Free Republic

11 year old Chloe Stirling got some great accolades from her local newspaper for the cupcake business she had started out of her parents' kitchen. Unfortunately the local health department took another view and shut her down. The sticking point was that not only did she lack the proper permits and licenses to run a food business, but according to local and state law she would have to either own her own bakery or have a kitchen separate from that of her parents to continue cooking cupcakes for money. Since this was clearly impossible, Stirling is no longer able to...

Far below the Appalachian Mountains, in a space barely big enough to stand up straight, Bobby Combs works a job his father and his grandfather worked. Coal-mining is the highest-paying job available to him in eastern Kentucky. As he skillfully maneuvers a massive machine and rips into a seam of coal, though, Combs wonders if the family tradition ends with him. “It’s not looking good,” he says, dirt smudging his face. Coal has come under the crosshairs of the Obama administration in the push to transition to renewable energy sources. Coal mines are burdened with a never-ending stream of federal...

When government grows too large, dependency replaces achievementWhen I was in high school in Detroit, I had a job as a biology laboratory assistant. I spent a substantial amount of time in the greenhouse, preparing botany experiments. I had acquired some seeds of an interesting plant and was anxious to use them to produce my own crop of these plants. I planted the seeds in a special container and kept enriching the soil and providing plenty of moisture and sunlight to enhance and accelerate the growth. I was very disappointed with the results and eventually abandoned the project, leaving the...

Congress passed a historically low number of laws in 2013, but the executive branch bureaucrats who write the nation's federal regulations remained as busy as ever, as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, demonstrated with a single picture. "Behold my display of the 2013 Federal Register," Lee wrote in a caption for a photo posted to his Facebook page on Friday. "It contains over 80,000 pages of new rules, regulations, and notices all written and passed by unelected bureaucrats. The small stack of papers on top of the display are the laws passed by elected members of Congress and signed into law...

World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries. For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity...

Every American knows about the income tax. But how many are aware of the regulatory tax? That’s the cost of all regulations (good, bad and indifferent) imposed on Americans by the 60 or so government agencies that contribute to the 175,000-page (and growing) Code of Federal Regulations. The fact that we don’t hear nearly as much about the regulatory tax doesn’t mean it isn’t substantial. As Heritage Foundation scholar James Gattuso notes, “While the revenues and expenditures of the government are accounted for each year, the costs of regulation are largely hidden from view, paid for indirectly via higher prices,...

President Obama called on Congress to make 2014 a “year of action” for the economy – starting with extending emergency unemployment benefits. In his weekly address, the president touted the gains the economy has made in the last few years, while urging policymakers to do more to boost jobs and put people back to work. The first item on the agenda should be getting federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless back in place, he said. That program was allowed to expire at the end of 2013 when Congress failed to extend the program, cutting off benefits for 1.3 million...

FRANKFORT — A year after Gov. Steve Beshear implemented the federal health care law without legislative approval, Senate Republicans plan to push a constitutional amendment that would curb the governor's power to issue administrative regulations. Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said his caucus would push for the restriction early in the 2014 General Assembly that begins Tuesday. The proposed change to the state Constitution would keep a regulation issued by the governor or executive branch from taking effect if lawmakers declare it deficient. The governor and executive agencies issue about 700 regulations each year to implement various laws approved by...

It’s a new year and you know what that means — new regulations. The Obama administration has wasted no time in writing them. The website Regulations.gov lists 141 regulations that have been posted by federal agencies in the last three days alone. Of these regulations, 119 are “rulemaking,” meaning they establish a new rule. Twenty-three are “non-rulemaking,” meaning the regulations does not establish a new rule. The largest group of regulations have to do with energy and environmental issues, many of them issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. One new EPA regulation is an amendment to a rule on hazardous...

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...