Andrew Moylan of the National Taxpayers Union says a neglected argument for allowing more drilling for oil is that it will produce additional revenues for the government that could be used for tax cuts:

The Congressional Research Service recently estimated the potential federal revenue from Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) oil development at $191 billion over 30 years – roughly $18.36 per barrel, based on projections of recoverable reserves. Applying that formula to the 107 billion-plus barrels of recoverable oil that federal agencies estimate is in ANWR, the nearby National Petroleum Reserve and offshore tells us that sensible drilling could yield nearly $2 trillion in overall revenue over 30 years, or an average of about $65.5 billion per year.

Meanwhile, the “cost” in lost tax collections of protecting 22 million families from the AMT this year stands at about $62 billion. That figure is sure to balloon in the future as more and more Americans are ensnared by the complex system. Tax-hungry politicians defend the AMT by pointing to all the federal revenue that would be lost by ending it. (Never mind the fact that AMT revenue is ill-gotten in the first place, or that the estimated “costs” of its repeal to the federal budget ignore the benefits to economic growth and resulting additional revenues.) While oil and gas development won’t fill government’s coffers overnight, it will provide a down payment in the near-term, and big windfalls in the out-years that can help deal with some of the most intractable tax problems we face.

We’re all for getting government out of the way of developing new sources of energy, wherever they might be. And we’re all for tax cuts. While agreeing with the gist of Mr. Moylan’s argument, we add the following caveat:

The primary argument for tax cuts is that the government doesn’t need the revenue. We know this because government spends money on things that benefit special interests at the expense of all other taxpayers. And because it spends money on things that taxpayers could better provide for themselves if they didn’t have to give their money to the government first.

If a tax cut is 100-percent financed with a sudden windfall for the government, then none of the current spending problems have gone away. There is no guarantee, of course, that the government will devote any new revenues to tax cuts. Congress could do whatever it wanted with a windfall from oil leases, including make government bigger.

The impact of such a windfall on government accountability would be pretty much the same as if another country decided to shower the United States with billion of dollars of foreign aid. Conservatives don’t normally think that foreign aid is a good thing.

All this is by way of illustrating that the issue for those concerned about the size of government is the other way around: New revenues aren’t the solution to the problem of providing tax cuts. Rather, new tax cuts would be the solution to the danger that government will get bigger as a result of new revenue from oil leases. And if we really want to impinge on the ability of Congress to continue its culture of corruption, then we would need tax cuts that exceed any new revenues.

From the looks of things, conservatives and champions of smaller government have much work to do.

Financial Times reports today some small signs that Cuba may be learning from the failures of its economic system. Cuba is thinking about makings its social welfare system a little bit less generous, says one government official. Alfredo Jam, head of macroeconomic analysis in the economy ministry, tells Financial Times “that Cubans had been ‘over-protected’ by a system that subsidised food costs and limited the amount people could earn, prompting labour shortages in important industries.” Jam says: “We can’t give people so much security with their income that it affects their willingness to work.”

U.S. foreign aid does not induce support for U.S. policies at the United Nations, say Brett Schaefer and Anthony Kim. In a new paper for The Heritage Foundation, Schaefer and Kim find:

Of the 30 largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid that have voted during the past eight sessions, 28 countries voted against the U.S. a majority of the time on all non-consensus votes, and 24 voted against the U.S. a majority of the time on non-consensus important votes.

Both economic freedom and political freedom, say Schaefer and Kim are much better predictors of support for U.S. positions at the United Nations. For example, from 2000 to 2007, countries scoring 80 percent free or better (free) on the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom voted with the United States 38.6 percent of the time, and countries scoring between 70 percent free and 79.9 percent free (mostly free) voted with the United States 38.9 percent of the time. By contrast, countries scoring below 50 percent free (repressed) voted with the United States only 17.7 percent of the time. (See chart.)

The lesson for U.S. policymakers, say Schaefer and Kim, is that if they want to use foreign aid to elicit more political support at the United Nations, then the aid should be targeted toward promoting economic freedom in recipient countries. Also, Schaefer and Kim recommend that the United States develop an Economic Freedom Caucus at the United Nations. Promoting economic freedom is not merely in the interests of the United States. It is also in the interests of other countries, because more economic freedom promotes faster economic growth—which, after all, is what a lot of foreign aid is supposed to do anyway.

