A Note on Raising the Minimum Wage
The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) recent report on the effects of a minimum-wage increase on employment and income has earned a lot of attention, mostly because Democrats seem to be planning a...
View ArticlePresident Obama Abandons Chain-Weighted CPI
President Obama’s FY 2015 budget will not include a proposal to adopt a so-called chain-weighted Consumer Price Index (CPI). The chain-weighted provision, one way to measure inflation, would have...
View ArticleA Note on the Apple Shareholder Meeting
At the recent Apple shareholders meeting, Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, popped his cork during the question and answer session. A representative of an organization that owns Apple stock and is...
View ArticleScrap the Corporate Income Tax
Corporate tax reform is an evergreen issue in Washington. Most recently, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp has produced a reform proposal that has justly been praised by the tax expert...
View ArticleA Dangerous Change in Cost/Benefit Analysis
The Brookings Institution has just published a working paper of real importance on a profound change in cost/benefit analysis. Don’t be fooled by its innocuous, academic title: “Determining the...
View ArticleThe Export-Import Bank and the Lack of a Trade Policy
As expected, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) last week that will fund the government through December 11. This had to be done in the absence of legislation to fund fully the government in...
View ArticleThe Untapped Power of Individual Investors
This article, written by American Business Conference president John Endean and published in the Wall Street Journal, demonstrates that there are more individual holders of “street shares” than...
View ArticleTrade Promotion Authority in Danger
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade negotiation between the United States and eleven other countries, is nearing completion. However, absent the passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), it...
View ArticleGovernor Christie and Entitlements
When a political leader takes a tough position on a politically difficult issue affecting our future standard of living, he deserves credit. Case in point: Governor Chris Christie’s speech last...
View ArticleFast Track and the Declining Consensus About Growth
After much effort, Congress has passed and President Obama has signed Trade Promotion Authority legislation, better, if inaccurately, known as “fast-track.” In a nutshell, fast-track is a legislative...
View ArticleHope for Tax Reform?
The Presidential campaign season thus far has not been remarkable for sparking intelligent public policy discussions. And that does not bode well for how our nation’s economic problems will be...
View ArticleShortening the Ten-Day Filing Window
In 2011, ABC submitted this comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in support of a petition for rulemaking by the law firm Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Wachtel’s petition...
View ArticlePaul Ryan’s Tax Reform Proposal
Late last month, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan released the tax reform component of his “A Better Way” task force project undertaken in collaboration with GOP House members. It deserves serious...
View ArticleAdvanced Voting Instructions
ABC recently filed this letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Advanced Voting Instructions (AVI). AVI, sometimes known as Client Directed Voting, is a device to facilitate...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Committees
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 created two Joint Select Committees of 16 members each. One is the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform and the other is the Joint Select...
View ArticleSEC Staff Roundtable on the Proxy Process
Later this summer, the SEC will be holding a Staff Roundtable on the proxy process. This is a topic on which ABC has submitted many comment letters over the years. The announcement of the Staff...
View ArticleThe Marginalization of Fiscal Policy
In our view, the sharpest commentary about the debates among Democratic Presidential candidates came in two short tweets from Bill Hoagland, longtime Senate staffer and current Senior Vice President of...
View Article
