Free Republic

The “great recession” may be over, but its impact on state governments is still unfurling – and could threaten America’s fragile economic recovery. That message emerged in two assessments of the economy Wednesday. The Pew Center on the States released a report concluding that nine states have joined California in a condition of “fiscal peril.” Their budget troubles could cause a round of job cuts and tax hikes in states from Florida to Illinois and Oregon. In a separate news briefing Wednesday, Iris Lav, a fiscal policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, warned that state budget...

It's not just California that's dragging the country down. Did you know Wisconsin was in trouble? A new report by the Pew Center on the States, called Beyond California: States In Trouble, shows us the 10 that are weighing the country down. The ranking looks at budget gaps, foreclosure rates, lost state revenues, unemployment, money-management practices, and where "super-majority" requirements are killing efforts to fix the financial mess. Scores for each category are tallied for an overall ranking. We bring you the top 10, counting down from bad to worst. The higher score, the bigger the crisis. California gets a...

Report: 10 States Face Looming Budget Disasters By JUDY LIN, Associated Press Wednesday, November 11, 2009SACRAMENTO, Calif. – In Arizona, the budget has grown so gloomy that lawmakers are considering mortgaging Capitol buildings. In Michigan, state officials dealing with the nation's highest unemployment rate are slashing spending on schools and health care. Drastic financial remedies are no longer limited to California, where a historic budget crisis earlier this year grew so bad that state agencies issued IOUs to pay bills. A study released Wednesday warned that at least nine other big states are also barreling toward economic disaster, raising the...

A survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index reveals which states are happiest. The index includes questions about six types of well-being, including overall evaluation of their lives, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors (such as whether a person smokes or exercises), and job satisfaction.

Health Care Reform: Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony? The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a bill that...

"OBAMA DON'T KNOW 'JACK”: Fishermen take to the street in FWB to protest amberjack lockdown (UPDATED with PHOTOS) November 03, 2009 10:52 AM Tom McLaughlin and Tina Harbuck More than 100 fishermen, family and friends showed up Monday morning at the corner of U.S. 98 and Perry Avenue carrying signs in protest of the recent fish closures by the National Marine Fisheries Service. “It’s terrible what they’re trying to do to this fishery,” said Capt. Kenny Aziz, who bay fishes from his pontoon boat, The Toonpang. The idea of bringing the Destin charter boat fishermen’s beef with the federal government...

States Growing Hair On Their PairThe Market TickerTuesday, November 3. 2009 States Growing Hair On Their PairIt's about damn time: Frustrated by the banks’ inability or unwillingness to stop an avalanche of foreclosures, the states are considering lawsuits over the creation and marketing of millions of bad loans as well as the dismal pace of mortgage modifications. Good. As I have repeatedly opined, there is more than enough fertile ground here for lots of lawsuits to spring up and take root. Indeed, let's go down the list of what I believe are the grounds for such suits: * Most of...

Listen to Candidates Bucking For United States Senator Harry Reid Seat in 2010 Part 4 We have had candidates that have been campaigning for US Nevada Senator Harry Reid Seat in 2010. On October 17, 2009 we have had Doctor Robin Titus Republican Candidate for US Senate on the Veterans In Politics Talk Show on All Talk Radio. Listen to what they have to say and do your homework be an educated voter. We will have more candidates as the filing dates come closer. If you are thinking about being a candidate for US Senator representing Nevada in 2010; Or...

Fiscal Fact No. 196 Introduction Sales taxes are paradoxically transparent and non-transparent. A taxpayer can easily see how high the tax is by looking at the receipt for any purchase. It's hard to imagine a more transparent tax.

This bill will likely get all sorts of media attention in the next week and month. That's because Democrats are now thinking about repealing it. The exemption, known as McCarran-Ferguson, cedes regulatory control of the industry, on the business side, to individual states. Since health insurers are already heavily regulated at the state level, its repeal would have a much broader impact on property and casualty insurers — a group that has also found itself in Congress’s cross-hairs recently.