If Vladimir Putin thought invading Georgia would induce servility among Russia’s neighbors, he was wrong, at least as far as Poland is concerned. Reuters reports today that a new poll shows that support among Poles for hosting a U.S. missile defense shield has risen to 50 percent. Previously, only 37 percent of Poles had supported the shield. Support for the shield has grown even though 77 percent of Poles believe that hosting it will worsen Poland’s relations with Russia. Last week, Poland and the United States reached a preliminary agreement on basing 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland.

Around the world, corporate tax rates continue to fall as countries compete for businesses. It’s a trend that so far has passed the United States by.

Last year was the 17th consecutive year, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (via Tax Foundation), that corporate tax rates in non-U.S. countries fell. In the OECD, the average rate fell from 27.6 percent to 26.6 percent. In the United States meanwhile, the combined federal-state rate was virtually unchanged, at 39.25 percent.

According to a survey by KPMG, between 1992 and 2006 the average corporate tax rate in a sample of 86 countries fell from 38 percent to 27 percent (cited by The American).

Another OECD study, as summarized by the Wall Street Journal, finds

that “corporate taxes are most harmful for growth, followed by personal income taxes, and then consumption taxes.” The study adds that “investment is adversely affected by corporate taxation,” and that the most profitable and rapidly growing companies tend to be the most sensitive to high business tax rates.

More and more, says Devon Herrick of the National Center for Policy Analysis, patients are traveling abroad for medical treatment and insurance companies are developing plans that cover these services. Why? Do foreign countries have some natural comparative advantage in delivering health care? Of course not. Public policies make health care more expensive in the United States. In particular, Herrick  notes:

In the United States, patients spend only 13 cents out of pocket for every dollar they spend on health care; insurers or government pay the rest. In countries with growing, entrepreneurial medical markets patients pay more out of pocket. For instance, local patients pay out of pocket for 51 percent of health care in Mexico and 78 percent in India. Consequently, providers must compete for patients based on price. 

That’s worth repeating: More patients paying with their own money makes health care cheaper. Also:

Malpractice litigation costs are lower outside the United States. American physicians in some specialties pay more than $100,000 annually for liability insurance, while a physician in Thailand spends about $5,000 per year.

Global competition in health care is good, because it gives consumers more options. But if enough health care consumers shop abroad, the main impact may be to undermine the ability of the United States to maintain bad health care policies.

reason.tv with Nick Gillespie reviews all the reasons that growing food for fuel has been a horrible idea:

In D.C. v. Heller the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. Yet, according to Robert Levy and David Kopel of the Cato Institute, the District of Columbia is still putting obstacles in the way of a meaningful right to own guns for D.C. residents. Levy and Kopel identify four problems that need to be addressed through legislation in the U.S. Congress:

1. The District’s registration process requires numerous steps that can take months to complete. That should be replaced, say Levy and Kopel, with a more streamlined processed based on the National Instant Criminal Background Check, which is already required by federal law and usually takes but a few hours.

2. The District bans machine guns and improperly includes in that definition any gun that can fire more than 12 or more shots without reloading. As a result, only revolvers and single-shot handguns are considered legal. But, say Levy and Kopel, this ban on semi-automatic handguns “violates the Supreme Court’s rule in District of Columbia v. Heller against ‘prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society’ for lawful self-defense.”

3. The District requires that weapons in the home be unloaded and either disassembled, fitted with a trigger lock, or kept in a gun safe. Levy and Kopel say this provision of the law even prevents a homeowner from carrying a loaded weapon into her backyard to investigate suspicious sounds.

4. Federal law prohibits out-of-state purchases. And since there are not yet any licensed gun shops in the District of Columbia, residents there have no legal means of buying a gun. Levy and Kopel say Congress should amend federal law to allow D.C. residents to purchase guns in Maryland and Virginia.

Levy and Kopel conclude with a call for Congress to take the lead on protecting gun rights:

Over the years, our elected representatives have adopted a court-centric view of the Constitution – a view that decisions about constitutionality are properly left to the judiciary. But members of Congress also swear to uphold the Constitution. Congress can make good on that oath by restoring the right of Washington, D.C., residents to possess functional firearms in their homes.

The theme of Web 2.0 tearing down the walls of authority predominates in many discussions of technology’s impact on politics. In today’s New York Sun, Amity Shlaes sounds a counter note in a profile of the National Bureau of Economic Research. It’s a place she describes as an anti-Wikipedia for its tradition of comity and emphasis on trying out ideas. By contrast, she says, the Web seems focused on finding “gotcha” moments. Here’s her assessment of the state of political debate:

Democrats furious at eight years of opposition leadership have resorted to personal invective. Instead of debating the White House on the income-tax rate, they have simply labeled President Bush stupid.

