Free Republic

Former Gov. Jeb Bush is officially the GOP’s newest presidential candidate. In a speech this afternoon in Miami, he announced his run for the White House, describing the U.S. as a big and over-regulated government. “What the IRS, EPA and the entire bureaucracy have done with over regulation, we can undo by act of Congress and order of the president,” said Bush. The former governor of Florida pushed the benefits of small government. “When we get serious about limited government, we can pursue the great and worthy goals that America has gone too long without,” he stated. On foreign policy,...

Baltimore City will not extend riot recovery money to liquor stores that operate outside of zoning regulations, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday. More than 380 businesses across Baltimore were damaged by riots and looting at the end of April, including 23 liquor stores that operate in residential areas. The city has banned alcohol sales in residential areas, but many liquor stores have been grandfathered into current zoning rules. If those stores plan to continue to operate as grandfathered liquor stores in their current locations, they will not be able to receive recovery money being made available to other businesses through...

It’s no secret that the American middle class has been on the ropes for a while now. The problem isn’t just a crippling recession and an economic “recovery” that has mostly gone to the richest one percent, but the larger shifting of wealth from the middle to the very top that’s taken place since the late ‘70s. Add in things like the dismantling of unions that has accelerated apace since Ronald Reagan crushed the air-traffic controllers, and we’ve seen the middle class more solid in places like Canada, Germany, and Scandinavia, and begin to grow in a number of nations...

(CNSNews.com) - The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed Thursday, June 11, at $18,112,975,000,000, according to the latest Daily Treasury Statement, which was published at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. That, according to the Treasury's statements, makes 90 straight days the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $18,112,975,000,000. $18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.

Do Americans face a future of living standards that don't grow as fast as they once did or, worse yet, even decline? Previous generations might have scoffed at the question. Becoming better off in terms of consumption per capita was something of a birthright, the result of decades of progress that put Americans at the top of the heap with average spending of $32,000 a year.But the long-established optimism has faded in recent years — and we have only ourselves to blame. The country has strayed from the economic model that created a consumer cornucopia. We're living above our means,...

Why Is The EU Forcing European Nations To Adopt 'Bail-In' Legislation by the End of the Summer? Are they expecting something to happen? As you will read about below, the European Union says that any nation within the EU that does not enact "bail-in" legislation within the next two months will face legal action. The countries that are being threatened in this manner include Italy and France. If you fast forward two months from this moment, that puts us in early August. So clearly the European Union wants everything to be squared away by the end of the summer. Is...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Conservationists are drawing a line in the scrubland, vowing to fight any attempt by the state to expand logging and cattle grazing throughout Florida's 171 state parks. Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Jon Steverson, appointed in December by Gov. Rick Scott, set off a furor last month when he suggested in a series of newspaper guest columns that Florida expand grazing and timber harvesting in its state parks as a way to offset the cost of running them. In the columns, which ran in newspapers throughout Florida, Steverson said state parks hosted more than 27...

President Obama's weekly remarks Hi, everybody. My top priority as President is to grow the economy and help more hardworking Americans get ahead. And after the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes, our businesses have now created 12.6 million new jobs over the past 63 months.

Fox News’s Megyn Kelly began Thursday’s edition of The Kelly File by ripping into President Barack Obama and plans for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to regulate and enforce the diversity of neighborhoods (and particularly wealthy ones). A few hours after the major broadcast networks ignored this story on their evening newscasts, Kelly made clear her disdain with the President and referred to him as “[t]he man who changed your health care system forever” that’s “now pushing to change your neighborhood” and especially “if Uncle Sam feels it is not inclusive enough.”VideoCiting the administration’s line that they’re...

Last week I wrote a column on MarketWatch that seems to have stirred quite a bit of debate. Within the column, I was pointing to the potential for a multi-decade rally to be seen in the metals and mining stocks. It seems many of you had very strong feelings that this was simply not possible. Over the next few weeks, I will attempt to address the concerns many of you have presented in your comments to my piece.

