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ASTRA Urges U.S. House Members to Support Economic Recovery Bill

by on October 2, 2008 · 10 comments

I received the most fascinating email from a group called ASTRA just now. I don’t think I ever even heard of them before, but apparently I’m on their mailing list. ASTRA is the Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Most people know that non-profits are not allowed to lobby for passage or failure of legislation. So let me now share with you ASTRA’s email to me. It may not be orginated by ASTRA and there could be several innocent explanations, but on the surface this looks like a clear violation of non-profit rules by an over-excited Washington, D.C. supplicant group.

[ Update: Cooler heads have it right. Non-profits are allowed to spend some percentage of their funds on lobbying. What I’ve noted here is an unclear violation of non-profit rules. What’s clear is that ASTRA is a big-government supplicant group not to be trusted by proponents of liberty and limited government.]

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Mashable Looks Into the Bailout

by on October 1, 2008 · 5 comments

I recorded a video interview about the financial services bailout with Mark “Rzzn” Hopkins and Sean P. Aune of Mashable recently, focused particularly on the tech sector. We focused on making sense of things, something that hasn’t happened in Congress yet.

I think it’s pretty informative, and somewhat calming, as it should be. I’m less and less convinced that there’s a “crisis” that taxpayers ought to take pay for taking care of.

http://cdn.episodic.com/player/EpisodicPlayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.episodic.com%2Fshows%2F2%2F227%2F10%2Fconfig.xml

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Throwing a “TARP” Over Economic Reality? No. No Bailout.

by on September 29, 2008 · 16 comments

I’ve posted a copy of the proposed bailout legislation online in html format, which is easier to read, copy, and paste. Considering its size and significance, I urge you to review it and share it with others.

I pointed out before that my employer, the Cato Institute, has several experts on the bailout, and media producer Caleb Brown has ably drawn them out. Give a listen to his podcasts with Bill Niskanen, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Arnold Kling, and Gerald P. O’Driscoll. [all mp3 format]

There are a couple of elements of the legislation where I might add some insight, so here goes.

Congressional Oversight? Nope. $700 Billion Spent

The bill made available Sunday devotes a good deal of verbiage to oversight of the proposed $700 billion bailout. But it doesn’t do anything to prevent that money being spent. Continue reading →

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