Republicans, too, have dumbed themselves down. As a publisher at HarperCollins, Adam Bellow, wrote recently of the post-Cold War decline in discourse, conservatives once talked about principles such as communism and free markets. But now, “metaphorically speaking, the Berlin Wall had been replaced by the Jersey Turnpike,”—topics such as John Edwards’s infidelity dominate.

It’s not all technology’s fault, of course, and Shlaes doesn’t say it is. Her point—well taken—is that Web-based media companies should look at the NBER model, because rigorous scholarly research should have its place in policy debates. Here, here!

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray writes:

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.

Murray proposes that instead of sending people to college for four years, we develop certification tests that measure the qualifications of those entering the job market. The tests, he says, would be modeled after the CPA. Those who are suspicious of testing probably won’t go for Murray’s idea, but it does have the advantage of shifting the responsibility for learning back to the student. Currently, too many people think of education as an entitlement to be provided, rather than something for the student to achieve.

For a great discussion of how the whole BA thing came to be, see George Leef’s essay “The Overselling of Higher Education,” which was adapted into a shorter article (“Education as an Entitlement”) for the Winter 2007 issue of The Insider.

Journalists reporting from the Olympics have recently discovered the full extent to which the Chinese government blocks its people from receiving Internet content the government considers dangerous. Free speech advocates rightly criticize China for suppressing political speech. Yet in the United States, consumer advocates want to give the government more power over the Internet. They think that so-called net neutrality regulation will keep content free from corporate roadblocks on the information superhighway. Somebody should ask them: Who will protect Internet users from the government?

The Federal Communications Commission crossed a digital Rubicon on August 1 by announcing it had the authority to enforce network neutrality policies and that it intends to use that authority. The idea of network neutrality is essentially that Internet providers should not discriminate against specific content in providing access to their networks. Last year Internet provider Comcast was found to be blocking file sharing that used the BitTorrent file-sharing platform. The FCC’s August 1 finding ordered Comcast to stop blocking BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer file sharing and to disclose its traffic management practices to its customers.

The circumstances of the FCC’s finding raise a lot of questions, such as: Does the FCC actually have the authority to enforce net neutrality without a law establishing net neutrality as policy? And if the FCC does have the authority, is an ad hoc complaint-review procedure really the best way of promulgating a new regulatory regime? Was it really necessary for the FCC to step into the issue when Comcast had already reached an agreement with BitTorrent over access to its networks?

The fundamental question left unanswered by the FCC is: What traffic management techniques are acceptable? The Internet faces a basic problem about which economists have been teaching us for quite some time: scarcity. Scarcity is a basic fact of life that will never go away. No matter how much bandwidth we build, there will always be more that we want to do with it than we can do with it. We’ll always come up with new applications and new content that requires ever bigger Internet pipes.

Scarcity means that some uses of bandwidth must win out over other uses. How shall we decide which uses win? In a free market, those decisions are made impersonally and efficiently through prices. The uses that consumers value and for which they are willing to pay a higher price win out over other uses. But ISPs have been afraid to adopt metered pricing, for fear that it would drive customers to their competitors. An alternative to charging consumers for each bit they download would be to charge the content providers for the access, and to base the price on the popularity of the content/application—exactly what net neutrality proponents don’t want.

So in lieu of using prices to allocate scarce Internet bandwidth, service providers have resorted to technical means to manage traffic. That’s what Comcast was doing when its treatment of BitTorrent traffic became the cause celebre of net neutrality advocates. The fact is net neutrality proponents don’t want to face the problem of scarcity. They think all content should be free. But government regulation won’t make it so. Bandwidth will still have to be allocated. Getting the government involved just means introducing politics into the equation. Consumers today who are not happy with an Internet provider’s traffic management practices already have a check: they can drop the service and sign up with a competitor. Will they have such choices if the FCC continues to second-guess private Internet providers?

See also: “Net Neutrality: A Fairness Doctrine for the Internet,” by Adam Thierer, Progress and Freedom Foundation, October 2007; and “FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content,” by Jeff Poor, Business and Media Institute, August 13, 2008.

