Featured Article
A Taste of its Own Medicine
By Marc KilmerThe Department of Justice is expected to issue a ruling soon on the antitrust aspects of a proposed deal between Google and Yahoo!. Supporters of the free market are generally skeptical of government antitrust action, but considering the history of Google using the government to harass its rivals, it seems fitting that Google is now facing government action. The dangerous precedent championed by Google may now come back to haunt it.
BuckeyeVoices
A
joint venture
between BP and Canada's largest petroleum company, Husky Energy, could
have an enormous economic impact on Toledo. Husky/BP's Ron Unnerstall
explains to Buckeye Institute President David Hansen how his Toledo oil
refinery can play a major role in U.S. energy independence on this
week's BuckeyeVoices.
New at the Buckeye Institute
There is a new website for the Buckeye Institute's 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.
The Buckeye Institute's Center for Transparent and Accountable Government released a list of candidates who signed the Pledge for Transparency and Openness.
$1 Billion Giveaway
The
Toledo
Blade
reports,
"Issue 6 asks voters to write into the Ohio Constitution approval of a
casino resort off I-71 near Wilmington in Clinton County about an
hour’s drive southwest of Columbus."
In
The Great Casino Rip-Off,
Buckeye Institute adjunct scholar Jeff Hooke writes, "The amendment
provides Lakes Entertainment with a casino license worth $1 billion, in
exchange for a measly $15 million payment, ensuring a $985 million
windfall. It's doubtful the framers of Ohio's Constitution intended the
amendment process be used by businesses as a way to enrich themselves
through a public vote."
Free Market Lending
WKRC quotes Paul Bellamy of The Equal Justice Foundation saying, "Pay Day lending is a defective product. It does a great deal of harm to our communities."
In The Issues Surrounding Issue 5, Dr. Tom Lehman and Marc Kilmer write, "In a free market, different products and services evolve to serve the needs of different people. Each person makes his preference known by what he buys. Clearly payday lending is something that is serving a need for some people. Those supporting Issue 5 think that these people should not be free to express their preference and should be forcibly stopped from taking such loans. If two people voluntarily agree that the price of a loan is reasonable, is it really the state's job to step in and stop them from making a deal? That is the question voters should ask themselves when considering Issue 5."
A Supremely Important Election
The Toledo Blade reports, "Virtually ignored this year amid the din of the presidential election are two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court up for grabs on Tuesday."
In
Courting Disaster,
Buckeye Institute senior fellow David Owsiany writes,
"As election day approaches, voters must decide whether they want to go
back to the days when the Ohio Supreme Court regularly inserted itself
into various political controversies or stay with the court's current
approach of judicial restraint and modesty."
Buckeye
Institute in the News
The American Spectator and Human Events mentioned the Buckeye Institute's lawsuit against ACORN in articles on the organization.
WKRC, the Columbus Dispatch, and Gongwer quoted Buckeye Institute President David Hansen in a story on Issue 6.
