Free Republic

USA Today reports on the growing consensus across the political spectrum — from the Obama administration to the Koch brothers — that many occupational licensing laws are unnecessary obstacles to employment and do not provide any real benefit to public safety. The article featured a chart based on survey data showing the share of state workforces that are licensed. Michigan borders three states that all have a lower portion of their population licensed. So the question is: Do you feel endangered when visiting Indiana, Ohio or Wisconsin? Each state has fewer licensing requirements than Michigan, so if licensing laws really...

President Obama's mid-December move to protect African lions as endangered species will effectively end "canned" hunts for the king of the forest since nearly nine of every 10 killed is taken by an American, according to new data released by the Humane Society of the United States. The analysis found the trophies of 719 African lions were imported into the United States in 2014. Of those, 620 came from South Africa, and of those, well more than half, 366, were killed in captive hunts. Overall, HSUS said, 425 trophies from captive hunts were taken in 2014, meaning nearly 90 percent...

Women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives than men to purchase similar products, according to a study of the gender pricing of goods in New York City, which revealed widespread gender-based pricing disparities. Comparing nearly 800 products with clear male and female versions from more than 90 brands sold in store and online, NYC's Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) which carried out the study into gender pricing, found that the women's version of products cost more than men's. [Snip] The DCA found that, on average and across five industries, women's products cost 7 percent...

Clifornia's stubbornly high gasoline prices in 2015 resulted from state regulations, trouble with imports and an outage at a major refinery, the oil refining industry told regulators Wednesday. Speaking to the state Petroleum Market Advisory Committee for the first time since expensive California gasoline brought huge profits to oil refineries this year, the Western States Petroleum Assn. said the unusually large gap between the state's average price for a gallon of regular gas and the national average involved matters out of the oil refinery industry's control. "Clearly, there is a regulatory component for the situation that occurred this year," said...

Big Government: Civics books say the U.S. is a representative democracy. But the truth is that it's increasingly becoming a regulatory dictatorship, a trend made clear in a disturbing new report on the scale of federal rules. In his seven years in office, President Obama has signed 895 bills into law. Over the same period, federal regulators issued 24,478 rules. If you want an example of how unaccountable the federal government has become, it doesn't get much better than that. The regulatory state is so massive that the government doesn't even know how many regulatory agencies there are. Counts range...

President Obama is nothing if not predictable. Required by law to release plans for new regulations twice a year, the administration has consistently done so just before major holidays, when few are paying attention. Thus, it was no surprise to see his fall 2015 regulatory agenda released last Friday, as many Americans focused on Thanksgiving week with family and friends. [...] ... The regulations span the full scope of American life, ranging from labeling requirements for pet food, new test procedures for battery chargers, mandated paid sick leave for contractors, and automatic speed limiters for trucks to a dozen new...

While millions of Americans prepare to stuff themselves with Turkey and pie, the Obama administration quietly released its plans for 2,224 federal rules Friday - a preview of just how many more regulations the president is attempting to issue before he leaves office. President Barack Obama's Unified Agenda for Fall 2015 is his administration's regulatory road map and lays out thousands of regulations being finalized in the coming months. Obama has developed a habit of releasing the agenda late on Friday before a major holiday.

2014-2015 Alabama Teacher of the Year and 2015 National Teacher of the Year finalist Ann Marie Corgill was judged “unqualified” to teach in Birmingham’s schools due to lack of specified state credentials. Corgill holds National Board Certification to teach children ages 7-12 and has been teaching in grades 1-6 for 21 years. Kennita Allen, an education administrator with the Alabama Department of Education insisted that “neither demonstrated success in the classroom nor a national certification can substitute for the required state-issued certificate. Regulations are regulations. They cannot be waived for anyone no matter how competent they may have shown themselves...

It's nearly 50 years since the US landed men on the moon, but Americans are still dying from a disease that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages. Why hasn't the US eradicated the plague?

On Sept. 29, Congress held a hearing on the rules proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would likely destroy much of the small-dollar loan industry and drive many low-income and poor credit-risk people into the arms of loan sharks. [snip] ...the black marketeers will be the only ones serving the poor. [snip] The Internal Revenue Service’s new Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act regulations have made it both very expensive and, in many cases, impossible for Americans living abroad to obtain bank accounts in the countries where they live. The new IRS and Treasury “know your customer” regulations...

