Ever since Barack Obama was sworn in as president, the economy has misfired. Jobs remain scarce and the market has yet to recover the value it had prior to the 2007 crash. Though Mr. Obama’s policies have unintentionally given a major boost to an industry he hates – firearms – even this one bright spot hasn’t necessarily translated into new employment. Continue reading…
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Few now doubt that the U.S. government is rushing headlong toward a major fiscal crisis. Promised future outlays, mainly for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, far exceed projected future revenue, and the total federal debt continues to grow beyond previous boundaries, says Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, an associate economics professor at San Jose State University.
The financial crisis of 2008, which resulted in a significant jump in unemployment, meant that the number of Americans with private coverage dropped. As a result, the overall rate of private health spending has decreased, compared to recent years, says John Graham, director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
The federal government is spending more per household than ever before. Since 1965, spending per household has grown by nearly 162 percent, from $11,431 in 1965 to $29,401 in 2010. From 2010 to 2021, it is projected to rise to $35,773, a 22 percent increase. Click here for budget charts… Thursday, December 22, 2011 H.R. 2055 – The Constitutional Appropriations Act of 2012 – has been passed by the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and has been sent to the President for his expected signature. This bill contains three NRA-backed provisions that will strenthen our Second Amendment rights and prohibit your federal tax dollars from being used to advance anti-gun agenda. WASHINGTON (CNN) — December holiday shoppers were not just interested in buying the hottest electronics and toys — they also were purchasing record numbers of guns, according to the latest FBI figures on background checks required to buy firearms. With a few days left in December, the FBI reports the number of background checks has already topped the previous one-month record — set only in November — of 1,534,414 inquiries by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also known as NICS. Almost half a million checks were done in just the last six days before Christmas. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is on a mission to further unilaterally expand its already vast regulatory powers in the name of “sustainable development.” Congress should take action to rein in the agency before it’s too late. An EPA-requested report issued in August by the National Research Council (NRC), a private nonprofit, lays out “an operational framework for integrating sustainability as one of the key drivers within the regulatory responsibilities of EPA.” The NRC and the EPA held a meeting on the report just last week. The exact meaning of the environmental buzzword in the context of the EPA’s agenda is vague. The report refers to a broad definition from President Obama’s Executive Order 13514:
Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry without any warning and blocked access for more than a year? That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com, which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement. The blog posted music from artists promoting their work. But federal authorities viewed it differently. They seized the domain name, then shared virtually no information with its owner for more than year. Only recently did they quietly drop the case. The government’s handling of this hip-hop blog is fueling fears about legislation moving quickly through Congress that addresses copyright infringement and online piracy. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA as it’s known in the House, and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act would give the U.S. attorney general the power and authority to block criminal enterprises from trafficking in illegal products online. Their cause is a noble one. Business incur significant losses when Americans buy counterfeit items. Consumers must also be increasingly vigilant about purchases they make online. Federal authorities shut down more than 150 websites just last month for pirated goods. But the two bills making their way through Congress are the wrong solution. They pose serious threats to freedom of speech and expression and raise security concerns. With the Senate possibly voting on the PROTECT IP Act in January and the House moving forward with hearings on SOPA, Americans should understand what’s at stake. The Chevy Volt “might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant,” says James Hohman, who toted up all the loans, rebates, grants, and tax credits that both federal and state government have provided to support work on the Volt. Hohman, who works for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, found 18 discrete government programs helping the Volt, totaling $3 billion in assistance. GM has estimated they’ve sold 6,000 Volts so far. That would mean each of the 6,000 Volts sold would be subsidized between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on how many government subsidy milestones are realized. Continue reading… Central to the passage of the federal health-care law was the Obama administration’s assertion—ludicrous on its face yet convincing to enough members of Congress to provide the bill’s razor-thin margin of victory—that the law would contain health-care costs. Central to that assertion, in turn, is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Congress invested IPAB with broad powers to control Medicare costs—powers with virtually no limits. Three features combine to make IPAB’s regulatory power unprecedented: its decisions are largely uncontrollable by Congress, its actions are unreviewable by the courts, and—amazingly—the agency’s existence is virtually unrepealable. Continue reading…. |
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