Nasal spray vaccine for swine flu now shipping to some clinics; studies suggest it’s OK to get shots for seasonal flu and swine flu at same time H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, has now returned full bore to the United States after largely dissipating over the summer, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said during a news briefing October 9. Cases of H1N1 have been reported in 37 states, up from 27 states a week earlier, CDC physician and flu expert Anne Schuchat said at the briefing. A vaccine that protects against the H1N1 flu virus is now...

I'm going to go back to this quote by Barney Frank of the US House, because it says everything those in state and local governments need to know: Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that the defaults were, in essence, worth it. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the bad loans occurred,” he said. “It was an effort to keep prices from falling too fast. That’s a policy.” Got it? It's a policy to screw the state and local governments. Huh, you say? It's simple, really:...

AT a time of unprecedented budget crises, it is unthinkable that we should roll back welfare reform -- yet that's what's happening. In New York and other states, and on the federal level, lawmakers are broadening eligibility, eliminating work requirements and raising cash pay-outs. The drive is to substitute all sorts of social and educational services for work requirements -- despite overwhelming evidence that such assistance doesn't lead to employment. As a nation, we'll come to regret these decisions, because welfare reform has worked -- and worked well. It must be preserved.

Fairfax, Va. -- The National Rifle Association applauds the Supreme Court's decision, announced today, to hear the landmark Second Amendment case of McDonald v. Chicago. The case will address the application of the Second Amendment to the states through either the Due Process clause or the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has major implications for the legality of restrictive gun laws not only in Chicago, but also in other cities across the United States. The decision to hear the case, which will be argued later this year or early next year, gives Second Amendment advocates...

So this is how Obama will move the shells around in his massive shell game.....force the states to pay for it all: Democrats want to use Medicaid to cover everyone up to at least 133% of the federal poverty level, or about $30,000 for a family of four. Starting in 2014, Mr. Baucus plans to spend $287 billion through 2019—or about one-third of ObamaCare’s total spending—to add some 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls. About 59 million people are on Medicaid today—which means that a decade from now about a quarter of the total population would be on...

When I first became aware that the Democratic National Committee prepared, signed and notarized two slightly different Certification of Nomination documents for the Obama-Biden ticket in the 2008 election, I was shocked and after verifying both documents as real, I wrote about it in The Theory is Now a Conspiracy and Facts Don’t Lie released on September 10, 2009. The question was obvious – Why TWO different DNC Obama certification documents, and why did one have proper certification of constitutional eligibility in it, while the other had that certification deleted? The Obama camp had been using the defense that the...

We are all concerned with the direction our Country is heading under the Obamba, Reid, Pelosi socialist triad. You travel long distances to join a demonstration on the Capitol steps. You join local protests on the same day. The main-stream media doesn't report your numbers accurately. Obama and crew are still working to forward their socialist agenda. They did not hear you! I say again, DC did not hear you! While your efforts may have made a few Congress-critters re-think their position, many don't think it will be enough. If it is, then bless all you Patriots. However, if it...

The DC politicos are pushing us Constitutionalists towards revolution. I'm not yet sure what form it will take. I'm hoping it will simply be about States' Rights (9th&10th Amendments) and enough States' willingness to nullify Fedgov mandates. If enough States were to just tell the Fedgov to shove their socialist/Marxist programs, what would the DC politicians do? What would Obama do, given all his power? I don't think for a moment that the White House would turn the military on any State that said NO to Obamacare or to Cap&Tax or any other socialist crap they're pushing. So what would...

Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?A key part of the administration's plan to reform health care is what is called the "individual mandate" — a requirement that everyone must have health insurance either through his or her employer or purchased individually. A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point...

