Libertarian Group Aims to Influence Immigration, Climate-Change Policies - Washington Wire - WSJ - Patrick O'Connor:
January 29, 2015 - "Libertarians are known more for their provocative ideas than their ability to get those ideas enacted into law.
"A new Washington-based think tank is trying to change that. The Niskanen Center was launched last year with the aim of influencing policy fights, not just authoring headline-grabbing proposals that go nowhere in Congress.
"'Our metric for success is that we have indeed been able to move legislation,' said Jerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center who previously worked at the Cato Institute, another libertarian think tank....
"Down the road, Mr. Taylor said the Niskanen Center will cultivate ideas for reforming the country’s entitlement programs and beefing up civil-liberties protections in the Patriot Act.
"One of the group’s most provocative proposals centers on an issue rarely viewed as a Republican priority: climate change. The Niskanen Center advocates a tax on carbon emissions that would replace existing environmental regulations. Prominent conservatives have long advocated a carbon tax as a way to let the market determine the cost of burning fossil fuels, but using it as a bargaining chip to limit environmental regulators is relatively new. Mr. Taylor admits this proposal faces little prospect of becoming law in the next Congress, but he said it will help set the stage for the environmental debate in the 2016 presidential race.
"The Center was named after the late Bill Niskanen, a former Cato chairman who served in the Reagan administration and once left Ford Motor Co. to protest its support of trade protection. Mr. Taylor said they picked the name because Mr. Niskanen was both principled and pragmatic."
Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/29/libertarian-group-aims-to-influence-immigration-climate-change-policies/
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January 29, 2015 - "Libertarians are known more for their provocative ideas than their ability to get those ideas enacted into law.
"A new Washington-based think tank is trying to change that. The Niskanen Center was launched last year with the aim of influencing policy fights, not just authoring headline-grabbing proposals that go nowhere in Congress.
"'Our metric for success is that we have indeed been able to move legislation,' said Jerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center who previously worked at the Cato Institute, another libertarian think tank....
"Down the road, Mr. Taylor said the Niskanen Center will cultivate ideas for reforming the country’s entitlement programs and beefing up civil-liberties protections in the Patriot Act.
"One of the group’s most provocative proposals centers on an issue rarely viewed as a Republican priority: climate change. The Niskanen Center advocates a tax on carbon emissions that would replace existing environmental regulations. Prominent conservatives have long advocated a carbon tax as a way to let the market determine the cost of burning fossil fuels, but using it as a bargaining chip to limit environmental regulators is relatively new. Mr. Taylor admits this proposal faces little prospect of becoming law in the next Congress, but he said it will help set the stage for the environmental debate in the 2016 presidential race.
"The Center was named after the late Bill Niskanen, a former Cato chairman who served in the Reagan administration and once left Ford Motor Co. to protest its support of trade protection. Mr. Taylor said they picked the name because Mr. Niskanen was both principled and pragmatic."
Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/29/libertarian-group-aims-to-influence-immigration-climate-change-policies/
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