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When it comes to identifying policymakers who will champion bipartisan, constructive approaches to fix our outdated, broken tax system and help U.S. companies to innovate, compete and create jobs, don’t count Senator Carl Levin among them. For several years, Senator Levin has used his position as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to conduct a campaign to embarrass American companies [...]
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The Senate Judiciary Committee’s work this week on the Gang of 8 (G8) immigration reform bill could include an energetic debate on two competing views about temporary skilled visas – the H-1B (for those with Bachelor’s degrees or higher) and the L-1 (for managers, executives and those with specialized knowledge) – and how they impact U.S. workers and the U.S. economy. These views are represented in [...]
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My college statistics professor was the source of a truly memorable warning: “There are PT Barnums in data analysis who can easily influence people who’ve either never taken a statistics course or slept through one.” That’s good advice for policymakers because in major policy debates statistical wars usually occur, and some PT Barnums do surface. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is vying for the [...]
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Today, the House of Representatives renewed its work on cybersecurity with a series of votes on bipartisan proposals to enhance and improve U.S. cyber defenses. At the heart of this debate is the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), offered by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee -- Chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan and Ranking Member C.A. Dutch [...]
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Under a beautiful blue sky in the Rose Garden this morning, President Obama laid out the three key questions that drove the priorities in his just-released Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 budget: “How do we make America a magnet for new jobs? How do we give our workers the skills they need to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?” Some of the key initiatives put forward [...]
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In October 1986, then-Los Angeles Lakers Coach Pat Riley confronted a major challenge: How to restore a talented basketball team to dominance in a highly competitive league. His response proved to be the most pivotal strategic decision of his career: He made his most innovative playmaker, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the focal point of the team’s offense. Riley believed Magic had not reached his full [...]
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In a report that would have made Casablanca’s Captain Renault blush, this morning’s Marketplace Morning Report discovered the “shocking” news that U.S.-headquartered multinational companies keep their foreign earnings in foreign markets, and by doing so, they are able to defer any U.S. taxes on those earnings until it is invested in the U.S. This isn’t new -- tax deferral been a feature of U.S. tax [...]
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It’s been interesting to follow the back and forth today on corporate tax reform between the Business Roundtable (BRT) and the White House. It’s important to understand what was -- and wasn’t -- said. First, the BRT’s President, Governor John Engler, today put forward his organization’s 2013 policy priorities -- a plan titled, “Act for America’s Future.” In response to a question about what he has [...]
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This blog originally was published by The Daily Caller. ----- “This time it’s going to be different.” Have you heard that before? The Chicago Cubs faithful know what I am talking about. As did “Star Wars” fans after Episode One, as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ex-husbands. And then there are those in the tech industry who for years have advocated for Congress to pass immigration reform. On Monday, eight [...]
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In watching the news reports on immigration reform throughout the day, one thing that has been missing from the discussion is any context for the legislative activities of the past couple of days. To fill that gap, I prepared an ITI Policy Brief that gives some political and policy background for the Senate’s bipartisan efforts with the principles and the Immigration Innovation (I-Squared) Act, and [...]