Some conservatives have begun to openly wonder if Obama is going to seize power in America. Would he want to do this? Perhaps so (a scary thought, but he has promised change.) No one dreamed that Carter, the worst president of the last century, wanted or planned to seize power. Clinton wanted to win power, but the worst anyone expected of Clinton was Huey Long bossism. Obama rose in politics through the thoroughly corrupt one-party government of Chicago. His spiritual advisor sounds like a rabble-rousing storm trooper. His intellectual mentor, Saul Alinksy, like the Bolsheviks and Nazis, believed in state...

State laws are changing all the time. For example, Arizona will make it legal for gun owners with permits to carry concealed weapons to take their fire arms into drinking establishments -- bars -- on September 29. Up until now, guns were barred from any kind of establishment where alcohol is served but that law no longer stands. Since this country came into existence, laws have come and gone, sometimes addressing very specific circumstances which no longer apply. Today, these outdated laws may seem just plain wacky to us but at some point they were very important. That's why we...

State government finances are a wreck. The drop in tax receipts is the worst in a half century. Fewer than 10 states ended the last fiscal year with significant reserves, and three-fourths have deficits exceeding 10% of their budgets. Only an emergency infusion of printed federal funny money is keeping most state boats afloat right now. Most governors I've talked to are so busy bailing that they haven't checked the long-range forecast. What the radar tells me is that we ain't seen nothin' yet. What we are being hit by isn't a tropical storm that will come and go, with...

Call it the third green wave. It is a much smaller migration than its predecessors - the historic westward flow that gave Boston its Irish identity, and then, in recent years, the return home of thousands of Irish emigrants seeking to ride the Celtic Tiger, the roaring Irish economy. But now, with Ireland deep in recession, far deeper even than ours, thousands of its residents are again heading abroad; nearly twice as many people left Ireland in 2008 as four years earlier. And some of them are heading to the United States for the second time

(H/T: Instapundit) I am honestly surprised to find that there are people surprised by this. Among those clamoring for attention and payouts from Motors Liquidation Co., the company that assumed General Motors’ unwanted assets after its Chapter 11 filing, are the environmental and economic redevelopment departments of state governments. According to reports, when GM exited bankruptcy, its polluted factory and land sites were consumed by the Motor Liquidation, allowing the automaker to avoid the responsibility of cleaning up its mess, and state leaders fear there won’t be any money to clean the locations. After all, this was the original point...

In 2006, the Pierce County, in Washington state, government held their once in a decade Pierce County Charter Review. This is a sort of Constitutional Convention when a commission is elected and makes suggestions to improve the Constitution. Those suggestions are then put on the next ballot as an initiative and if they are approved by the voters, they become a parter of the Constitutional Charter. For this Pierce County elects a group of seven members called the Pierce County Charter Commission.

In 2006, the Pierce County, in Washington state, government held their once in a decade Pierce County Charter Review. This is a sort of Constitutional Convention when a commission is elected and makes suggestions to improve the Constitution. Those suggestions are then put on the next ballot as an initiative and if they are approved by the voters, they become a parter of the Constitutional Charter. For this Pierce County elects a group of seven members called the Pierce County Charter Commission.

his list is based on responses to a Gallup Poll that asked a cross-section of Americans if religion is an “important part” of their lives. 1. Mississippi 85% 2. Alabama 82% 3. South Carolina 80% 4. Tennessee 79% 5. Louisiana 78% 6. Arkansas 78% 7. Georgia 76% 8. North Carolina 76% 9. Oklahoma 75% 10. Kentucky & Texas (tie) 74% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.

In the past, I have written about poor governance at the city and national levels ( “Detroit: A Glimpse into America’s Future?,” “We’re Broke,” “Into the Fiscal Abyss,” “The End Game,” et al. ). But, of course, the “government disease” afflicts states also, as shown in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, titled, “The Albany-Trenton-Sacramento Disease.” The article focused on New York, New Jersey, and California, which are all cases of erstwhile prosperous states that have fallen on hard times. The common denominator has been liberal/“progressive” (i.e., big) government. All three employ heavy “soak-the-rich” state and local tax...

