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Timothy Carney
Timothy Carney: The Feds and Fannie: Making a beast that’s too big to fail
- Private profit and public risk” is how economists describe companies like Fannie Mae, where good times mean shareholder profits and executive bonuses upward of $50 million, but where bad times mean pain for taxpayers. It’s nice work if you can get it.
Timothy Carney: IndyMac forgot to pay protection money
- Follow the divergent treatment recently of four different financial companies suffering from the mortgage crisis, and you begin to detect a pattern: The well-connected — with big lobbying budgets and generous campaign contributions — get special favors from Washington, while the others get special abuse.
Timothy Carney: Competition for thee, but not for me
- W hen I talk to people about how government regulation often benefits big businesses at the expense of smaller competitors, folks often point to antitrust laws as a counterargument: surely these anti-monopoly and anti-cartel laws keep corporate behemoths in check and protect the little guy by promoting competition, right?
Timothy Carney: Look at what’s behind Sen. Dodd’s slush fund
- T his bill is indicative of a mind-set that has become too prevalent in Washington,” John Drogin, spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn, told me after Cornyn voted against a housing bill packed with bailouts, subsidies and new spending programs. “See a problem — throw money around.”
Timothy Carney: Senate ignores ethics problems with tainted mortgage bill
- Last night, the Senate steamrolled an effort to slow down the mortgage bailout bill despite plenty of good reasons to take a pause.
Timothy Carney: Obama won’t challenge the ethanol lobby
- Barack Obama has a reputation as a reformer and a champion of the downtrodden, but on the most damaging federal boondoggle today, he’s on the side of the status quo and the entrenched interests.
Timothy Carney: Enron’s favorite bill gets its day in the sun
- Global warming regulation hit the big stage this week, as the Senate proceeded to debate on the energy-regulation-and-subsidies bill known as Lieberman-Warner. The bill’s other names include “America’s Climate Security Act” and “S.2151,” but it includes so much of the big-government favoritism and regulatory profiteering desired by one former energy giant, it should probably be dubbed “The Enron Bill.”
Timothy Carney: Deal or no deal?
- Jerry Jasinowski was president of the National Association of Manufacturers in October 2003 when he told reporters that government regulations added to U.S. manufacturing costs.
Timothy Carney: When Kennedy fought against big government
- They call him the liberal lion, and his crusades usually involve increasing government control in the name of protecting workers, consumers or the environment. But two decades ago, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy led the push to deregulate the airlines.
Timothy Carney: Crooked farm bill expands sugar boondoggle
- Former U.S. Rep. Duke Cunningham is in jail today for bribery, but 318 of his colleagues just set up a corrupt deal nearly identical to the one that landed Cunningham behind bars. While Duke’s 2003 deal involved military contractors and a house in Del Mar, Calif., Congress’ 2008 deal involves sugar growers and ethanol — and this time the congressmen are the bribers rather than the bribed.
Timothy Carney: Big Government churns out more Democrats
- T ax and tax. Spend and spend. Elect and elect!” New Deal architect Harry Hopkins may not have actually spoken those words, but they have nonetheless been the working motto of Democrats for 75 years.
Timothy Carney: Leviathan’s growth powers Beltway Boom
- When I bought a town house on Capitol Hill in 2004, my friend and fellow conservative journalist David Freddoso suggested that I had to worry about a second threat in addition to the possibility of a future broad housing slowdown.