Rules: The day before Memorial Day, the Obama administration released its list of regulations in the pipeline for the next year. Given the price tag involved, it's no surprise that they didn't want anyone to notice it.

(Reuters) - The sharp bond market selloff is starting to pinch American consumers and companies, causing a mild economic tightening that, if sustained, could raise alarms at the Federal Reserve and even delay a plan to hike interest rates in coming months.

Markets ignored clear warnings in Europe and America that the money supply is catching fire, signalling a surge of inflation later this year ___ The global deflation trade is unwinding with a vengeance. Yields on 10-year Bunds blew through 1pc today, spearheading a violent repricing of credit across the world. The scale is starting to match the 'taper tantrum' of mid-2013 when the US Federal Reserve issued its first gentle warning that quantitative easing would not last forever, and that the long-feared inflexion point was nearing in the international monetary cycle. Paper losses over the last three months have reached...

In the new June/July/August issue of the Washington Monthly, freelance journalist Jordan Fraade has a piece on something you may not be familiar with yet. Driven by below normal home ownership in the Millennial generation, some communities are coming up with an interesting incentive called “Shared Equity Housing.” Because Millennials began entering the economy right around the time the economy cratered in 2008, they don’t have the savings typical of people their age. This makes finding a down payment on a house one of the most significant barriers to home ownership. All across the country, particularly in its most expensive...

Why it’s absurd for conservatives to oppose a free-trade deal just because the White House wants it. As far as I can tell, there are two general objections to the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) the White House is pushing for. The first one is wrong, but at least substantive. The other, which has picked up some currency on the Right, is simplistic and partisan. So there’s something for everybody! First, some background. The Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with Asian nations that the White House and congressional Republican leadership both want, would still have to survive an up-or-down House...

Having led the world in free and open markets for generations, America now faces a choice as simple as it is consequential: lead on trade, or get left behind. The decision should be clear. Congress is considering whether to renew Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). TPA is a process between Congress and the administration for negotiating trade deals that has existed in some form for over 80 years. With TPA, Congress has greater influence over trade agreements, and U.S. negotiators hold a stronger position to secure a good deal for American producers, consumers and workers. Absent TPA, the President has the...

A big change is happening inside your wallet. U.S. banks, tired of spending billions each year to pay back fleeced consumers, are in the process of replacing tens of millions of old magnetic strip credit and debit cards with new cards that are equipped with computer chips that store account data more securely. By autumn, millions of Americans will have made the switch from the old magnetic strip cards. That 50-year-old technology, replaced in most of world, lingers on the back of U.S. cards and is easily copied by thieves, leaving people vulnerable to fraud. Roughly half of all credit...

The Obama administration wants to declare that greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes are harmful, which would set up regulations to limit the pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed “endangerment finding” Wednesday, which would formally conclude that carbon dioxide and any other greenhouse gases from commercial airplanes contribute to climate change and harm the public health and welfare. The move is a major win for environmentalists, since aircraft are the largest source of greenhouse gases that the EPA is not either regulating or planning to regulate. But the EPA’s proposed solution to the airplane climate problem — adopting...

We've been ranking America's most dangerous cities for several years, and there's one city that keeps making the top of the list — Flint, Michigan. Flint had 66 homicides in 2012, tying a record it hit two years ago. Forbes has also ranked Flint as one of most dangerous places for women. The most striking attack of 2012 occurred when an 87-year-old woman was raped outside her home in broad daylight. She decided to leave Flint. The city has probably changed a lot in that woman's lifetime. Flint hasn't always been this dangerous or depressing. Flint had a booming auto...

YOU probably haven’t heard of the BEPS project — but you soon will. Short for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, the BEPS Project is the focus of a rapidly moving effort by the Group of 20 countries to create a new set of international tax principles designed to better capture tax revenue from multinational companies like Apple, Google and Starbucks. The Obama administration signed on to the BEPS Project in the expectation that it would strengthen the American tax base and enable Washington to hold on to more corporate tax revenues. But as the project heads for its end-of-year...