Free Republic

Republicans show that they're serious about curbing runaway government. How big has the government grown under the Obama administration? "The average level of U.S. government spending as a percentage of GDP from the end of World War II to the present is 19.6 percent," observes the Heritage Foundation. "In the past two years that level has exploded, reaching 24.7 percent in 2009 and an estimated 25.4 in 2010. . . . Without urgent action the U.S. is on course for national bankruptcy." So as Heritage says, the first urgent action is to get government spending under control, something that the...

Summer is almost ended, and Americans are growing more and more skeptical about the coming fall--about our lack of jobs, our bigger and more expensive government, the higher taxes that will be coming soon, more expensive and less personal health care, and, most important, our declining economy.A look at specific trends makes it seem very bad indeed. As Mortimer Zuckerman recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "Now there are at least 14.5 million Americans still searching for work: 1.4 million of them have been jobless for more than 99 weeks, 6.5 million have been jobless for over 27 weeks."Pessimism...

America's economy is failing to produce jobs, increase growth or raise confidence, and it will likely get even worse next year. Our federal government's spending has increased to $3.7 trillion this year from $2.98 trillion in 2008. Publicly held national debt is up by $2.4 trillion in less than two years, to about 63% percent of GDP from 40%, and is expected to reach 70% by 2012. Add in the unemployment rate, which has remained above 9.4% for over a year, and America is clearly failing economically. Next January the economy will be further depressed by increasing tax rates. The...

The debate is widespread. From googling articles I gather that the EPA says it is, Dupont says no. What say ye?

A cultural battle is under way in America, a battle between, in columnist Michael Barone's, words, "the culture of dependence and the culture of independence." The culture of dependence is the belief by American liberalism that government can make better decisions for people than people can make for themselves. The U.S. has now created the largest government spending increases, takeovers, and regulation expansion in the past 65 years, since the end of World War II. It is going to get even worse, as the President's budget plans to spend $45 trillion in the next 10 years, a 70% increase in...

While on the board of a Chicago-based charity, Barack Obama helped fund a carbon trading exchange that will likely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he is now trying to push through Congress as president. In 2000 and 2001, while Barack Obama served as a board member for a Chicago-based charitable foundation, he helped to fund a pioneering carbon trading exchange that is likely to fill a critical role in the controversial cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme that President Obama is now trying to push rapidly through Congress. During those two years, the Joyce Foundation gave nearly...

The global-warming debate is shifting from science to economics. For years, the fight over the Earth's rising temperature has been mostly over what's causing it: fossil-fuel emissions or natural factors beyond man's control. Now, some of the country's biggest industrial companies are acknowledging that fossil fuels are a major culprit whose emissions should be cut significantly over time. A growing number of these companies are pushing for a mandatory emissions limit, or "cap." Some see a lucrative new market in clean-energy technologies. Many figure a regulation is politically inevitable and they want to be in the room when it's negotiated,...

America's first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992. Sixteen years later, there are 4,128 charter schools educating 1.24 million students in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Another 300 to 400 are expected to open in the coming school year. Charter schools are public schools, but they are very different. The Center for Education Reform's 2008 Annual Survey reports that responding charter schools are one-third smaller than conventional public schools, with about 348 students, compared with 521. They spend less—about $7,625 per student, compared with $9,138 in public schools—and they receive only about 61% of the per pupil...

I was filling out my DuPont proxy this morning and came across a shareholder proposale regarding global warming. At first I rolled my eyes and then laughed when I read it. This proposal is right up the alley of any Freeper who doesn't believe in global warming. If you have Dupont common stock or know someone who does, tell them it and remember to vote YES on Proposal 4!

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

Everyone seems to think that ethanol is a good way to make cars greener. Everyone is wrong SOMETIMES you do things simply because you know how to. People have known how to make ethanol since the dawn of civilisation, if not before. Take some sugary liquid. Add yeast. Wait. They have also known for a thousand years how to get that ethanol out of the formerly sugary liquid and into a more or less pure form. You heat it up, catch the vapour that emanates, and cool that vapour down until it liquefies. The result burns. And when Henry Ford...

