Government's Reach

Anyone under the impression that the threat of overreach by an expanding federal government had somehow disappeared with the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and the subsequent extension of the Bush tax cuts has another think coming, to judge by today's headlines: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suing the Washington Post Company's Kaplan unit to get it to not use credit checks in hiring decisions; the National Labor Relations Board proposing that employers should have to email employees or put up posters reminding them of their right to organize a labor union; the Federal Communications Commission reaching for more power over the Internet; and the Department of Health and Human Services imposing new requirements and rules on health insurers who raise prices by 10% or more.