Abstract: Agenda 21, a voluntary plan adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, unabashedly calls on governments to intervene and regulate nearly every potential impact that human activity could have on the environment. However,…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to implement stronger air pollution restrictions on ozone (smog) for the stated purpose of improving public health.[1] These regulations are misguided because they would impose significant costs for little or no benefit.[2] At the same time, policies being implemented at…
President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012 is an unabashed attempt to grow government and add $1 trillion to the national debt. While a detailed review of the flaws in the President’s budget is beyond the scope of this paper,[1] one of the budget’s more fiscally…
Beginning in mid-summer 2010, the Obama Administration and its supporters initiated an outreach to the press to discuss some of the broad policy themes that could be included in the President’s ongoing transformational narrative on housing policy, whose details are expected to be revealed in early 2011. Although there have…
Abstract: There is no question that there is much wrong with America’s housing finance and homeownership market. There is much evidence to indicate that many of the costly efforts by the federal government to promote housing and homeownership were at best ineffective and at…
In addition to the devastating economic effects of cap and trade, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733)—introduced by Senators John Kerry (D–MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I–CT)—would likely lead to the same conditions that caused the housing bubble of a few years ago. It…
It has been widely known in investment circles for several years that the hedge fund Paulson and Company earned huge profits by turning bearish on the U.S. housing finance market in 2006, when much of the investment and finance community believed that housing sales and home prices would…
Abstract: President Obama has announced a third stimulus plan, which he presented as a "jobs plan." It promises to be at least as ineffective as previous attempts to stimulate the economy because it relies heavily on government infrastructure spending even though this has been one of the least effective…
Shortly after taking office President Obama announced his intention to develop federal policies to induce states and local communities to embrace "smart growth" land use strategies that would deter growth, crowd development, and discourage automobile use.[1] Dubbed the "Livable Communities Program," several of the President's cabinet departments have proposed…
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood remarked in May that his livability initiative[1] "is a way to coerce people out of their cars."[2] When asked if this was government intrusion into people's lives, LaHood responded that "about everything we do around here is government…
Executive Summary The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported in 2006 that violent crime incidents increased by 1.3 percent and property crime incidents decreased by 2.9 percent from 2005 to 2006.[1] The small increase in violent crime needs to be interpreted with caution because the figure does not adjust for…
Youth gangs are nothing new. They appeared in New York City and Philadelphia at the end of the American Revolution. Their numbers and violence correspond to peak levels of Immigration and population shifts that occurred in the early 1800s, 1920s, 1960s, and late 1990s. Entrenched in American culture, gangs are romanticized in movies while…
The nation's long-standing commitment to expanding homeownership opportunities for all Americans is facing its most serious challenge--a series of smart growth initiatives that are effectively pricing most new homes beyond the reach of entry-level buyers. These initiatives, which attempt to limit a community's growth and development through such regulations as growth boundaries, lower population…
The World Watch's anti-suburban tome - City Limits Putting the Brakes on Sprawl, by Molly O'Meara Sheehan - is the usual "glass is half empty" attack on the modern suburban life style, propped with questionable data and shaky analysis. Consider Sheehan's observations on Portland. Portland, Oregon: City Limits, like so many similar critiques of suburbanites, Sheehan…
Over the past several years there has emerged in the United States an influential political movement whose purpose is to severely limit, or even prohibit, further suburbanization. This "anti-sprawl" movement has received much attention and has been successful in implementing its restrictive land-use policies in some areas. Much of the justification for the…
(Archived document, may contain errors) 7/27/92 337 HOW THE SENATE SHOULD STRENGTHEN THE ENTERPRISE ZONE BILL The Senate Finance Committee is due this week to mark up legislation to create enterprise zones in blighted communities. The House ea rlier this month approved a $14.5 billion omnibus tax package (H.R. 11) that, among other things,…
America's commitment to providing every citizen with homeownership opportunities is facing a serious challenge as more and more entry-level homebuyers are priced out of the market by poorly conceived "smart growth" initiatives. These initiatives, which attempt to limit a community's growth and development through such regulations as growth boundaries, lower population densities, "downzoning,"…
A decade ago, who would have thought that New Jersey would host a black bear hunt--the first in 33 years? Or that Virginia, whose population of bald eagles was once down to 32 breeding pairs, would have 329 known active bald eagle nests? Who would have expected Metropolitan Home magazine to be…
The U.S. House of Representatives is considering the Celebrating America's Heritage Act (H.R. 1483) as amended by Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). This bill would expand the cost and scope of federally sanctioned and federally financed economic development entities known as National Heritage Areas (NHAs). Although there is no specific provision in federal law that defines or…
Ready to trade in your car for a bike, or maybe a subway instead? Interested in fewer choices for your home, paying more...…
April 30 was the last day for the planning department of Petaluma, Calif. The city decided to axe the department after...…
This Wednesday, government-sponsored entity Freddie Mac announced that it lost $2.8 billion in just the last quarter...…
Visiting Heritage scholar Wendell Cox has a new paper out titled "How Smart Growth Exacerbated the International...…
Senior Research Fellow in Retirement Security and Financial Institutions