While politicians seem to never tire of proposing new ways to regulate the workplace, I want to propose a radically different idea: get government out of the workplace altogether. If that’s too radical for you, here is a compromise proposal: allow parallel systems under which workers in the same industry can choose to work as employees or work as independent contractors in an essentially unregulated labor market. Public awareness of the “gig economy” seems to have started with Uber, a company with 4,000 employees and 160,000 drivers who are not employees. A class action lawsuit in California seeks to have...

Volkswagen will have to make massive savings to cope with the huge cost of its emissions cheating scandal. That was the stark message delivered to more than 20,000 Volkswagen employees by the group's new chief executive, Matthias Mueller, at a meeting in Germany on Tuesday. A former Porsche chief, Mueller took over as CEO of the giant automaker after Martin Winterkorn stood down when it became clear the group had cheated emissions tests on as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide. Mueller said Volkswagen would survive, but warned the road to recovery would be painful. "We must make massive...

Next month will mark the end of an era in San Francisco as the city’s sole remaining gun shop closes its doors. High Bridge Arms has been in business at the same location since the 1950s, but with the next round of city regulations and restrictions on gun dealers (which means just High Bridge) the city fathers have found the straw required to break the camel’s back. It’s a glorious day for liberals. (Fox News) Business for the last gun shop in the city of 840,000 has been good, according to Alcairo, especially since the store, which caters to...

Coca-Cola was notified by the IRS that it owes $3.3 billion more in federal taxes, as well as interest, for 2007 to 2009, the company said Friday. The Atlanta-based company said in a regulatory filing that it believes the assessments from the Internal Revenue Service are without merit and plans to pursue "all administrative and judicial remedies necessary to resolve the matter." The maker of Sprite, Dasani, Powerade and other drinks says the disagreement is over how much it should report as taxable income in the U.S., in relation with licensing that allows its foreign affiliates to sell products like...

What is the topic that dominates today conversations in financial circles? “It isn’t Greece, or the U.S. economy, or China…It is the lack of liquidity in the markets and what this might mean for the world economy—and their businesses. Market veterans say they have never experienced anything like it.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - State legislators said Wednesday they want to give the Health Department more authority to track how fetal tissue is disposed of after abortions. Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, who presided over a joint hearing of the Government Operations Committee, said the Health Department is making required inspections of abortion clinics but there could still be illegal tissue sales going on without the inspectors' knowledge. Bell said lawmakers want to know more about how Tennessee regulates abortion after seeing hidden-camera videos that raised the question of whether Planned Parenthood officials in other states were profiting from the sale...

Congress has created a monster that is growing more dangerous to the U.S. economy, the Constitution, and the liberties of the American people with every passing day. Now, some lawmakers want to start reining in the regulatory monster with the REINS Act, if only slightly, by taking back some authorities over lawmaking that they were never authorized to give away to executive branch bureaucracies in the first place. But Obama, who last year threatened to rule America by decree with his “pen and phone” if Congress would not submit to his demands, wants none of it, and the White House...

Global Warming: When it comes to climate change, President Obama says we're all in it together. But when it comes to his plan to fight it, some states appear to be more equal than others.

Here’s today’s political quiz question: what do these five states — Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Oregon and Maine — have in common. Yes they are blue states ruled by Democrats, but that’s not all. These are the states that use the least amount of coal — less than 2 percent — for electric power. In fact, almost all of the states that are politically liberal and vote unfailingly Democratic are low coal use states. Washington, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are also in the top 10 states least reliant on coal. Only conservative Idaho is a red state with...

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s getting more expensive to be an employer and small business owners say that’s making it harder for them to make money.The health care law, minimum wage increases and paid sick leave laws in some states and cities are increasing costs. Small companies also face the prospect of higher overtime expenses under a proposed federal regulation.“We’re going beyond the point where we can comfortably operate a functioning business and meet the requirements of these laws,” says Diana Lamon, who owns a Los Angeles restaurant, Poppy & Rose and a food truck, Peaches’ Smokehouse and Southern Kitchen,...