A new government report out Friday showed the economy shrinking less than expected last quarter — raising hopes that the recession might end soon. But when the recovery does arrive, it won’t visit every state at the same time. And that's bad news for Democrats, because some of the states that will struggle most on the climb-out are the ones they'll need most in 2010 and beyond. And while President Barack Obama inherited a financial crisis from his predecessor, voters tend to blame the party in power sooner or later. For proof, look no further than the Ohio, a crucial...

CHICAGO (AP) -- On a scale of zero to 100, it can't get worse than the big goose egg. That's the embarrassing rating Illinois received in a report released on Wednesday that concludes the state is worst in the nation when it comes to information available online about how federal stimulus money is being spent. The 50-state study by the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog Good Jobs First sought to assess how well states are living up to President Barack Obama's pledge that the $787 billion federal stimulus bill would seek "an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability."

It's not easy living in an Arab state. Egyptians stay away from government hospitals; illiteracy among women in some countries can top 50 percent A new United Nations report presents a bleak and sometimes scary picture of a citizen's life in the Arab countries. One out of every five people in the region lives on less than $2 a day; the illiteracy rates are very high; and, for the most part, public health services cannot be relied on at all.

University of South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier had it right two years ago, when he had the stones to say "I realize I'm not supposed to get in the political arena as a football coach, but if anybody were to ask me about that damn Confederate flag, I would say we need to get rid of it."

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be "disastrous" for Texas. Interviewed by conservative talk show host Mark Davis of Dallas’ WBAP/820 AM, Perry said his first hope is that Congress will defeat the plan, which both Perry and Davis described as "Obama Care." But should it pass, Perry predicted that Texas and a "number" of states might resist the federal health mandate.

Revenue shortfalls lead to new budget gaps only three weeks into the new fiscal year. States are forced to make more painful budget cuts.NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The bad news about state budgets just keeps getting worse. Only three weeks into the new fiscal year, gaps are already opening up. And the shortfalls are only expected to grow. "If you think legislators are breathing a sigh of relief because their budgets are passed, think again," said William Pound, executive director of the National Conference of State Legislatures. State legislators and governors had to contend with deficits totaling $142.6 billion as...

The Obama administration took aim on Thursday at state laws — adopted after heavy teachers’ union lobbying — barring the use of student achievement data to evaluate teacher performance. snip Legislatures in New York, California and some other states have enacted laws that limit, to one degree or another, use of student achievement data in teacher performance evaluations. Both national teachers’ unions oppose the use of student testing data to evaluate individual teachers, arguing in part that students are often taught by several teachers and that teacher evaluations should be based on several measures of performance, not just test scores.

In many ways, our health care system is broken. Even people satisfied with their own care are nervous about losing it, concerned about rising costs, and frustrated by the failure of government to bring about genuine reform. But the reason Congress has so far been unable to fix our health care problems is that Congress is too busy creating the problems in the first place. That’s why the current proposals emanating from the White House and congressional Democrats won’t work either. Those proposals would hand over the most personal, private undertaking of our lives — health care — to the...

Tennessee was home to a failed attempt at universal single payer care, and has lessons to teach a President who has promised that in pursuing his goal of universal health care, he will learn from the policy failures of the past. In 1994 Tennessee implemented managed care in its Medicaid program, creating a system known as TennCare. The objective was to use the anticipated savings from Medicaid to fund and expand coverage for children and the uninsured. The result was a program that nearly bankrupted the state, reduced the quality of care, and collapsed under its own weight.

I'd like input on this. I submit that California has sent the worst bunch of fools to D.C. I know there's Boxer, Pelosi, Waxman and Feinstein. Is there any single state that can top this bunch of losers?

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Ready or not, states are getting a tenfold boost in federal money to weatherize drafty homes, an increase so huge it has raised fears of waste and fraud and set off a scramble to find workers and houses for them to repair. An obscure program that installs insulation in homes and makes them more energy-efficient is distributing $4.7 billion in stimulus funds - dwarfing the $447 million originally planned by Congress this year and the $227 million spent in 2008. That is enough to weatherize 1 million homes, instead of the 140,000 normally done each year.

