Free Republic

In Washington, D.C., the city's department of health wants to subject people seeking a tattoo or body piercing to a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before they can go through with it. That's just one of the regulations in a 66-page proposal of new rules for the tattoo and piercing industry. Reasonable people may differ on the wisdom of these proposals, but as someone whose interest in such establishments begins and ends with keeping my daughter away from them, I can't get too worked up either way, save to say D.C. has bigger problems to worry about. What did catch my...

The US economy is straying further and further away from a free-market model and towards a government-controlled, crony economy. You know, like Detroit. We can see the results of the move to government control of the economy in the headwinds, like in the movie “Idiocracy” where the government orders Brawndo, a green liquid that resembles Gatorade, be used instead of water for crops, the government’s solution to all problems is more government, more regulation, more taxes, etc. Government is what statists crave. Brawndo_Social_Head (1) Here is a partial list (the actual list is way too long) of headwinds facing the...

The US economy is straying further and further away from a free-market model and towards a government-controlled, crony economy. We can see the results of the move to government control of the economy in the headwinds. Like in the movie “Idiocracy” where the government orders Brawndo, a green liquid that resembles Gatorade, be used instead of water for crops, the government’s solution to all problems is more government, more regulation, more taxes, etc. Government is what statists crave. Brawndo_Social_Head (1) Here is a partial list (the actual list is way too long) of headwinds facing the economy, the housing market...

The dynamic and fluid nature of the Internet has helped to ease communications, but those same characteristics make the Web ill-suited to state and federal regulation. As Free State Foundation President Randolph May points out in a recent blog post, some states—most notably Washington—are finding success deregulating Internet services, and the federal government should take note. Communications have evolved considerably since narrowband technology first enabled email, instant messaging and text. Today, high-speed broadband networks allow for instant interpersonal telecommunication. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a technology that uses broadband Internet to transmit local, long distance, mobile and even international calls,...

Obama issued an Executive order on August 1, 2013 that will effectively ban Ammonium Nitrate in the USA. It will become too expensive and create too much possible civil and criminal liability to manufacture, store, or transport it. Hope everyone is ready for $12/gallon gasoline and $20 a box corn flakes.

With only 69 days until the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges open for enrollment, Obama administration officials face major logistical and structural challenges. This two-part blog series details some of the major issues with ACA implementation. This post, Part I of the series, highlights various logistical problems, while Part II will focus more specifically on fraud and consumer privacy-related concerns. Delayed Enforcement of the Employer Mandate The Obama Administration acknowledged July 3rd the necessity to delay a major component of the ACA, the “employer mandate,” until 2015. The provision requires employers with more than 50 workers to provide their employees...

Just over a month ago, we chronicled the efforts of the North Carolina House and Senate to reform the states uncompetitive tax code and move towards a pro-growth tax system. At that point, the House and Senate had two competing bills and were attempting to broker a compromise that also had the approval of the North Carolina’s Governor, Pat McCrory. Last week, an agreement was reached and both the House and the Senate passed an outstanding tax reform package designed to super charge the economy. The Governor has signed that bill this afternoon, ushering in a game changing tax reform...

Should Congress be held accountable for the regulatory policies of the federal government? Most people would say so, and this week the House Judiciary Committee plans to vote on a bill to make Congress explicitly accountable for federal regulations. Introduced by Representative Geoff Davis (R–KY), H.R. 10, the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny” (REINS) Act, would require Congress to approve major new rules before they can take effect. A similar bill, S. 299, has been introduced in the Senate by Rand Paul (R–KY). REINS would significantly change the way regulations are imposed. Congress would no longer be...

The massive invasion of Americans' privacy by the federal government isn't the exclusive turf of the National Security Agency (NSA). Information released in response to a Freedom of Information Act filing indicates that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been conducting warrant-less surveillance of the financial transactions of five million consumers. CFPB Director Richard Cordray defended what he insisted was “mere data mining of an anonymous nature. There is no intent at this time to single out any individual. We're only gathering statistics to help us craft the appropriate regulations to control how credit is used in our economy.”...