Taxpayers and citizens in Washington state have a new resource for keeping their state government accountable. The state’s Office of Financial Management today launched its Government Performance and Results Web site, which gives visitors access to a variety of performance reports and other key data on how each agency is doing. The Washington Policy Center and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation helped make this new Web resource happen.

Later this year, Washington will also unveil a Web site giving taxpayers access to searchable database of government spending.

Higher cigarette taxes have not yielded the additional revenues Maryland’s lawmakers had been expecting, notes the Wall Street Journal: “Last year the legislature doubled the cigarette tax to $2 a pack to pay for expanded health-care coverage. Eight months later, cigarette sales have plunged 25% and the state is in fiscal distress again.”

Foiling the forecasts, notes the Journal, is smokers’ habit of shopping where the taxes are lower: across state lines in Virginia. The Journal also notes that many other states have attempted to raise revenues through cigarette tax hikes, only to find that smokers, like those in Maryland, find tax-free sources, either across state lines or in black markets.

Aside from failing to deliver promised revenues, high cigarette taxes create incentives for smuggling and thus breed organized crime. Patrick Fleenor writes about this problem in a Tax Foundation paper published in May. Fleenor also sums up the argument against high cigarette taxes in a paper he wrote last year:

Cigarettes should be taxed according to the negative external costs they impose on society, and nothing more or less. However, nearly all studies conclude that the current federal tax rate of 39 cents raises enough revenue to offset those costs. … States have decided to pile on in recent years, exaggerating the costs of smoking to justify raising more revenue than their voters are willing to pay in general taxes. In effect, politicians are willing to impose taxes on the few, even though smokers are a small, low-income minority, so that they can provide free government benefits for the many.

As the Journal notes, this is a model Democrats in Congress seem intent on following to finance their plan to turn Medicaid into another middle-class entitlement. Hopefully, Congress will learn from the states that high cigarette taxes only encourage cigarette tax evasion.

(The Tax Foundation has written numerous reports on cigarette taxes that are essential reading for anyone interested in learning more about the issue.)

by Mark Kelly, Strategic Policy Outreach Manager

GOPAC is an organization celebrating a 30-year history of training political activists to win campaigns, from issue-based ballot initiatives to congressional races. Last week GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele hosted the organization’s inaugural State and Local Summit in Arlington, Virginia. GOPAC brought in a lineup of renowned speakers, including Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Counselor to the President Ed Gillespie, and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund. (See the speaker videos.)

For me, an underlying theme emerged at the Summit: You have to know what you stand for in order to have an impact on public policy. Whether you are a candidate, an office holder, a conservative activist, or a concerned citizen, it is incumbent upon you to understand your values—to know what vision of America you believe is right for the country. You should also translate your values and vision into understanding which ideas make sense and which serious solutions will make this great country a better place for generations to come. Then, you must communicate those solutions to the people around you in a manner that they can in turn easily relate to and understand.

In attending the Summit, I also had the opportunity to discuss the front-burner issues with people from all across the United States, from Washington State to Georgia, from Maine to Arizona. Not surprisingly, energy topped the list. It was crystal clear that the American people want the United States to ensure that we have more energy available in the short term, and that we make investments now for our future needs. They do not want Congress to wait any longer to remove the legislative and regulatory hindrances preventing us from solving this problem. And they are sick of the partisanship surrounding the issue.

Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen was the keynote speaker at the 30th Anniversary Dinner. He echoed our frustrations when he said: “What’s missing in the energy debate is political leadership.” He confirmed what the American people want when he said: “There is no silver bullet to solving the energy crisis. What we need is silver buckshot.” On biofuels, Allen said: “Burning food for fuels is like busting up your furniture to heat your house in the winter.” And he summed up what conservatives believe when he said: “Americans aren’t addicted to oil; we’re addicted to freedom.”

Some events that caught our eye:

Thursday
• GET a report on the situation in Iraq from recently returned veterans. Host: American Enterprise Institute.
• EXPLORE the connection between the Judeo-Christian tradition and economic freedom. At the Acton institute, Jay Richards discusses Acton’s new documentary, The Birth of Freedom.

For more events, visit InsiderOnline’s Conservative Calendar.

It is essential to understand how effective leadership of a commander's staff can mean the difference between victory and failure.

Teenagers looking for work have a tougher time finding jobs than older workers, and the problem is getting worse. It’s a result that shouldn’t surprise anyone who understands basic economics.