Congress's energy policies would hinder America's economy. America's domestic oil production is declining, importation of oil is rising, and gasoline is more expensive. The government's Energy Information Administration reports that U.S. crude oil field production declined to 1.9 billion barrels in 2005 from 3.5 billion in 1970, and the share of our oil that is imported has increased to 60% from 27% in 1985. The price of gasoline has risen to $3.02 this month from $2 in today's dollars in 1985. Washington politicians will tell you this is an "energy crisis," but America's energy challenges are far more political than...

DuPont attracts White House eye: President to view biofuel research in DelawareDOVER - DuPont's focus on biofuels research has attracted new attention from its oldest customer.President Bush planned to visit DuPont's experimental station in Wilmington today to emphasize the call in his State of the Union address for increased use of ethanol as a fuel alternative.In prepared remarks, President Bush proposed reducing gasoline consumption in the U.S. by 20 percent over the next 10 years through tougher fuel economy standards and mandatory production of more ethanol and other alternate fuels.The White House said the new fuel mandate will spur...

Welcome to Sanity Island. President Bush traveled to Wilmington, Delaware today, where he discussed his Energy Initiative in the Hotel du Pont's DuPont's theater. Afterward, he toured DuPont's Experimental Station. The full text of the President's remarks can be read here. Earlier in the day, President Bush signed an Executive Order, To Support Alternative Fuel Use And Help The Federal Government Reduce Oil Use. The Order requires Federal Agencies to lead by example in advancing the Nation's energy security and environmental performance through effective environmental, energy, and transportation management. Executive Order: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management. This afternoon,...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- DuPont Co. shares gained as much as 5% Wednesday as Wall Street weighed long-term prospects of the chemical giant's partnership with BP to make biobutanol, an alternative to corn-based ethanol in the red-hot fuel additive market. DuPont's stock finished up $1.70 at $41.94, joining a broad, triple-digit rally by the Dow industrials after investors initially gave the biobutanol news a lukewarm reception in the prior session. BP's shares added $1.31, or 2%, to $67.01. DuPont said in a conference call Tuesday that butanol, which can be derived from sugar beets, will be marketed in the U.K....

Tired of reading about America's retirement woes? Then I have an alternative for you: Watch a TV show about them. Heck, you don't even have to move to your TV -- you can watch it on your computer, from the comfort of your own desk chair. The particular program I'm talking about is an episode of the PBS series Frontline titled "Can You Afford to Retire?" Of course, since you've clicked on this article, you can't be too tired of reading about all of the impending retirement woes out there, so let me sum up the program's main points and...

DOVER, Del. - Chemical maker DuPont said Tuesday it will begin marketing biofuels for the transportation sector next year through a partnership with oil company BP PLC. The companies said a collaboration they began in 2003 has advanced to the point where they plan to introduce butanol made from sugar beets as a gasoline blending component in the United Kingdom.

In February last year, the chairman of the Senate energy committee sat down at Los Alamos National Laboratory for a private briefing on climate change. Was global warming real, Sen. Pete Domenici wanted to know. He turned for answers to a federal lab that he had gazed on admiringly since he was a boy. In a barrage of computer slides, Los Alamos scientists showed the 72-year-old Republican senator a planet tipping into uncertainty. Greenhouse gases were increasing in the atmosphere and the trapped solar radiation was boosting temperatures worldwide, with cascading impacts on natural and human welfare. Natural causes alone...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - With red flags flying high for the 2006 hurricane season, consumers who are thinking about sprucing up their homes this year may be better off adding a lifesaving "storm room" instead of that fancy whirlpool. Chemical maker DuPont (Research), which invented such products as nylon, Teflon and the bullet-resistant Kevlar fiber, has been testing the market for pre-built storm rooms in the tornado-prone regions of Texas and Oklahoma for the past two years. DuPont says its 'storm room', made of bullet-resistant Kevlar, can provide protection against wind speeds of up to 250 miles an hour. The...

Nestled away in a small room on DuPont's 150-acre research center in Wilmington, Del., robotic arms fill tiny tubes with gelatinous material that was extracted from corn and soybean plants. Other metallic arms will soon dip and measure and deconstruct each sample, spewing forth a list of its attributes and traits. Only a fistful — maybe one of every 50 — will move on to the fermentation lab, a few buildings away. There, researchers will see how the samples react to different mixtures of air, glucose and microbes. Down the hall, other researchers will tinker with the microbes themselves. All...