Maxwell Abbott's News Articles

A powerful advocacy organization has made a big impact on this midterm election cycle in states across the country. Americans for Job Security (AJS) has spent millions of dollars on attack ads targeting candidates they view as anti-free market. While this group believes in the free exchange of capital, they are vehemently opposed to the free exchange of information, at least when it comes to their sponsors. AJS has routinely denied requests for a list of donors. As a 501(c)(6), they do not have to reveal this information. But the IRS has stated that any 501(c)(6) group whose "primary purpose" is political activity, must name their donors. The Washington Post reports that AJS spends the vast majority of its budget on television and radio ads before elections. Groups such as Public Citizen have complained to the IRS about AJS' abuse of its tax-exempt status. But the ambiguous nature of the IRS' "primary purpose" standard has allowed AJS to continue spewing attack ads every election cycle.

Earlier this week, Michigan's Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) awarded Dow Corning its "Neighborhood Environmental Partners Program Award." The award was created "to recognize facilities and their community partners who have worked together on environmental and natural resource projects to improve the local environment in their communities." Dow Corning, based in Midland, Michigan, was given this award for creating a recycling program at its facility that employs mentally handicapped individuals. While this effort is admirable, Dow Corning's environmental record is far from praiseworthy.

America's voracious oil consumption is criticized for many reasons in the media today, but three reasons seem to dominate the headlines. First, the Gulf oil disaster has galvanized public outrage at oil companies and led to questioning of our energy needs which push oil rigs out into treacherous deep waters. Second, climate change attracts significant attention, as academy award-winning films are made on the topic and the manufactured "Climategate"; scandal fills news articles with tales of espionage. Finally, as the Iraq War drags on and tensions with Iran remain high, every politician is giving lip service to the national security threat created by "our dependence on foreign oil." But what often gets ignored is perhaps the most obvious and persistent problem involved with oil use: air pollution.

Conservatives may have moved quickly to dissociate themselves from Representative Joe Barton's apology to BP, but many on the right still believe that the establishment of a $20 billion escrow fund violated the legal rights of the company. A frequent claim is that the Obama administration has violated BP's due process rights. Appearing on ABC's This Week, George Will stated the creation of the escrow fund amounted to a confiscation of assets that circumvents due process. Former Washington Times writer Robert Stacey McCain argued in his blog that Rep. Barton was rightly concerned about due process when he apologized to BP. Michael Barone in National Review Online quipped that, "the Constitution does not command 'no person ... shall .... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law." It is to be expected that conservatives care less about the decimated lives along the Gulf Coast than they do about a multinational corporation losing $20 billion over several years, even when its cash flow for this year alone will reach $30 billion, according its own estimates. What is a slightly more surprising is that they would completely misconstrue a fundamental legal concept in the process.