Cato Daily Dispatch for November 5, 2001
WTO Meets In Qatar This WeekMicrosoft Settlement Good For Consumers
Republicans To Push For Judicial Confirmations
WTO Meets In Qatar This Week
The Bush administration believes it can succeed where the Clinton administration failed in launching a new round of global trade talks, according to the Associated Press.
The administration is mindful that two years ago the Clinton economic team also was optimistic about trade progress. That hope disappeared in a cloud of tear gas as thousands of anti-globalization protesters scored a huge victory when the negotiations collapsed in Seattle.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will head the American delegation for the discussions with 141 other nations beginning Friday in Doha, Qatar.
"Congress should support ongoing WTO negotiations to liberalize global trade in agriculture and services," writes Brink Lindsey in the Cato Handbook for Congress. "If successfully concluded, those talks could open vast new markets for American exports, raise global welfare by hundreds of billions of dollars, and help protect American consumers from trade-distorting barriers here at home. Congress can encourage a successful new round by refraining from passing any new market-distorting farm bills and by enacting unilateral trade liberalization, including reform of America's draconian antidumping laws. A U.S. willingness to liberalize would set a good example and build goodwill for a more comprehensive agreement."
Microsoft Settlement Good For Consumers
Microsoft Corp. and the Justice Department brought their epic antitrust battle closer to an end as they delivered to federal court a settlement proposal that several state attorneys general indicated they may be willing to support, according to The Washington Post.
The terms, however, drew a storm of criticism from some of the software giant's major rivals, including AOL Time Warner Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and RealNetworks Inc. Many said the accord is so full of loopholes that it is doubtful it will restore competition in the computer industry.
Cato Institute Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies and Microsoft expert Robert A. Levy had the following comments about the proposed settlement:
"Prospects look good for settlement of the biggest antitrust case in decades. That means Microsoft's billionaire rivals will have failed in their attempt to use government to win in the political arena what they couldn't win in the marketplace.
"It also means that consumers won't have to pick up the tab while high-tech executives devote more resources to politicking than to the development of integrated products.
"To settle the case, Microsoft will have to make more concessions than justified by this baseless lawsuit and the company still faces litigation from competitors, opportunistic trial lawyers, the European Union, and perhaps even state attorneys general who don't agree to the settlement. That's regrettable, but at least the federal antitrust lawsuit won't be around to sap economic growth so essential to the post-WTC recovery."
Republicans To Push For Judicial Confirmations
According to The Washington Post's Al Kamen, Senate Republicans will make a push for judicial confirmations this week.
Kamen writes that Chris Myers, senior communications adviser for the Senate Republican Conference, is working to put something together that will use the war on terrorism to force Democrats to confirm more GOP judges.
Myers, in an e-mail Thursday to White House and other GOP aides, said that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has been talking with Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) about "a press event to speed the pace of confirmations," with "a more specific linking of the new terrorism bill to the need for judges. Our message would be: You can't get wire taps, search warrants, etc., without judges; confirm the President's slate so that efforts to capture terrorists won't be delayed."
In "Craving Comity ... And Losing at Hardball," Vice President for Legal Affairs Roger Pilon explains that "this year there have been 117 vacancies on the federal courts -- half the seats on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals are now vacant. The president has thus far nominated 60 candidates to fill those vacancies. Yet only 12 of those nominees have been confirmed by the Senate, and two of those were Democratic holdovers from the Clinton years, renominated by President Bush as a gesture to the Democrats. Some of the most qualified candidates have languished since early May; yet the Senate Judiciary Committee, controlled by the Democrats since late May, has refused even to hold hearings on their nominations."
"What Democrats have done instead is try to thoroughly politicize the confirmation process," Pilon says.
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