as the parties may agree upon, the parties have failed to reach an agreement, either party may notify the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service of the existence of a dispute and request mediation. Whenever such a request is received, it shall be the duty of the Service promptly to put itself in communication with the parties and to use its best efforts, by mediation and conciliation, to bring them to agreement.

`(3) If after the expiration of the 30-day period beginning on the date on which the request for mediation is made under paragraph (2), or such additional period as the parties may agree upon, the Service is not able to bring the parties to agreement by conciliation, the Service shall refer the dispute to an arbitration board established in accordance with such regulations as may be prescribed by the Service. The arbitration panel shall render a decision settling the dispute and such decision shall be binding upon the parties for a period of 2 years, unless amended during such period by written consent of the parties.’.

Yikes. George Cohen, a person you may have never heard of before today may become the person that oversees the system that determines how you can you manage your own workforce.

From Jim Geraghty, The Campaign Spot, “It’s Easy To Cut the Budget When You Have No Other Option“:

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is touting the fact that by signing the budget [Monday], he “became the first Governor of New Jersey in over six decades to reduce, two years in a row, the size and cost of state government.”

Except that he really didn’t have too much choice in the matter, as the state is facing a “historic tax-revenue collapse” and the state constitution requires a balanced budget. And the revenues started plummeting in the first months of the budgetary year last year.

And while the current budget does include some spending cuts, it also makes up the gap with $2 billion in federal stimulus money and raises taxes on wine and hard liquor, tobacco, and top earners. Oh, and if you win the lottery, the state is now taxing those winnings, too.

Which reminds us again of the Wall Street Journal editorial on the Albany-Trenton-Sacramento disease, with the second headline, “How three liberal states got into deep trouble with ‘progressive’ ideas.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made a desert splash yesterday with an announcement made in tandem with Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid. From “Secretary Salazar, Senator Reid Announce ‘Fast-Track’ Initiatives for Solar Energy Development on Western Lands“:

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Under initiatives announced today by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development, fund environmental studies, open new solar energy permitting offices and speed reviews of industry proposals.

“President Obama’s comprehensive energy strategy calls for rapid development of renewable energy, especially on America’s public lands,” said Secretary Salazar.  “This environmentally-sensitive plan will identify appropriate Interior-managed lands that have excellent solar energy potential and limited conflicts with wildlife, other natural resources or land users.  The two dozen areas we are evaluating could generate nearly 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity.  With coordinated environmental studies, good land-use planning and zoning and priority processing, we can accelerate responsible solar energy production that will help build a clean-energy economy for the 21st century.”

Excellent idea. Let’s do it! And can we do the same for new nuclear power plants? After all, with coordinated environmental studies, good land-use planning and zoning and priority processing, we can accelerate responsible nuclear energy production that will help build a clean-energy economy for the 21st century.

(100,000 megawatts? That seems like a quite a goal. A nuclear power plant on average can produce about 1,000 megawatts. Should we really believe that solar technology, investment and transmission capacity can be ramped up so quickly as to produce the equivalent of 100 nuclear power plants?)

Paul Krugman, writing in his New York Times column, “Betraying the Planet“:

A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

So that’s how Mr. Krugman hopes to win a public policy debate — comparing his opponents to Holocaust “deniers” and accusing them of treason. And you know what we do with traitors…

We make them lie on the beach, reading the 1,428-page bill until the rising oceans pull them to their briny deaths.

As far as we know, this is the full text of H.R. 2454, as passed by the House. It is now 1,428 pages.

Beach reading, as the oceans slowly rise to submerge you.

Or not.

The Washington Post ran a piece today that focused on an interview with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Of course, the most controversial labor issue was brought up: the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

The Secretary asserts that in “many cases, in many cases, workers have been disadvantaged.” She claims, “They’ve been intimidated, they’ve been harassed, and we have case after case after case that we can look at.”

She then makes an argument popular with organized labor, describing “barriers” that have been put in place “over the past few years”. Well, what precisely? Why wasn’t the Secretary pressed for specifics? One can only assume that she is referring to decisions of the National Labor Relations Board. The President has already nominated two individuals to the board who will significantly change the dynamics of the board for years to come.

If there are legitimate violations of the National Labor Relations Act, then let’s have the NLRB rule on them. If there are other barriers, let’s have the NLRB review them. Otherwise, let’s talk facts: Workers who wish to become union members are able to do so. Last year alone unions saw membership increase by 400,000, unions won 67% of the secret ballot elections and these elections took place 95% of the time within 56 days.