Last July, Congress raised the federal minimum wage to $5.85 per hour, after leaving it pegged for a decade at $5.15 per hour. Last month, the minimum wage was raised again to $6.55 per hour. And next July, the rate is scheduled to go to $7.25 per hour.

Basic economics says that raising the price of something (in this case labor) will reduce the quantity that buyers (employers) demand. Employers generally won’t pay a worker $6.55 an hour, unless the worker can produce at least $6.55 worth of products per hour. Employees whose skills do not allow them to do that will be priced out of a job as a result of higher minimum wages.

According to Department of Labor data, that has already happened to many low-skilled teenagers. While overall unemployment rose .2 percentage points to 5.7 percent in July, the unemployment rate among teens rose 2.2 percentage points to 20.3 percent. And since last year, the disparity is even larger. The overall unemployment rate has increased by 1 percentage point, while teen unemployment has risen 5 percentage points.

If Congress wants to help teens find jobs, it needs to repeal the federal minimum wage.

See “Teenagers Right to Work,” by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute, August 6, 2008 and “July Job Losses Lighter Than Expected,” by Rea S. Hederman Jr. and James Sherk, The Heritage Foundation, August 1, 2008.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, former Prime Minister of Estonia Mart Laar reviews all the reasons that Stalinism and Nazism were morally equivalent—namely that both rejected human liberty as the basis for a social order. The issue arises because in his proclamation on Captive Nations Week (July 20 – 26) President Bush had identified both Communism and Fascism as the great evils of the last century. The Russian government naturally objected to the comparison. But Laar rightly points out that Stalin and Hitler were allies before they were adversaries. And in any case: “If we find two gangsters fighting each other and one of them kills another, this does not make the first gangster less of a criminal.”

This idea that it matters whether the jackboots crushing free people are worn by Fascists or Communists is an old problem. The fact is Communism is not so disreputable that one can’t find images of Communist murderers adorning posters, apparel, and handbags in Western stores. A few years ago at Heritage, historian Alan Charles Kors gave a talk in which he argued that there has not yet been a full moral accounting of Communism’s crimes against humanity. This is exactly the problem that Lee Edwards and others aimed to fix when they created the Victims of Communism Memorial, unveiled last year here in Washington, D.C.

The memorial is just the first phase of the project to educate about the crimes of Communism. Next up, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will produce an online Global Museum of Communism, scheduled to open in 2009. The Museum is collecting information for exhibits now. To suggest an exhibit or source of information to be shared, e-mail info@victimsofcommunism.org. A preview of the site can be seen right now.

The Austin American-Statesman today provides an update on the Acton School of Business, about which we featured an article in this summer’s issue of The Insider. The Statesman reports that the Acton school is starting its new academic year on its very own campus, after spending the past five years in temporary facilities.

Founded by Jeff Sandefer in 2003, the Acton School of Business is already recognized as one of the best business schools in the country. What makes the school stand out is its innovative approach to accountability and its emphasis on helping students find their calling in life.

We wish Jeff and the Acton School the best of luck in their new facilities.

Have you ever noticed that governments usually don’t see things the same way citizens do? From the British show Yes, Prime Minister, a bit about school choice:

Hat tip: Taxing Tennessee via Club for Growth.

If government-run or government-financed health care is better than private health care, you wouldn’t know it from cancer survival data. A study published recently in Lancet Oncology finds that cancer patients do better in America’s mixed public/private system than do those in either Canada—where the government pays for all health care—or Great Britain—where the government provides a National Health Service. According to the study, five-year survival rates for breast, colon (both men and women), rectum (both men and women), and prostate cancer are greater in the United States than either Canada or Great Britain.

The differences in American and British survival rates are especially large. American women with breast cancer were 20 percent more likely to be alive after five years than are British women with breast cancer. For colon cancer, American women are 35 percent more likely than British women to survive for five years or longer. American men are 80 percent more likely than British men to survive prostate cancer for five years or more.

Hat tip: John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog.

Projected shortfalls in state budgets are being called a crisis, but the shortfalls are more severe in some states than in others. Five states, notes Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga, account for two-thirds ($33 billion) of the total projected budget shortfalls facing state governments this year ($48 billion). Those states—California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York—are the five least-business friendly states in the country, according to a recent survey of corporate executives by Development Counsellors International. Among the factors cited for making a bad business climate are high taxes and excessive regulation.

