December 14, 2000

AOL: Jumping Hoops for Merger
Congress "Home Free" on Costly Budget Spending Package
UM's "20-Point Boost" For Blacks and Hispanics Preserved

AOL: Jumping Hoops for Merger

America Online Inc. formally offered the Federal Trade Commission additional terms on access and other issues in a bid to win approval today of its proposed purchase of Time Warner Inc., according to Reuters.

The new proposal to win approval for the $109 billion purchase, made yesterday night, was signed by AOL Chief Executive Steve Case. Twice before, the antitrust authority has delayed a decision on whether to allow the combination of AOL, the world's biggest Internet services provider, with the media giant Time Warner or go to court to try to block it.

In "Will the Real Giant Please Stand Up?" Solveig Singleton comments that the government has overreacted to the proposed AOL-Time Warner merger. The real monopolists, she argues, are the agencies that investigate antitrust allegations. "They're slow, over-confident, and the only change seems to be that they get bigger every year. If you want to avoid dealing with them, you have to emigrate to outer space -- you don't just turn off the TV," she writes. "If you need an ominous looming giant to worry about, how about the federal government?"

Congress "Home Free" on Costly Budget Spending Package

Congress was headed toward a Friday vote on a spending package that would end budget wrangling and bring the 106th Congress to a close, according to the Associated Press.

While details remained to be worked out, lawmakers and aides said they tentatively agreed on a spending bill for education, health and labor programs, the last major obstacle to Congress completing its budget work for the year.

"I think we're home free," said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In The Cato Handbook for Congress, director of fiscal policy studies Stephen Moore and fellow in fiscal policy studies Tim Penny recommend that Congress balance the budget without relying on Social Security surpluses, reduce the size of government from 21 percent to 16 percent of GDP, eliminate some 300 unnecessary and unconstitutional programs, and reduce the federal tax burden substantially and in ways that would promote economic growth.

UM's "20-Point Boost" For Blacks and Hispanics Preserved

A federal judge upheld the University of Michigan's affirmative action program yesterday, ruling that universities can continue to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions, according to The New York Times.

The judge, Patrick J. Duggan of Federal District Court in Detroit, said the university had violated the U.S. Constitution from 1995 to 1998 with a two-tiered admissions system that admitted white and minority applicants under different criteria. But he said Michigan's current policy, in which black and Hispanic applicants are given a 20-point boost on a 150-point scale, was perfectly legal.

In the Cato Journal article, "Affirmative Action Can't Be Mended," Walter E. Williams explains why "affirmative action, in the form of racial preferences, has worn out its political welcome." In "Setbacks Won't Stop Drive For True Civil Rights," Ward Connerly writes that "it is important for us to redefine our thinking with regard to that term, 'civil rights,' and to understand that indeed civil rights are individual rights for every citizen." The vision of American civil rights is the subject of the Cato book The Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision?, by Clint Bolick.

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