Yep, those folks would officially be working more for the government than for their families. And it is not just the Commie states like New York and Massachusetts, it is 39 states.

As I read founder of Creators Syndicates Rick Newcombe's explanation of why he is moving his business out of the increasingly corrupt confines of Los Angeles and the anti growth policies of California in general, I had to wonder. Business aren't the only one who relocate to get away from high taxes and arbitrary, out of control bureaucrats. Americans have been voting with their feet for decades now. During the last half of the 20th century, all across America, married people with children voted with their feet rather than take on the dirty job of trying to reform the nation's...

Audit: States Using Stimulus Just To Stay Afloat WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Projects in some of the nation's poorest areas don't appear to be getting a fair shake in the spending of $787 billion in stimulus funds, the chairman of the House oversight committee said Wednesday. Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the panel, said he was particularly concerned that transportation projects in economically distressed areas were being left out — even though they are supposed to be a priority. "There is a substantial variation among states as to what constitutes an economically distressed area," Towns said. "For this reason, it...

Normally I hesitate to inflict scholarly papers on others, but a recent release by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University appealed to my libertarian sensibilities. "Freedom in the 50 States" analyzes and ranks the states by factors indicative of economic and personal freedom, and the results are enlightening. Measured by the conventional, two-dimensional view of American politics, the top ten (most free) are a mix of dark Red States and light Red States with one light Blue State. The bottom ten are all dark Blues. Also note that the bottom ten include a high proportion of the states which...

(breakingviews.com) -- A battle is brewing over U.S. state sales taxes on online purchases. Internet retailers Amazon.com and Overstock.com are scaling back their operations in states that demand they collect these taxes. While this won't dent their revenues much, it foreshadows a larger clash over the taxation of internet commerce. Cash-strapped states are firing the first shots.

US diplomats are working to ensure the safety of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and his family as they press for restoration of constitutional law and his presidency. President Barack Obama called Sunday for "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter" as the Central American crisis unfolded. For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, US officials said

Obama and his Marxist minions thought that the 2008 election gave them an unfettered mandate to dismantle our Constitutional Republic by establishing a One World secular socialist powerhouse in Washington DC, forever running roughshod over the people and the states without any worry of revolt or reprisal. They were horrifically mistaken! This is not democracy, its fascist totalitarianism, and our Founding documents provide the people a peaceful remedy. Our nation’s Founders not only anticipated a day when the federal government would become destructive of the desired ends, Life, Liberty, individual Freedom and Happiness, - they provided the mechanisms by which...

In Guys and Dolls, craps players desperate for diversion welcome the arrival of Nathan Detroit because "even when the heat is on it's never too hot" for Nathan to arrange some action. Today, Nathan Detroit is more likely to be a state legislator, a governor or a board of education commissioner than a Broadway gambler. Forty-eight of our states have now legalized at least some form of gambling, and in the wake of growing state budget woes, legislators are scrambling to expand government-controlled legalized betting to raise new revenues. Every recession, in fact, brings a little more state-authorized betting, so...

Gary Marbut isn't aiming to eliminate federal gun laws. He just wants to make them much less relevant. Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, is one of the leaders of a new grassroots movement that's seeking to invoke the principle of states' rights -- including states' own authority to regulate firearms -- to thwart what he and his allies view as an increasingly overreaching federal government. Politicians in Washington have "assumed power that many of us believe was not authorized under the limits of the Constitution," Marbut said in an interview with CBSNews.com last week. This modern-day federalist...

The Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy -- the state of California.

snip... "On the other end of the spectrum, it was traditionally Democratic states that earned the title of "least free," according to the study. Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York-all of whom voted Democratic in the past three presidential elections-came in at 48th, 49th and 50th, respectively. However, it is important to note that the study's findings do not all fall along these predictable party lines. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana, for example, all fall in the bottom eleven among states with the most Personal Freedom. Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri, meanwhile finish fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively in...