The (barely) unstated, unsupported assumption of this front-page New York Times news article on lobbying by for-profit colleges is that the regulations they were lobbying to weaken were reasonable in the first place. The display type under the photograph that appears with the article says, "Cass R. Sunstein, the White House official who oversees rulemaking, described the industry's aggressive efforts regarding for-profit schools as 'extreme.'" But the article also reports that Mr. Sunstein "and other administration officials said they listened to what they viewed as reasonable arguments and decided to narrow the scope of the original plan." Why doesn't the display type say that?

Heads up: The regular quarterly drive for paying subscribers — the ones who pay the bills around here and make FutureOfCapitalism possible — will begin in earnest next week. If you appreciate this site and the ideas you find here, you can make it easier by becoming a paying subscriber or member right now, so we get off to a strong start. If you paid last December you will get a renewal notice by email sometime next week; please keep an eye out for it and re-up if you can. The link is here. Thanks in advance.

The best response I've yet seen to Obama in Osawatomie comes from Jonah Goldberg. Charles Krauthammer is also right up there.

Virginia Postrel has a column up at Bloomberg View about federal student aid and skyrocketing college tuition: "Federal subsidies intended to make college more affordable may have encouraged rapidly rising tuitions....Figuring out exactly what's going on is tricky, because colleges price discriminate, offering steep discounts to some students while charging list prices to others. Treating published tuition as the real price of a college education is like believing the sticker price on a used car."

David Brooks, in his New York Times column today, really scalds Newt Gingrich: "Gingrich loves government more than I do. He has no Hayekian modesty to restrain his faith in statist endeavor....He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with '60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance."

Mr. Brooks loves government quite a bit, so for him to say Mr. Gingrich loves government more than that is really something.

National Public Radio is apparently so proud of its reporter Tamara Keith's story about how she can't find any millionaires who don't want their taxes raised that it has the story linked three times this morning from its home page — once under "business," once under "politics," and once under the highlights slide show in the upper righthand corner. The headline is "GOP Objects to 'Millionaire's Surtax'; Millionaires We Found? Not so much."

From the article:

We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.

The New York Times has a news article today under the headline "Who Benefits From The Tax Package." The first sentence is "A look at who benefits from the proposed tax code revisions in New York State." It's rather a one-sided way of looking at the issue to focus exclusively on the beneficiaries rather than on the losers in the deal. The Times claims that those who benefit include "lawmakers," "Democrats, labor unions, and Occupy Wall Street protesters," "flood-stricken upstate areas," "urban areas," and "New York City's suburbs." In other words, pretty much the whole state. Notice also that the Times is now dialing back its language: "tax package" and "tax code revisions" rather than the more accurate language it had been using of "Deal To Increase Rate" or "Raise Rate."

The Wall Street Journal has an article on the front of its Money and Investing section reporting, "Fifty money managers have used Securities and Exchange Commission rules to keep confidential their stakes in certain companies so far this year." (The confidential treatment issue was covered earlier at FutureOfCapitalism here, here, and here.)

But so long as it's news that 50 money managers got confidential treatment on their long stakes, why not also mention that there's blanket confidential treatment when it comes to short positions. If there's any logic to requiring these snapshot public disclosures on a quarterly basis (a big "if" to begin with), wouldn't the reasoning apply as equally to short positions as to longs?

Cost-Free Job-Creating Idea No. 20 was to pass the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011. The House of Representatives did pass it Wednesday by a vote of 241 to 184. Four Democrats crossed party lines to vote for it. Good luck getting it through this Senate (where it does have 31 sponsors), but if not, that's what elections are for.

Will the last one left turn out the lights?

The last time a Democratic governor of New York raised taxes on "millionaires," the job-creators voted with their feet. Rush Limbaugh and Thomas Golisano moved to Florida. Glenn Beck moved to Texas. Stephen Schwarzman decamped to Paris.

Trying to grasp why the current governor, Andrew Cuomo, would want to repeat this pattern, I took a look at the New York State campaign finance filings for his campaign. The first big gift that comes up is $25,000 from S. Daniel Abraham of Palm Beach, whose billions come from the Slim-Fast diet drink. Why shouldn't Mr. Abraham fund Mr. Cuomo's campaign? It's good, after all, for the economy in Palm Beach and in the rest of Florida, where there is no state income tax at all.

"The bottom line is that Cuomo, Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos fashioned a plan that only a hard-line ideologue could characterize as a tax hike." — New York Daily News editorial, December 7, 2011.

"Albany Tax Deal To Raise Rate for Highest Earners." — New York Times front page headline, December 7, 2011.

Oh, those anti-tax ideologues writing the headlines over at the New York Times!

Glenn Beck does a good job of respectfully but firmly asking Newt Gingrich questions in this interview. Maybe Mr. Beck should moderate one of the Republican debates!

Governor Cuomo is trying to brand his tax increase as "Fair Tax Code Reform" with this explanatory chart:

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein has a new column up at the Hoover Institution Web site about the Obama administration's mandate "to require each automaker to produce a fleet that will average 54.5 miles per gallon." Writes Professor Epstein:

Let us take at face value the over-confident claim that in 15 years, we will increase the cost of automobiles by only $2,000, but reduce the cost of fuel consumption by three times that amount. If those facts were actually true, there would be no need for this regulation at all. Consumers are not so short-sighted that they cannot factor in the cost of fuel when they compute the cost of transportation. And for those consumers who, at the time of purchase, are a bit slow on the uptake, it is not beyond the power of fuel-efficient vehicle manufacturers to hammer home the good news about their cars and light trucks.

More than 100 tour bus guides who work for the Gray Line tour company in New York will be laid off next year and replaced with recordings in response to a New York City law that the company says will cost it $3 million to implement. The law requires the bus companies to phase in headphones for their tourist passengers. City Council Member Gale Brewer explained to DNAinfo.com, which has the story: "I believe in the headphones because it's not fair for the people who live in these neighborhoods to hear the same discussion over and over again." Some might say "it's not fair" for 100 tour guides to lose their jobs because of a City Council-passed law. But in the world inhabited by so many politicians and bureaucrats, the costs of complying with regulations are somehow magically assumed without any cost in jobs.