by Bob Barr | Mar 27, 2025 | Uncategorized |
They’re Lying To You About The...
by Bob Barr | Mar 19, 2025 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller President Donald Trump’s planned executive order to bolster U.S. shipbuilding acknowledges a hard truth: China is winning the global economic battle, at least in the maritime sector. The U.S. defeated Japan in the Pacific theater of World War Two in large part because we could pump out new ships faster than the Japanese could sink them. America even flaunted its superior industrial base by launching vessels that served no purpose beyond boosting morale — most famously a floating ice cream factory. Today, however, our primary global adversary, China, has 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, giving Beijing a significant advantage in any naval war of attrition. While the fact sheet accompanying Trump’s E.O. accurately notes that China achieved its “position of dominance in the global market through unfair non-market practices,” this isn’t a simple case of socialism versus capitalism. Unfair or not, it is a very real and serious problem we must acknowledge and confront. Ironically, American companies have a much harder time building anything than their counterparts in communist China. Not only do American shipyards face much stricter environmental reviews than many foreign competitors, but they also face the one-two punch of expansive regulations and organized labor. Instead of addressing workplace health and safety concerns through our legal tort system or through collective bargaining with workers, shipbuilding companies (and manufacturers of all stripes) are forced to spend billions — and years — complying with invasive government rules. These in turn create an elevated “floor” that serves as the new starting point for each future labor negotiation. Neither side in this geo-political contest is abiding by free-market principles. The difference is that while...
by Bob Barr | Mar 6, 2025 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller In his first few weeks in office, President Donald Trump has been busy bolstering the causes of energy choice and freedom for citizens of the United States. One of his first official acts was to pull us out of the Paris Climate Accord, the one-sided agreement that had imposed harsh and unfair restrictions on the United States. Trump created a new National Energy Council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, charged with streamlining energy permitting, expanding gas and oil exploration, and establishing American global “energy dominance.” Then, to round off his first day as our 47th President, he signed an executive order aimed at eliminating Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate” — shorthand for a series of subsidies and regulations aimed at artificially boosting demand for EVs. Some of these measures, such as rolling back the EV tax credit, will at some point require congressional action. Moreover, even with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, those who disagree with energy choice and Trump’s energy freedom movements still have plenty of options at their disposal to push their “green” agenda forward. One side-door tactic would be to use “blue state” legislatures to advance policies that would stand little if any chance of passing congressional muster. Vermont and New York already have passed “climate superfund” legislation, and similar bills are pending in other states. Putting a price tag on a particular company’s contribution to the damage supposedly caused by climate change is a murky endeavor at best, and fraudulent at worst. As climate policy analyst Paul Driessen notes, climate activists are all too happy to “blame fossil fuels for heat waves, cold spells, hurricanes, wildfires (including those caused by arsonists, electric...
by Bob Barr | Feb 27, 2025 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Flareups pitting true, free-market advocates against crony capitalists are nothing new in our heavily regulated economy, with one of the latest battlefields involving fantasy sports companies. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal law that long had made it illegal for consumers in the U.S. to bet on sports — the “Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act” (“PASPA”). Notwithstanding that marketplace victory, and as I wrote here a year ago, unhealthy relationships between state regulators and certain fantasy sports companies continue to cause problems for other, usually smaller companies. It should come as no surprise that at times these crony capitalist efforts are camouflaged as pro-market measures, the proverbial “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In a recent column, for example, a former GOP legislator wrote, “Lawmakers must recognize that not every industry requires federal interference—especially in sports betting.” While this statement appears broadly supportive of a free-market approach to fantasy sports betting — a position I happen to share — the real call to action by the author is revealed later in the opinion piece, and favors less, not more, market freedom. In fact, the author made it very clear that he’s a fan of the likes of “FanDuel, DraftKings, ESPN Bet, BetMGM, Fanatics, Bet365, and Caesars Sportsbook,” large companies that offer fantasy sports contests (skill-based games), traditional sports betting (straight sports gambling), or both. What he is curiously not a fan of are small fantasy sports upstarts that simply seek to continue servicing their many loyal customers and growing their businesses. Naturally, the big fantasy sports companies, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, which together control 70 percent of the...
by Bob Barr | Feb 13, 2025 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Nowhere is the difference between the Biden Administration and that of Donald J. Trump in starker contrast than its approach to firearms and the Second Amendment to our Bill of Rights. The former President’s belief that the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed in that Amendment needed to be trimmed back was on display throughout his term in office. Biden even established in 2023 an office in the White House itself to identify and manage gun control policy actions — the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. While this office, ostensibly under the leadership of Vice President Kamala Harris, did nothing of actual substance during its short life span, it did serve to highlight the anti-Second Amendment mindset prevailing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump on the other hand, being an avid supporter of the Second Amendment, quickly upon assuming office directed new Attorney General Pam Bondi to undertake an immediate and comprehensive study of all steps taken by the Biden Administration that have the effect of infringing the Second Amendment — a road map for corrective actions over the next four years. To further illustrate his bona fides as a pro-Second Amendment President, Trump appointed Dave Warrington, a well-known firearms-rights advocate to serve as a presidential advisor in the White House. Trump’s break from Biden’s consistently displayed disdain for the firearms rights of law abiding citizens has been complete. Even among Republican administrations, the speed of Trump’s pro-Second Amendment policies has been unprecedented. For example, it took five years before former President George W. Bush marshalled the courage to finally agree in 2005 to support and sign the “Protection...