While state tax revenues are up this year, they are not up by nearly as much as state legislators had hoped. Some want the federal government to help them fill the gap. But perhaps states should look at their own policies before asking all taxpayers for a bailout. States that are the most attractive to businesses in the DCI survey have only mild budget problems to work out. Of the five states that ranked most-business friendly in the DCI survey, Texas and North Carolina have no projected budget gaps, while Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee have a combined shortfall of about $4.1 billion—less than one-tenth of the states’ total.

Some perspective: According to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers, spending by the 50 states is projected to grow by only 1 percent in 2009. But that comes after growth in state spending of 6.5 percent in 2005, 8.7 percent in 2006, 9.3 percent in 2007, and 5.1 percent in 2008. As the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards notes, the slowdown is “certainly no crisis after the orgy of budget expansion in recent years.”

The GOP protest over energy policy provides Americans with a unique opportunity to be a part of political history. For the rest of this month, House Republicans plan to continue speaking from the well of the House even though Congress is not in session. You can help out be joining the members on the floor—yes, the floor, not the gallery!

The goal is to pressure House leadership to call Congress back from its five-week paid vacation so that there can be a vote on an energy bill that actually helps increase energy supplies.

Heritage’s Rob Bluey has been following the action closely and he suggests three steps for anyone who is interested in sitting with members on the floor of the House as they speak out about Congress’s failure to address the issue. Here’s what you do:

1. Call your member of Congress (find a list here) or the Capitol switchboard (202-224-3121).

2. Tell your congressman that you want to visit the House floor to see the action. Regardless of political party, your member should accommodate you. (You cannot bring bags, cameras, video equipment or mobile phones on the floor.)

3. If for some reason your member of Congress is unwilling to help, you should call the Republican Whip’s Office at 202-225-0197.

Please note: You do not have to agree with the Republican energy policy to participate. If you want to be on the floor while members talk about the issue, you should take the opportunity to do so, regardless of your political views.

The International Policy Network has named its finalists for the 2008 Bastiat Prize. The Bastiat prize is named after the 19th century French journalist, Frederic Bastiat. Every year, IPN awards the prize to “writers whose work clearly and wittily promotes the institutions of the free society.”

The finalists are:

• Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, Consulting Editor, Economic Times (India);
• Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University (United States);
• A. Barton Hinkle, Deputy Op-Ed Editor, Richmond Times-Dispatch (United States);
• Fraser Nelson, Political Editor, The Spectator (United Kingdom);
• Ashutosh Tiwari, CEO, Himalmedia; Nepali Times Business Columnist; and
• Daniel Weintraub, Public Affairs Columnist, Sacramento Bee (United States)

The winner will be announced at the Bastiat Prize Dinner in New York City on October 22, 2008.

Even though the House of Representatives is officially adjourned, Republicans still took to the floor to talk about energy policy again today. Sitting with them was not their usual audience of fellow members of Congress. Rather, the floor was populated with citizen witnesses to an unusual proceeding. It is day three of the “guerrilla Congress.”

Here’s the backstory for those who haven’t been following:

On Friday, a number of Republicans had planned to deliver five-minute floor statements on what is certainly the most pressing topic of the moment: the failure of the House to schedule a vote on any bill that would address high gas prices. Nationwide, the price of gas stands at an average of $3.91 per gallon—down in recent weeks but still 37 percent higher than it was a year ago. The fall in the price of oil in recent weeks is attributed to expectations of an economic slowdown—not exactly a reason for Congress to be complacent. Republicans in the House have introduced a number of bills that seek to get government out of the way of efforts to expand supply—i.e., ending the moratorium on drilling in the outer continental shelf and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

Rather than allowing the five-minute floor statements to proceed, the Democrat leadership pulled a very un-democratic maneuver: They brought the motion to adjourn before allowing any floor statements. After the motion passed, they ordered the microphones turned off, CSPAN’s cameras turned off, and the lights turned off.

Republicans, led by representatives Mike Pence (Ind.), and Tom Price (Ga.) sensed a good teaching moment: Not only was House Speaker Pelosi refusing to allow a vote on more drilling, she was trying to shut down debate, too. What the Democrats forgot is that bloggers in the gallery need neither nor cameras nor microphones nor, for that matter, lights—what with their backlit laptops. Pence, Price, and many other Republicans remained behind to deliver their five-minute statements all day on Friday. The story hit the blogosphere, and Republicans were back at it yesterday and today.

