At their Sunnylands summit this week, President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping are sure to discuss American attitudes toward Chinese investment in the United States.  The announced takeover of U.S. pork producer Smithfield by China’s Shuanghui has stirred a public debate about foreign takeovers in the United States. Not surprisingly, many Americans have squealed at the idea of a Chinese firm with its hands on their morning bacon. And some experts are calling for an expansion of foreign investment reviews beyond just national security to include a wide range of public policy goals including food safety or labor rights. However, such an expansion of US investment screening would do little to address existing concerns while opening the door to protectionist abuse. Read more...

America’s medical device manufacturers have from the very start maintained that the $30 billion excise tax on advanced medical technology is simply bad policy and would harm innovation, job creation and U.S. global leadership in this important manufacturing sector.

Unfortunately, with the Jan. 1, 2013, implementation, the effects of the tax are becoming clear.

America’s stock indexes recently reached new all-time highs and real estate prices and consumer confidence are on the rise, but the percentage of our population actively participating in the workforce remains near all-time lows. Why is that? It’s because we’ve been re-inflating the bubble, not addressing the underlying dysfunction of our policies.

There are three potential sources of taxation: income, consumption and wealth. Modern economists and politicians aggressively argue the relative merits of income vs. consumption taxes but largely ignore wealth, which over the long term of recorded history has been a primary basis of taxation. There are enormous misincentives embedded in our personal and corporate income tax policies, and deeply regressive inequities in consumption taxes. But a nominal constant annual assessment against accumulated wealth (as a replacement for existing investment income taxes) could both distribute the burden more equitably and incent a search for more productive allocation of private capital — thereby stimulating job creation.

Approximately 24,000 people die from the flu annually, and children and the elderly are the most vulnerable. Among the children who died from the flu during the 2012-2013 Season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 90 percent were not vaccinated. 

The president has named the members of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration and tasked them with reporting back within six months of their first meeting, scheduled for June.
 
The unfortunate fact is that the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is already tasked to do what the commission is being asked to do, and we would do better to focus our limited resources and attention to such matters on making the EAC a serious professional body that focuses on the many and evolving challenges of election administration in 21st-century America.
 
The other fact that seems to elude most is the sheer complexity of election administration. As a former member of Brazil’s electoral tribunal has put it, “There is no function of the modern state, short of going to war, that is as complex as election administration.”

Washington continues to debate how much government should tax and spend and where government should cut and save. And despite the partisan debate, the fact remains the U.S. government continues to make investments in national defense and critical infrastructure necessary to keep America safe and competitive. President Obama recently outlined his commitment to advancing our infrastructure with the announcement of the Partnership to Rebuild America, calling for both investment and innovation from the private sector.

We believe there is a third contribution from the private sector that can support building our infrastructure while reducing wasteful spending: through the implementation of effective program management, an often under-appreciated, but absolutely essential, element of business success and sound fiscal health.

Standing at the heart of the National Mall is the World War II Memorial. Blocks away, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is honoring its twentieth year. The horrors of World War II, the Holocaust and the heroism of those who fought for freedom and liberated the concentration camps still haunt our collective consciousness. 

The setting of the National Mall inspires us to reflect on our identity as part of human history.

On June 8th, the Mall will cradle one million handmade bones made by well over 100,000 students, artists and activists, genocide scholars and survivors of the many mass atrocities in Congo and Sudan, Syria and Burma, and beyond.  Tens of thousands of our children, from all 50 states and more than 30 countries, have created these bones and many will be laying them out, building a symbolic mass grave to remind us that despite what we promised after Rwanda in 1994,  how often "Never Again" becomes “yet again” and again. Read more...

Imagine: You are walking along the street or in a parking garage. You are thinking about your to-do list. Then, out of nowhere you hear ... nothing. And that’s when it hits you. No literally, that is when it hits you. You have just been run over by a highly fuel-efficient yet easy on the ears hybrid vehicle, with nothing but an eerie silence to warn you!

While this is clearly a dramatization, the government wants you to believe that you are at an increased risk from hybrid and electric vehicles due to their quiet engines. But fear not, citizen, the government has once again come to your rescue — the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) is proposing regulations to require hybrid and electric manufacturers to outfit their vehicles with “audible alert systems” designed to largely mirror the sounds produced by traditional internal combustion engines.

However, the research does not support their claims of heightened risk.

Read more...

According to press reports, the Indian government has “concerns” about the creation of the American Sikh Congressional Caucus, such that it has “warned” the U.S. government about its very existence. These concerns appear to be grounded in the suspicion that the caucus is a front for an effectively defunct movement for a separate Sikh homeland called “Khalistan.” The concerns are without merit, and the caucus itself stands firmly on bedrock American principles and traditions.