Free Republic

More people are moving out of New Jersey than are moving in. The same is true for Illinois and New York. Those three states top the "outbound" list compiled by United Van Lines, the big St. Louis-based moving company that has put together an annual survey of where Americans are moving for the last 37 years. The company analyzed a total of 125,000 moves across the 48 continental states and the District of Columbia in 2013 and came up with a picture of migration patterns across the U.S. According to Professor Michael Stoll, chair of the Department of Public Policy...

In the face of a stagnating economy and national debt topping $17 trillion, many policymakers in Washington, D.C. are seeking ways to reduce spending. Given that many states increasingly rely on federal spending to craft their state budgets, the necessary federal spending reductions could pose a serious fiscal threat to states that fail to prepare. What’s more, those federal funds come with serious strings attached, which often hamper state autonomy and effectiveness in policymaking. A recent report from State Budget Solutions based on Census data reveals that on the whole, states received 31.6 percent of their total revenue from the...

Attorney General Eric Holder has given the nod to his state counterparts that they do not have to defend laws they consider discriminatory -- effectively giving the green light for states to stop defending bans on gay marriage. Holder addressed the issue during a gathering of state attorneys general on Tuesday, after detailing his position in a New York Times interview. Speaking to the National Association of Attorneys General, Holder said that any decision not to defend individual laws must be "exceedingly rare" and reserved for "exceptional circumstances." He indicated that legal challenges to gay marriage bans would qualify as...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- North Dakota residents had the highest well-being in the nation in 2013, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. South Dakota trailed its northern neighbor in second place, with its highest score in six years of measurement. Hawaii held the top spot for the previous four years, but fell slightly last year. West Virginia and Kentucky had the two lowest well-being scores, for the fifth year in a row. North Dakota rejoined the top 10 well-being states in 2013 after being among that group from 2009 to 2011. South Dakota was among the top 10 in well-being for...

SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) – Supporters of a plan to divide California into six sates can begin collecting signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that the proposed ballot initiative – known as Six Californias – could move forward Tuesday. Under the plan, from venture capitalist Tim Draper, most of the Bay Area would be considered “Silicon Valley.” Napa, Sonoma and Marin Counties would become part of “North California.”

The court’s ruling today in Halbig v. Sebelius delivers a major blow to the states that chose not to participate in the Obamacare insurance exchange program. It is also a blow to the small businesses, employees and individuals who live in those states as well. In upholding this IRS regulation that is contrary to the law enacted by Congress, this decision guts the choice made by a majority of the states to stay out of the exchange program. It imposes Obamacare penalties on employers and on many individuals in those states, penalties that Congress never authorized, putting their livelihoods and...

Cost Curve: A little-noticed problem is fast emerging in states that decided to set up their own ObamaCare exchanges. Many of them face financial crises once the federal grant money runs out. After taking nearly $4 billion in federal grants to set up and run their exchanges this year, 14 states and the District of Columbia are supposed to be self-sufficient by next year. At least that's what the ObamaCare statute says (which these days doesn't mean much). But from the looks of it, many are heading into a fiscal brick wall.

Washington, DC—Representative James Lankford (R-OK), Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, today introduced the House Joint Resolution legislative proposal for the Health Care Compact, a breakthrough governance reform that allows states to clean up the health care mess created by the federal government. “The Health Care Compact is a way for states to protect their residents from the top-down, one-size-fits-all health care ‘solutions’ that have been imposed from Washington DC, including Obamacare,” said Lankford. “The compact transfers health care decision-making authority and responsibility from the federal level to member states. Those member states are then free to implement their...

Gallup’s latest economic findings are seemingly straight out of the dystopian novel “The Hunger Games.” That is to say, every state in the nation boasted a negative economic index score; only the District of Columbia -- the capital city -- is seemingly prospering. Surprise: The pollsters posit some interesting takeaways for us to consider: (1) the disparity between the most economically confident state (Massachusetts) and the least economically confident state (West Virginia) is 43 percentage points. (This excludes the District of Columbia, of course, which is not a state).That’s an enormous gap, and one that doesn’t appear to be shrinking,...