Frustrated by the lack of jobs and middle-class progress? Dispirited by the fading American Dream? Don't blame capitalism. Blame regulation and politicians who push it. Some people, it seems, live to rail against free markets and free enterprise, holding them responsible for flat wages, lack of opportunity, income gaps, middle-class stagnation, poverty and economic listlessness. They're convinced private greed holds back the government's ability to improve conditions. But it's the government that's done the most damage to economic growth, new research shows. America is now more of a regulatory state than a haven of free enterprise — a development that...

Obama’s recently released climate change initiative calls for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to unleash yet another energy regulation aimed at reducing greenhouse gases from existing power plants, severely threatening the generation of affordable and reliable energy. This is only one piece of an unprecedented EPA regulatory assault unleashed in the past few years as detailed by ALEC’s latest report, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assault on State Sovereignty.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started waging war on the American standard of living. During the past few years, the agency has undertaken the most expansive regulatory assault in history on the production and distribution of affordable and reliable energy. Numerous regulations, all proposed within a short timeframe, have created chaos and uncertainty, stagnating investment as the economy attempts to recover from recession. These regulations are causing the shutdown of power plants across the nation, forcing electricity generation off of coal, destroying jobs, raising energy costs, and decreasing reliability. In addition, the EPA has radically shifted the balance...

Both houses of the North Carolina legislature are currently considering competing bills that lower taxes by $1 billion or more over the next five years, move the state to a pro-growth flat rate income tax system, and slash tax rates on businesses and North Carolina families. Both proposals have incredible potential to supercharge economic growth in North Carolina, leading to higher job creation and higher income growth across the income spectrum. ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States Economic Outlook Index measures a state’s future growth prospects given the state’s current public policy environment. The 6th Edition of Rich States, Poor States...

The Supreme Court is giving California raisin producers a new day in court to object to a government program that aims to stabilize prices by regulating the market. … The farmers say the program unfairly prevents them from selling their entire crop when the government determines that there otherwise would be a glut of raisins that would drive prices down. They say the program unconstitutionally takes their private property without compensation. …

It is getting ever harder to do business in the United States, argues Niall Ferguson, and more stimulus won't help: Our institutions need fixing. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Still, everyone should try—if only once—to start a business. After all, it is small and medium enterprises that are the key to job creation. There is also something uniquely educational about sitting at the desk where the buck stops, in a dreary office you've just rented, working day and night with a handful of employees just to break even. As an academic, I'm just an amateur capitalist. Still, over the past...

A nationwide drug shortage that's dogging the food and drug administration is hitting home with first responders. For emergency medical technicians, shortages can mean the difference between life and death. Nationwide, anti-seizure drugs including intravenous Valium, Versed, and Ativan are among the dozens of drugs - including cancer treatments - that are in short supply.

The news has sucked this week. From the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, to poison ricin discovered in the President's mail, and the explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, has any stretch of five days better epitomized life in post 9/11 America? Fear, violence, explosions, and chemicals. As I write this, my Twitter feed buzzes in the background; the city of Boston remains on lockdown as police engage the surviving suspect of the bombing. Yet as Dennis Lehane wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times on Tuesday, we'll recover from acts of terror like...

The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were not licensed to have the firearms they used in several shootouts with police on Friday, Reuters reported Sunday night. The news that the suspects were not authorized to own firearms will likely add fuel to calls for tougher gun laws – an issue that was put on the back-burner last week after the Senate blocked the central elements of a gun-control package backed by President Obama. Because Massachusetts state law bars handgun ownership for those younger than 21, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, age 26, was the only brother who could have obtained a...

Got into a discussion with a libtard family member recently. Here is the gist of what I was trying to drill into his dense liberal head. The more laws one has the harder it is to enforce all the laws equally therefore laws will not be enforced and this will lead to selective enforcement, selective enforcement leads to tyranny, tyranny will lead to revolution which most often leads to even more tyranny... As he was trying to tell me that all the Tea Party wants to do is "Get rid of all laws"... I kept trying to re-iterate that if...

THE Supreme Court has frequently handed down judgments that have shaken America to its core. Now, it has turned its attention to the raisin. A group of farmers has brought a complaint about the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, under which the government confiscates part of the annual national raisin crop. The Court is considering whether the arrangement is constitutional. But why is a country that generally celebrates red-blooded capitalism regulating the raisin trade in the first place?Since the 1940s a government agency called the Raisin Administrative Committee has confiscated a portion of the annual raisin crop: 47% in 2003 and...