Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D.-N.Y.) announced yesterday that the federal government will spend up to $18,000,000 to buy Concord grape juice in an effort to increase the price that New York farmers can get for their grapes. In a letter to Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue urging him to have the government buy the grape juice, Sen. Schumer noted that there are “more than 280 growers with over 9,700 acres” of Concord grape vineyards in New York State. “I write to encourage the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) to utilize...

Premiums for the most popular health insurance plans would shoot up 20 percent next year, and federal budget deficits would increase by $194 billion in the coming decade if President Trump carries out his threat to end certain subsidies paid to insurance companies for the benefit of low-income people, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The subsidies reimburse insurers for reducing deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs that low-income people pay when they visit doctors, fill prescriptions or receive care in hospitals. Even before efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed in the Senate last month, Mr. Trump began...

Elon Musk is a very creative guy. We all know it, and often admire it. He’s the guy who’s going to colonize Mars, the guy who’s going to roof your house with solar shingle and pave highways with solar pavers. He’s also the guy who is now bringing us the Tesla 3 electric motor car, his new, more compact and sporty model for which he claims to have already received 500,000 orders. It’s all so wonderful, and his giant PR operation issues about 27 press releases a week bragging about his every move. Well, ok, not quote every move. Here’s...

Being a visionary billionaire and chief executive of three companies at once isn’t all fun and games, Elon Musk tweeted Sunday, describing “unrelenting stress” and suggesting he may be bipolar. Musk tweeted his replies to a number of questions on Twitter, starting with his response to a tweet that said he had “an amazing life.” “The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,” Musk tweeted. “Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.” When someone else asked if he was bipolar, Musk replied “Yeah,” but then followed up with: “Maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings...

Yes, it’s true… the United States smashed another fuel production record this year. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), the country produced over one million barrels per day of this liquid fuel in the first six months of 2017. Unfortunately, this isn’t something to brag about. It would be wise just to keep this lil record to ourselves, rather than broadcast it loudly across the energy news wires and Mainstream media. Why do I say that? Because the U.S. produced a record 1.02 million barrels per day of corn-based ethanol, the lowest quality fuel in the world. Corn...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk — whose company makes electric cars and has a new solar roof panel division — reminded more than 30 state governors at the National Governors Association meeting this weekend exactly how much real-estate is needed to make sure America can run totally on solar energy. “If you wanted to power the entire United States with solar panels, it would take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire United States,” Musk said during his keynote conversation on Saturday...

Judicial Watch requested the Trump administration stop members of Congress and their staff from unlawfully purchasing, with taxpayer subsidies, health insurance through the District of Columbia’s small business exchange. ... Because the ACA limits the purchase of insurance on a small business exchange to employees of small businesses – and Congress is not a small business – the ACA unequivocally requires that certain members of Congress and congressional employees purchase insurance on an individual exchange created either by their state of residence (or by the District, if they are a D.C. resident) or by the federal government for that state....

We were trying to count the people standing in a breadline when William Contreras arrived. The line was forming outside of a bakery in the Caracas run-down neighborhood of Catia, about 20 people long with a half dozen more sprinting past me and our photographer, Cristian Hernández. It was a perfect illustration of the desperate situation of a country that was, a few years ago, boasting of its oil-funded socialist prosperity. Contreras was our government minder, a bulky 50-year-old alderman with salt-and-pepper hair. When he pulled up to us, he seemed oblivious to the snaking line.

Subsidizing the purchase of electric cars in Canada is an inefficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is not cost effective, according to a Montreal Economic Institute study released Thursday. "It's just a waste," said Germain Belzile, one of the authors of the study, which examined electric vehicle subsidies offered by Canada's two biggest provinces Ontario and Quebec, which can rise to as much as a third of a vehicle's purchase price, depending on the model. "Not only do these programs cost taxpayers a fortune, but they also have little effect on GHG emissions," he said. The government of...

If you are in a hole, don’t ask Bernie Sanders or Andrew Cuomo for help. They'll keep digging. "College tuition alone has shot up by more than 500 percent since 1985—more than health care, gasoline, and food prices," Jimmy Sengenberger, president and CEO of the Millennnial Policy Center in Denver, wrote in The Weekly Standard last month. "Student loan debt now totals more than $1.4 trillion and surpasses all other forms of consumer debt." "The College Board reports that tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year averaged $9,650 for in-state residents and $24,930 for out-of-state residents attending public four-year...

