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HOUSE PANEL TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: HAVE GOVERNMENT COs TEAM UP TO CRUSH TERRORISTS' MONEY SUPPLY
Steve Forbes: It's fine to do more coordination. You can usually do that with an email or a phone call and tell the bureaucrats to get off their duffs and work together. If they're serious about fighting funding terrorists, cut that money off from Iran, off from the world banking system, do the same with individual banks in Pakistan and elsewhere and cut off various individuals we know who are bad guys. They're basic steps, but Iran is the big one. If they're not doing that, they're not serious.
Rich Karlgaard: I think every administration going back to at least the first George Bush administration knows but doesn't really talk about the fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, their governments are financing these Sunni rebels which eventually flows into the terrorists. Why do they do that? Because it's a promise that the Sunni rebels won't overthrow these governments. But it comes back to hurt us. So I think that Trump, being a master negotiator, has to negotiate with Saudi Arabia and Qatar and use our leverage that we're now entering this cheap energy boom that, hey, we don't need you.
Mike Ozanian: Unless there's something in there that talks about taking control of the caliphate, then it's not going to be effective at all. That's why, no matter what you do in terms of trying to cut off their finances, unless you have strong military action; it's not going to be effective.
Sabrina Schaeffer: I feel like this has been a conversation we've had since September 11. Because we knew that people were being funded to initiate these attacks, and the money was going both ways. The problem is the government hasn't gotten any smaller in the past decade and a half. If anything, it has gotten bigger, it's gotten more bureaucratic and more convoluted.
John Tamny: Without minimizing for a second the horrors of terrorism, what happened this past week in Berlin, this is quite simply not going to work. We know this well in the United States. For decades the fed, politicians, they've tried to restrict money flows. Money always reaches its intended target. So we empower the federal government even more and we wouldn't be a lick safer.
Bruce Japsen: The president-elect needs to take this seriously and move past tweeting about his second-place finish in the popular vote here. It was a bipartisan report, which is a good thing. There is a lot of stuff in there. We have not had a successful --as the president said, a successfully executed attack
From a foreign source, so we've done some things right, but I think more coordination and taking it seriously is a good thing.
NEW DEBATE AS US CONTINUES TO SLIDE DOWN FORBES' 'BEST COUNTRIES FOR BUSINESS' LIST
Rich Karlgaard: We’re a long way from being in the college football playoffs. We never got back to our three percent plus GDP trend line, it has cost the U.S. three trillion dollars of economic activity that was still-born, and that’s why we’re number 23 instead of number one.
Steve Forbes: You start with a big tax cut, which will help get the economy moving. Another huge burden is regulations, especially with the EPA. Do something with the fed and you’re on your way. Just avoid a trade war, and these other measures, they will work. Especially getting rid of Obamacare. Huge burden on small businesses, creation of small businesses.
Bruce Japsen: If Donald Trump holds to his promise of eliminating some things like the carried interest loophole and gives tax cuts to the middle class who elected him out in middle America, perhaps, but he's got to take things seriously and start governing and stop tweeting.
Sabrina Schaeffer: I'm actually really encouraged by some of Trump's picks to run a number of different agencies. For instance, someone like Putzer in the Department of Labor who understands if we want to get the economy moving again and make it good for business, we can't artificially raise the minimum wage and mandate paid leave policies. This comes from businesses understanding what's good for them, and that's going to help not only employees, but consumers as well.
John Tamny: It's an embarrassment but it's not so amazing when you consider the bad policy in the past
16 years. So Trump, at least so far, you could say is taking us in the right direction with tax cuts and deregulation. But there are dangerous signals out there.
Bill Baldwin: I have hope. We could move a long way up on the rankings just by repealing the laws that smother employers. When you bury the hiring process in rules, mandates, litigation, we could fix that.
PRESIDENT OBAMA BANS NEW OFFSHORE DRILLING FROM LARGE AREAS OF ARCTIC AND ATLANTIC COAST
Mike Ozanian: Anybody who wants a clean environment should hate this initiative by President Obama. All this is going to do is give more market share to oil producers who do a much dirtier job than the U.S. Does.
Bruce Japsen: I think he's leading by example by saying this is what we're going to do, we can't control what they do elsewhere. Who is drilling in the arctic, anyway? All you have to do is look at Shell and it's been a farce. It cost them $7 billion and it's gone nowhere.
Steve Forbes: Remove the barriers and people will be able to do it in a fine fashion. If they can't make money on it, they won't do it in the first place. But companies that have their money at stake decide whether these are promising fields or not, on land or offshore.
Bill Baldwin: I'm all for more drilling, but I don't think we should relax our environmental rules just because they'll drill somewhere else. By Mike's logic, we should have more trial labor in the United States because conditions are even worse in Bangladesh.
Sabrina Schaeffer: I think it's important that people start being grown-ups. Just because something makes you feel good doesn't mean it's good policy. The fact is when we create these moratoriums on federal land; it just distorts the energy market. It drives up prices, and just to put it in perspective, it takes a company like Marathon 300 days to get a permit to drill on those lands. It takes them 10 days to get a permit in North Dakota where the energy market is booming.
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