Minority Leader John Boehner’s office welcomed Heritage’s weekly Conservative Bloggers Briefing to the Capitol today to view the proceedings. Rep. Pence told the bloggers that the ultimate goal is to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call Congress back into session to hold a vote on expanding domestic energy supplies. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas) said dozens of members are currently on their way back to Washington, D.C., to contribute to the effort on the House floor.

Here’s hoping they succeed. Shutting down debate and refusing to have a vote is neither the way to win an argument, nor solve a policy problem.

A problem with Barack Obama’s plan to impose windfall profits taxes on oil companies—other than the fact that it will both discourage production and increase fuel prices—is that oil company profits are not excessive compared to other companies and industries. Per the Wall Street Journal:

Exxon’s profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers).

If that’s what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery – both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau’s industry rankings. The latter two double the returns of Big Oil, though of course government has already became a tacit shareholder in Big Tobacco through the various legal settlements that guarantee a revenue stream for years to come.

…

Or consider Google, which earned a mere $4.2 billion but at a whopping 25.3% margin. Google earns far more from each of its sales dollars than does Exxon, but why doesn’t Mr. Obama consider its advertising-search windfall worthy of special taxation?

Some events that caught our eye:

Monday
• EXAMINE the historical significance of military chiefs of staff, from the Napoleonic wars to Vietnam. Host: Heritage Foundation.

Wednesday
• SEE the State Policy Network’s new offices at the group’s open house event.
• EXPLORE options for the future of the World Trade Organization after the latest failure of the Doha round. Host: American Enterprise Institute.  

For more events, see InsiderOnline’s Conservative Calendar.

At least 86 congressional committees and subcommittees exercise oversight over the Department of Homeland Security—in spite of recommendations by the 9/11 Commission to consolidate oversight into one committee. … Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pa.) has a bill that would reverse the Department of Justice’s depredations against the attorney-client privilege. … The United States and Taiwan have opportunities to reaffirm their alliance as well as ease tensions in the Taiwan Strait. … The prospect of a new political direction in Great Britain has grown tremendously in recent months. … Familiar Cold War guidelines are a manifestly imprudent basis for U.S. strategy today. 

The new issue of The Insider is out. Here is the rundown from the editor’s note:

William F. Buckley Jr. was truly a conservative hero—and an American hero. We are honored to publish in this issue a tribute to Buckley by Dan Oliver, a friend and compatriot to Bill Buckley for over 40 years. Since Buckley did so much to create and nurture the American conservative movement, it’s fitting to ask where the movement will go now that he is gone. The Buckleyesque position, says Oliver, would be for conservatives to create more opposition to the welfare state, “which if it remains unchecked will swallow up the golden eggs, the goose, and all her goslings.”

Few areas of policy better illustrate the uncertain and temporary nature of conservative accomplishment than taxes. In spurts of reform, rates have been lowered only to rise again. Tax laws have been simplified, only to remain fertile ground for adding special interest provisions. And in spite of all reforms, the share of gross domestic product claimed by federal taxes continues to grow. Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform reviews these and other challenges to making the U.S. tax code suitable for a growing economy.

Health insurance, we hear, has become so expensive that 47 million Americans cannot afford it. No doubt, some can afford it, but simply choose not to buy it. But even that caveat indicates a problem. How is it that health insurance just keeps getting more and more expensive while the prices of other goods and services fall over time (in the long run, anyway)? Unlike most goods and services, there is no national market for health insurance. Wouldn’t expanding competition by allowing consumers to shop across state lines help lower prices? J. Patrick Rooney and Dan Perrin think so and explore that idea further in our pages.

In other articles, Jamie Self of the Georgia Family Foundation tells the story of how Georgia has embraced school choice ideas, Bryan O’Keefe shows how entrepreneurship has come to, of all places, the business degree, and John Blundell distills lessons for nonprofits from the new book Forces for Good.

Congress can’t seem to agree that the nation needs more oil. Doing nothing, however, isn’t the worst thing Congress could do, since the moratorium on offshore drilling for oil expires automatically at the end of this fiscal year. Not a moment too soon.

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Preventing the development of U.S. oil resources, such as those in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, doesn’t necessarily help the environment. In fact, it will probably hurt the environment since higher oil prices increase the incentives for more drilling elsewhere in the world. Charles Krauthammer writes that less drilling in the United States means more drilling in places “… such as Nigeria, where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and the resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population – which leads to more spills and explosions.”

Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground.

Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill.

The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling – essentially drilling down, then sideways – allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the United States has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.

Does [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?