Free Republic

The 2013 legislative session saw a strong trend of states cutting various taxes, as 18 states passed net tax cuts into law. When one-third of the country cuts taxes, it is clear economic growth is a top priority for states digging out of a dismal economy. The cuts range from a nearly complete overhaul of a state’s tax code to a few small changes. North Carolina enacted the year’s biggest tax cut as part of a comprehensive reform package. The measures will be phased in over a period of several years, with taxes cut by $500 million during the first...

From school board races to Senate primaries, the education reform package known as Common Core is proving uncommonly divisive this campaign season, popping up as an issue in primary elections all over the country. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican, cites opposition to Common Core as a key reason for her endorsement of state Rep. Chris McDaniel over incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi’s hotly contested Republican Senate primary. Former Oklahoma state House Speaker T.W. Shannon, a Republican, says Obama administration pressure on states to adopt Common Core “is a prime example of why I’m running for the Senate.”

I have argued since I first began writing and speaking on this issue that the First Amendment restrains only the actions of Congress. The first word in the First Amendment, after all, is the word "Congress." "Congress shall make no law..." The Founders quite intentionally were not imposing restraints on what a state could do in offering prayers before legislative assemblies, or what a city could do in erecting Ten Commandments monuments, or what a school could do in offering prayer and Bible reading over the intercom or at graduation. Congress and Congress alone is bound down by the chains...

More than three years ago, I wrote that the Department of Transportation should be dismantled for the simple reason that we’ll get better roads at lower cost with the federalist approach of returning responsibility to state and local governments. I echoed those sentiments in this CNBC interview. Dan Mitchell Arguing to Get Washington out of the Transportation SectorSince there’s only an opportunity to exchange soundbites in these interviews, let me elaborate on some of the reasons why transportation should be a state and local responsibility. 1. Washington involvement is a recipe for pork and corruption. Lawmakers in Congress – including...

KXNT photo illustration (shooting scene image courtesy Las Vegas Review-Journal) (LAS VEGAS, KXNT, ASSOCIATED PRESS)–A funeral service was held in NOrth Las Vegas for the man who died at the hands of BLM agents during a skirmish in Red Rock Canyon in February. The service for D’Andre Berghardt Jr. took place at Nehemiah Ministries Christian Church. Berghardt was moving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to begin working with his brother when he was shot and killed Feb. 14. Jacob Hafter, a lawyer representing the family says that various delays, including the forensic examination of Berghardt’s body, contributed to...

The Obama administration plans to use tens of millions in federal financial aid as leverage to reward teacher training programs that produce teachers who routinely raise student test scores — and to drive the rest out of business. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will announce the revival of a push to regulate hundreds of teacher preparation programs Friday at a town hall meeting with White House policy director Cecilia Muñoz. He plans to release a draft regulation by summer and aims to enact it within a year.

"This brewing spat started on Monday night, when Stewart mocked Hannity for supporting Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy in his battle against the federal BLM. Hannity hit back on Tuesday night. On Wednesday's show, Stewart walked through Hannity's criticisms and showed why the Fox News star is tossing his verbal stones from a glass house."

A poignant resignation letter that Colorado Springs teacher Pauline Hawkins wrote and posted on her blog Monday talks about her love of teaching and the pride she has in her students, colleagues, school and district.... At the heart of her distress are the new Common Core standards, low teacher pay in Colorado and endless testing and teaching to the test, which she and many others believe is making students fail rather than succeed.

The Ukrainian government has offered sweeping autonomous powers to restive, pro-Moscow regions of the country, in an attempt to hold its head above water against Moscow, without a source of revenue or a viable army. Acting prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told regional leaders and businessmen Friday, April 11, in the eastern town of Donetsk, where pro-Russian separatists have declared a People’s Republic, that he is ready for parliament to consider a law on referendums. The referendum staged by Crimea last month caused the region to join the Russian Federation and practically precipitated the revival of the Cold War. The devolution...

In March 2013, Anthony Brasfield released a dozen heart-shaped balloons in the air as a romantic gesture for his girlfriend. After a Florida Highway Patrol officer spotted the gesture, Brasfield was charged with polluting to harm humans, animals and plants—a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. While some criminal laws and sanctions are necessary to protect safety and ensure justice, America’s criminal code includes many activities that Americans and business owners have little way of knowing are crimes. As a result, law-abiding individuals and businesses spend innumerable hours and dollars fending off criminal prosecution for...