Few in the odd coalition of Left and Right pushing for reauthorization of the 81-year-old Export-Import Bank have been louder than Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “It’s wrong that candidates for president, who really should know better, are jumping on this bandwagon,” she said at a May 22 campaign stop in New Hampshire. “It’s wrong, it’s embarrassing. . . . The idea that we would remove this relatively small but vital source of funding for our businesses to compete is absolutely backwards.” Clinton’s defense of Ex-Im may be motivated by more than mere concern for American businesses. Critics have argued...

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, threatened to leave two White House advisory councils should President Trump pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. Musk said he will have “no choice” but to depart the councils if Trump makes the decision. Don't know which way Paris will go, but I've done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in WH & via councils, that we remain.............

Wealthy investor Doug Derwin is spending a lot of his own money in an attempt to convince billionaire Elon Musk to step down from President Donald Trump’s business advisory council. Why? He doesn’t like Trump and doesn’t think business leaders should embrace the president because, well, he opposes him politically. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter; he’s opened the bank vault and is spending liberally to pressure Musk, who may or may not eventually capitulate. Whatever eventually comes of the pressure, President Trump should not wait to see if Musk will cave and remove him now. Nothing against Elon Musk, he’s...

Solar company Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday after receiving millions in government subsidies to manufacture solar panels. Suniva blamed its bankruptcy on competition from cheap Chinese-made solar panels, but the company received about $20 million in support from federal and state taxpayers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For many years, Chinese manufacturers of solar cells have benefited from favorable, state-sponsored financing and lower labor costs, allowing them to flood the United States market for solar cells and modules with cheap imports,” David Baker, the company’s restructuring officer, said in a statement. “This has negatively impacted manufacturers based in the...

State officials are asking Congress to guarantee billions of dollars in health insurance subsidies under a legal cloud as a result of Republican opposition to “Obamacare.” In a letter Wednesday to congressional leaders, the nonpartisan National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the so-called cost-sharing reductions are essential for keeping insurance markets stable next year. Insurers use the money to reduce deductibles and copayments for people with modest incomes. …

In fact, it’s not “inexplicable” at all. ___ Tesla shares rose to $313.38 this morning, giving the company a market capitalization of about $51 billion, surpassing GM for a moment as the most valuable American automaker. This left some industry insiders wondering about tulip bulbs. “It’s either one of the great Ponzi schemes of all time, or it’s all going to work out,” mused Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, the largest dealer group in the US. He was speaking at a conference hosted by the National Automobile Dealers Association and J.D. Power. “It’s totally inexplicable, as far as its valuation,”...

<p>Among the many new directives and executive orders already issued by the Trump administration is a little-noticed order to halt a scheduled cut in mortgage insurance fees levied by the FHA.</p> <p>Earlier in January, the Obama administration announced it would cut the FHA's insurance premium by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.60 percent, effective on Jan. 27.</p>

Dan Gilbert, a developer and owner of many private companies in Detroit, has been urging the Michigan House of Representatives to approve Senate-passed bills that would give some developers and business owners more taxpayer-funded subsidies. Gilbert defended his position in the Detroit Free Press: He noted that some critics oppose the incentives for ideological reasons, or say the government shouldn't try to pick winners and losers. “That all to me is legitimate and I get that,” Gilbert said, “but there’s a lot more to this than, ‘Hey, rich guys are getting this and neighborhoods are not getting anything.’” That characterization...

Here is my health coverage proposal: BABIES Babies, born and unborn, would be covered under their mother's (or father's) policy until the end of a policy term. Mandatory issue coverage for babies would be available: a. effective at the end of that policy term or b. effective the six month after the sign-up month Mandatory issue baby coverage would only cover the care of the baby after it is delivered. SUBSIDIES [The Founding Fathers would be astonished at the mere thought of federal health care/product coverage subsidies, but federal patent exclusivity and state law crimping of provider supply and (drug...

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - The Harris County Toll Road Authority collected about $760 million in tolls the last fiscal year, yet it is improbable that any Harris County toll road will ever be “paid off,” Channel 2 Investigates has learned.   “Not with system financing, which allows us to borrow money at a favorable rate to build new projects,” said Patti Evans, the authority’s assistant director of communications.In other words, tolls collected today are not only used to pay down system-wide debt, but to construct more toll roads in the future.    “I think it is important to say —...