This Map Shows How The GDP Of US States Compare To Countries Around The World Michael Kelley Feb. 4, 2014, 7:27 AM      Feb. 4, 2014, 7:27 AM BI contributor Randy Olson passed along this map, created by reddit user Phaenthi, that presents U.S. states and corresponding countries with similar GDP. Olson, who moderates the subreddit DataisBeautiful, noted that the map is not adjusted for population size "e.g., Minnesota has a population of ~5.5 million and Nigeria has a population of ~175 million." California is the obvious powerhouse, with a GDP of about $2 trillion in...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Wyoming was the most conservative U.S. state in 2013, replacing Alabama, which fell to 10th place. The District of Columbia was once again the most liberal area in the United States, with Vermont and Massachusetts having the highest percentage of liberals among the 50 states. Explore complete state data > Overall, Americans were much more likely to self-identify as conservatives than as liberals last year, though that gap shrank from previous years. The most conservative states are located primarily in the South and West, while the most liberal states are found on the East and West...

I understand the arguments for the legalization of marijuana: It can generate tax revenue. It can reduce illegal supply and demand. It can strip power from cartels and lessen crime across and at our borders. And it isn't so dangerous as other illegal drugs or alcohol. President Barack Obama even claimed one of those arguments when he recently told New Yorker Editor David Remnick, "As has been well-documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through...

President Obama will travel to four states in the week following the State of the Union to drum up support for proposals he will outline in his annual address, according to the White House. “With some action on all our parts, we can help more jobseekers find work, and more working Americans find the economic security they deserve,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in an email to supporters Saturday. “That's why, in the week following the speech, President Obama will travel to communities across the country — including Prince George’s County Maryland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Nashville, before returning...

President Obama said in an interview published Sunday he does not believe marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol and that it was “important” that the legalization of the drug in some states to “go forward” because it would prevent unfair penalties for some users.

The number of Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) receiving food stamps zoomed from 1.7 million to 3.9 million between Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2010. In that same period, food stamp recipients in total grew from 26 million to nearly 40 million. Spending on food stamps now totals somewhere around $80 billion, twice what the number was in Fiscal Year 2008. Presently, the work waivers foisted on the states by Obama allow ABAWDs to receive food stamps indefinitely--without working or preparing for work.

New research from Sarah Arnett examines states’ abilities to meet their financial obligations in the face of state budget challenges that have far outlasted the Great Recession. Fiscal simulations by the Government Accountability Office suggest that despite recent gains in tax revenues and pension assets, the long-term outlook for states’ fiscal condition is negative (GAO 2013). These simulations predict that states will have yearly difficulties balancing revenues and expenditures due, in part, to rising health care costs and the cost of funding state and local pensions. Arnett uses four different indices to analyze state solvency using each state’s fiscal year...

Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) introduced a bill Thursday that would keep a state's definition of marriage for the legal residents of that state for the purposes of federal law. If passed, the bill would require federal agencies to look at how a person's marital status is defined in their home state when determining their marital status for federal law. If, for instance, a same-sex couple lives in a state that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and that couple got married in a state that has redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, federal law would...

United Van Lines gave the Associated Press an early look at its annual inbound vs. outbound household move statistics for 2013 and the news for Michigan looks fantastic. For the first time in 16 years Michigan is no longer in the "high-outbound" moves category, defined by United Van Lines (UVL) as 55 percent or more of customer traffic leaving a particular state. The Great Lake State has entered what UVL calls its "Balanced" category, where in-bound and out-bound traffic are similar. That's in sharp contrast to this state's lost decade: for four years between 2006 and 2009 Michigan actually had...

Some 22 states enacted 70 new provisions to target abortion last year, the second most ever, prompting an outcry from Planned Parenthood, which accused “out-of-touch Tea Party politicians” with using “every underhanded trick in the book to get these laws passed.” A new report from the Guttmacher Institute said that the 70 provisions were second in number to the nearly 90 approved in 2011. The group said that 205 abortion restrictions were approved over the past three years, more than the 189 enacted during the previous decade. The report also noted that many states increased access to abortion, such as...

Starting January 1, minimum wage workers in 13 states and four cities will see higher paychecks. While most of the increases amount to less than 15 cents per hour, workers in places like New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island will see a bigger bump. Earlier this year, New Jersey residents voted to raise the state's minimum wage by $1 to $8.25 per hour. And lawmakers voted to hike the wage by between 25 cents and 75 cents per hour, to $8.70 in Connecticut and $8 in Rhode Island and New York. Residents in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana,...