The group that pushed Florida's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is intervening in lawsuits filed by gay couples that raise challenges... Florida Family Policy Council officials said Wednesday they would seek to preserve the constitutional amendment approved by more than 62 percent of voters... A coalition of black and Hispanic civil rights groups and pastors is also defending Florida's constitutional ban.

Building the Machine introduces the public to the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on our children’s education. The documentary compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee. Parents, officials, and the American public should be involved in this national decision regardless of their political persuasion. What is the common core? The Common Core is the largest systemic reform of American public education in recent history. What started as a collaboration between the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reevaluate and nationalize America’s education standards...

Ukraine is in the news and that’s not a good thing. I’m not a foreign policy expert, to be sure, but it can’t be a positive sign when nations with nuclear weapons start squabbling with each other. And that’s what’s happening now that Russia is supposedly occupying Crimea and perhaps other parts of Ukraine and Western powers are complaining. I’m going to add my two cents to this issue, but I’m going to approach it from an unusual angle. Look at this linguistic map of Ukraine. The red parts of the country show where Russian is the primary language and...

In the face of a stagnating economy and national debt topping $17 trillion, many policymakers in Washington, D.C. are seeking ways to reduce spending. Given that many states increasingly rely on federal spending to craft their state budgets, the necessary federal spending reductions could pose a serious fiscal threat to states that fail to prepare. What’s more, those federal funds come with serious strings attached, which often hamper state autonomy and effectiveness in policymaking. A recent report from State Budget Solutions based on Census data reveals that on the whole, states received 31.6 percent of their total revenue from the...

For the first 125 years of our history (1789-1913), America was a country comprised of libertarian politics and conservative cultural values. 1) Libertarian politics is based upon the fact that man was meant to be free. Thus his government must be strictly limited by a Constitution rather than determined by the dictates of an autocrat or the passions of the majority. And his economy must be a free marketplace, i.e., laissez-faire capitalism. 2) Conservative cultural values are based upon the fact that there is an objective moral order in the universe, i.e., certain rights and wrongs in human life that...

Federal regulation of the Internet is a bad idea. So is federal regulation of states that would rather keep their local governments out of the Internet business. Following a recent federal court ruling about the power of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the Internet, supporters of government-run broadband Internet service have urged the FCC to preempt state restrictions on local government efforts to build and operate their own broadband networks that compete directly with the private sector. More significantly, an announcement yesterday by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, proposing yet another attempt to impose some sort of net neutrality...

With full control of the House but not the Senate or the White House, Republicans lack the ability to enact positive legislation; yet they have the power to stop bad bills. Unfortunately, GOP leaders have made it clear they are willing to pass much of the Obama/Reid agenda because they don’t want confrontation with Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. For conservatives, that pretty much leaves us with the strategy of attempting to pass good bills out of the House just for messaging purposes. With unelected federal judges and administration bureaucrats forcing gay “marriage” on sovereign states across the country,...

In an all too familiar theme, President Obama continues to vacillate when it comes to explaining his energy and environmental philosophy. On the one hand, the President spoke about his idea of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, one that he hopes will someday lead to energy independence. On the other, he spoke about the importance of addressing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be interesting to see how he attempts to reconcile these two statements in the last three years of his presidency. President Obama’s State of the Union address contained a few positives but also many areas...

State Budget Solutions, a non-partisan public policy organization, has released their 4th annual report on state debt. The findings are not pleasant. The data shows that the total combined state debt is equal to $5.1 trillion. For perspective, this figure is almost five times as much as the bipartisan appropriations bill ($1.1 trillion) now working its way through Congress. This stunning amount of debt is a clear threat to state budgets and should deeply concern taxpayers who will eventually find themselves on the hook to repay this debt, either through decreased government services and/or tax increases. Pension-reform The drivers of...

This past month, the Illinois State Supreme Court determined the state’s affiliate nexus law—a law requiring out-of-state companies with advertising affiliates in the state to collect and remit sales tax—violated federal law. In the majority opinion, Justice Anne Burke ruled that Illinois’ attempt to force collection of sales tax by out-of-state retailers based on their decision to use in-state online advertising rather than traditional print advertising represented a discriminatory taxation regime on the Internet and therefore violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act. No one understands the significance of last month’s Illinois State Supreme Court decision better than FatWallet founder...