Free Republic

The fact that a state legislature would decree population density mandates to cities in the state is an intolerable tyranny. Naturally, the California legislature is doing it. But it has officially decided to worry about the environment of a fantasy world, not the real one.

Climate change and energy will be a major policy battleground in the 2014 midterms, advocates on both sides of the issue promise. Republicans like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) plan to go on the attack against President Obama’s climate action plan, which they have dubbed a “war on coal.” They’re backed by conservative groups like the American Energy Alliance, which is already airing campaign ads attacking Democrats such as Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) for supporting a carbon tax. Green activists led by Tom Steyer plan to return fire. The billionaire former hedge fund manager, who has poured his money...

(CNN) - It may have been the least productive year for Congress in history, at least in terms of passing laws – fewer than 60 of which made it through the House and Senate and were signed by President Barack Obama. Across the country, however, state lawmakers were busy getting more than 40,000 bills passed, ones that tackle everything from drones to food stamp benefits. In Illinois for example, teenagers will no longer get to use tanning beds without a doctor's note. If you live in Delaware, visit the shark fin buffet while you can, a new law will make...

At the end of 2013, after serving five years, Barack Obama is a complete failure as President, by his own standards, as reflected in his own words. How many times has President Obama told us that he is “fighting for the middle class”? But real median family income has been in a continuous downward spiral since he became President, actually falling more since the recession ended in the summer of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research than during the recession. That has added up by now to the middle class losing a month’s pay a year under...

LANSING — There are thousands of federal laws and many more coming from the states. So many, that at the national level the government doesn't even try to add them up anymore. And while historically the state has had to show that a person knowingly committed a crime, many criminal statutes have abandoned this approach. In recent decades, the government has criminalized an ever-increasing amount of activity, including many things not thought to be harming anyone. What can be done to turn that tide while keeping society safe was the topic of an "Issues and Ideas" event put on by...

Lobbyists are minting money from the surge in government regulations. Top K Street officials say their regulatory work has accelerated in recent years thanks to the sprawling rule-making from the healthcare and financial reform laws. “We’re in this situation now, where we have this strong executive branch [that is] taking full advantage of being able to do whatever they want,” said Rich Gold, a partner at Holland & Knight. While revenue from traditional lobbying work has flatlined, K Street firms say their regulatory practices are thriving. Several lobbyists said federal agencies are increasingly “where all the action is.” The increase...

The Democrats’ health insurance law gives the Health and Human Services Department “immense powers and decision-making authority,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) told Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday. “And we know that many regulations have been written. Could you tell me how many pages of regulations have been written to implement this act?” Whitfield asked Sebelius. “Sir, I can get you that number. I do not know,” Sebelius replied. …

Executive Orders: A liberal constitutional scholar warns of the concentration of power not only in the hands of one branch of government but in a single man who ignores the Constitution and acts of Congress on a whim. As the story goes, Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 18, 1787, when a woman asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin is said to have replied, "A republic, madam — if you can keep it." The Founders designed a system of checks and balances...

America is being strangled in red tape by bureaucracies. I've talked in the past about how progressive liberals are circumventing the legislative process by issuing government regulations with no oversight and no accountability. Yet us poor serfs are liable to be fined or imprisoned if we run afoul of the imperial edicts. The latest example is how the EPA is shutting down the last remaining lead smelter in the USA at the end of the year, which will have a disastrous impact upon the cost and availability of ammunition. If progressives can't pass gun control laws, then they'll go behind...

For America's businesses, the Obama administration has an unpleasant holiday surprise. A new report on the government's regulatory actions was released just before Thanksgiving, and it contains more than 3,300 rules -- which the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) estimates will cost more than $1.8 trillion to implement on an annual basis. At a time when the economy is still struggling to zoom out of its post-recession rut, businesses worry that the crush of regulation is another sandbag weighing down the recovery. "Back in the '90s, the federal budget itself was not even $1.8 trillion," said Wayne Crews, vice president of...

An Obamacare regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management in October treats the U.S. Congress—which employs more than 11,000 staffers and which spent $4,329,000,000 on its own operations and $3,454,253,000,000 to fund the full government in fiscal 2013—as a “small business.” OPM did this so that the Treasury can pay federal subsidies of up to $11,378 per year to help members of the House and Senate and their staff buy health-insurance plans in the Obamacare “Small Business Health Options Program” (SHOP) Marketplace set up for “small employers” in Washington, D.C. The regulation treats this federal tax subsidy paid by...

Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter said that while most Americans were dining on their Thanksgiving turkey, the Obama administration was cooking up a regulatory stew of its own.“While most of America was enjoying their turkey and stuffing, the administration was stuffing our economy with burdensome and expensive regulations,” Vitter said.Last week, the Obama administration revealed its Unified Regulatory Agenda for the fall of 2013. It included 134 pending regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone. The EPA is working to finalize rules to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, lower sulfur emissions from fuels, set ambient air quality standards,...

Nobody should be surprised that President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a new bailout for insurers. Whenever Obama sees a problem, he proposes a regulation. When that regulation hurts someone, he proposes a subsidy. That subsidy, in turn, justifies a new tax or regulation, then more bailouts. It may seem like he’s swinging back and forth — pro-business, then anti-business — but he’s marching in a straight line: more state control of industry. It's the ratchet of state corporatism, and Obama is pretty handy with it. Health insurers and the federal government were intertwined in a...

Many people feel strongly about not shopping on Thanksgiving. Well, I have a cause of my own. Not doing business with any company that offshores its call centers. After dealing with some script-reading cretin out in God-Knows-Where because Old Navy's online credit card payment isn't working, I've decided that enough is enough. With so many Americans out of work, businesses should set up call centers here in the USA, not in some Third World slum half a world away. This may not be PC, but we all know it's true.

OKLAHOMA CITY – A new paper from the R Street Institute, a national research group, aggressively defends e-cigarettes.Dr. Joel Nitzkin’s analysis broadly counters attacks on e-cigarettes, which have mounted in recent months. Time will tell if the study’s conclusions offset or ameliorate the impact of those attacks.Nitzkin calls the e-cigs a tool in tobacco-harm reduction and pointed criticism at some of the most often-referenced events or studies assailing the safety of “vapor” devices.Release of Nitzkin’s analysis for R Street Institute comes in the midst of discussion here in Oklahoma of e-cigarette bans in public settings, including parks. Such ordinances have...

The future of state laws that regulate everything from the size of a hen’s cage to the safe consumption of Gulf oysters may be at stake as farm bill negotiators work to resolve a long-simmering fight between agriculture and animal welfare interests. The House Agriculture Committee added language to its version of the farm bill earlier this year that says a state cannot impose certain production standards on agricultural products sold in interstate commerce. The provision, authored by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is aimed at a California law that will require all eggs sold in the state to come from...

It isn't much, but at least it's something. Senate Bill 612, sponsored by Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, would "reduce from 2,000 hours to the 1,800 hours the number of hours of instruction at a ‘licensed barber college’ that an individual must accumulate before he or she is allowed by the state to earn a living at this trade." The state requires 2,000 hours of education in a "barber college" to work, compared to only 1,200 hours of education to be a lawyer. According to the Institute for Justice (IJ), which monitors licensing in every state, Michigan’s mandate is among the...

At the risk of sounding like a fortune-teller or a braggart, WE TOLD YOU THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! We see something new every day out of Obamacare. Many of us tried to warn the rest of America that Obamacare was not going to be good for our country. We were shouted down and accused of racism. We were told we were against providing a basic right, ie. health care, to Americans who had no health care insurance. When we tried to point out some of the things contained in the Affordable Care Act, we were called liars. President Obama...

There are a couple of things I look for in a barber, but the fact they are required to have more hours in the classroom training than a lawyer is not one of them. That’s right, as Michigan Capitol Confidential has chronicled, if you want to cut hair in this state you need to spend 2,000 hours training before you can use the shears on strangers. But if you want to put out your shingle in defense of justice, 1,200 hours will do. Hopes were raised briefly last week when a bill was introduced by Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, that...

I’d like to see a show of hands from people who believe that Barack Obama and his administration don’t use their regulatory power to punish enemies and reward their friends. Thought so. I don’t think that Obama’s administration is much different than other administrations in this regard, except varying in the intensity of their pursuit and the volume of regulations they have at their disposal. This abuse by all politicians, is, in a nut shell, the reason why our Republic, based upon limited government, is supposed to, you know, limit the powers of the government. Because Obama—and others-- have taken...