Free Republic

When the history of this American era is written, the top headline will not be about election controversies or critical race theory or even COVID-19. This will be known most of all as the era when America sold out its future generations. This week, America's national debt surpassed $30 trillion for the first time, a full $7 trillion increase from just two years ago. How did this happen, and who's to blame? President Bill Clinton was no deficit hawk, but with a Republican Congress keeping him largely in line and with the dot-com boom providing record government revenues, Clinton gets...

With some pundits advocating for price controls to fight inflation, it suddenly feels like the 1970s again. This type of overbearing intervention has never worked as marketed, something President Richard Nixon discovered in 1973 when he lifted the wage and price controls he had implemented two years earlier. Still, to those unwilling to learn from history, such controls will always seem sensible. Inflation amounts to rising prices, they say, so locking in prices is a supposed easy fix. But treating inflation this way is like masking a symptom rather than curing the illness. Inflation can no more be controlled by...

@NORML #Florida @GovRonDeSantis was asked about his position on legalizing #marijuana and he responded with this. This is what we are up against...

For Immediate ReleaseTuesday, October 5, 2021Office of Press Relationspress@usaid.govToday, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching an ambitious new project that will work with partner countries and the global community to build better preparedness for future global health threats. Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens - Viral Zoonoses (DEEP VZN), a five-year, approximately $125 million project (pending availability of funds), will strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people’s lives and...

Two elected officials—from different parts of America—emerged this weekend as the kind of patriots which are in too short supply these days…but both offered a ray of hope for our future.First, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia just earned the thanks of every right-thinking man, woman, and child in America. Because on Sunday, Manchin essentially killed the ridiculous, bloated and unnecessary $2-trillion grab-bag of ultraLeftist spending scams called Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan.(By the way, like so much of Biden’s past career…he plagiarized the “Build Back Better” terminology from British prime minister Boris Johnson…who early in 2020 unveiled a...

Right before Thanksgiving Day, House Democrats passed Build Back Better, one of the most misguided and ill-timed bills in the history of congressional legislation. At a time when an average of 1,300 Americans a day are dying from Covid-19 and tens of millions are battling chronic diseases from cancer to diabetes, the bill would discourage the development of lifesaving drugs. America's seniors will suffer the most as medicine cabinets soon turn distressingly bare. Build Back Better would set drug reimbursements far below the market-based prices that Medicare, the nation's largest insurance program, currently pays. Cheaper drugs sound great, in theory....

Inflation has reached its highest level in decades. While we're not yet in a situation like we had in the 1970s -- and we can hope that the Federal Reserve will regain control before it reaches that point -- there are still plenty of reasons to be upset that inflation is getting so out of hand. Inflation is commonly defined as a general increase in prices, leaving our money with less purchasing power. When the prices of goods and services increase faster than wages, workers essentially take a pay cut. Savers and those who receive interest payments also lose out....

Should we ignore the costs of the "Build Back Better" bill and simply focus on the benefits? Wouldn't that be nice? Unfortunately, the most constructive criticisms of the legislation reveal why the magical thinking behind this monstrously expensive spending package will not improve American society. In urging us to focus less on costs, economist Alan Blinder asserts: "The House bill includes several real winners. Do you oppose universal pre-K education? You shouldn't; it works. Are you against more-affordable child care? Not many Americans are. Do you think we should ignore global climate change? If so, think again." But these assertions...

Musk's finally ready to admit that government subsidies distort markets and that government actors are terrible at capital allocation."Say tomorrow, you get a phone call from Joe Biden," asked Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a Monday night forum. "And he asks: What are your needs from this [$2 trillion spending] bill? How do you answer him?" "We don't think about it at all, really," Musk said, channeling Don Draper to the tune of the audience's uneasy laughter. "It might be better if the bill doesn't pass," Musk added. "The federal budget deficit...

The Bible says, “Thou shall not steal.” Yet stealing – in the sense of robbing Peter to give to Paul – is what every government in the world does, on a daily basis. They have been doing it for a very long time. H. L. Mencken once said that elections are an advance auction on the sale of stolen goods. Watching the tax-and-spend circus on Capitol Hill right now brings Mencken to mind. Have you ever seen a good argument for stealing? I don’t mean taking property that isn’t yours to save a life in an emergency. I’m talking about...

For CNN, there's only one perspective on big government: bigger is better! On New Day, the hosts and panelists could only see the positives of a $1.7 trillion spending bill, and could only hope for more. The liberal media can't conceive that some Americans actually still believe in individual liberty and self-reliance, and reject cradle-to-grave government "help" [read, intrusion] into our lives. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

More destructive than any specific policy item modern Democrats are pushing this year are the ideas they use to justify their agenda. The $3.5 trillion bill that resident Joe Biden and Democrats are now attempting to cram through Congress via reconciliation is meant to create a European-style cradle-to-grave welfare state here in the United States. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the bill's Senate author, has, for years, praised systems across the Atlantic. As have many other Democrats. There are numerous specific arguments against the agenda that further expands an already onerous bureaucratic state, but it is the idea that traditional American life...

After nine months of the far-left policies of resident Joe Biden, the American economy is on the ropes. He inherited an economy moving in the right direction after a year of the pandemic. Unfortunately, he has squandered this momentum by bowing to pressure from the socialist wing of the Democrat Party. The resident started his administration by issuing an executive order shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline. This decision, along with a moratorium on issuing new drilling leases in federal territory, contributed to the country becoming energy dependent once again. With domestic oil production lagging, the Biden administration begged the...

Back in 2005, I wrote that when it comes to spending, "Congressional Republicans Make French Socialists Look Like Ronald Reagan." Looking back now, from the perspective of fiscal prudence, those were the good old days. Yet, as irresponsible as Republicans have been with our finances since then, today's Democrats seem committed to making the spendaholic GOP look like Uncle Scrooge. Let's recap: The worst of the COVID-19 emergency is hopefully behind us, meaning the country should focus on recovery, fully reopening the economy and returning to work. Government should focus on scaling back emergency programs and reducing the deficit. It's...

Although Social Security has been around for a long time, the program continues to evolve. And one positive change that has the potential to arise in the near term is a generous cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. COLAs are the annual raises seniors on Social Security are entitled to. They're not guaranteed, and there have been years when seniors have gotten no boost to their benefits at all. A nice windfall could be on the way In recent years, Social Security's COLAs haven't been much to write home about. In 2021, seniors saw their benefits increase by 1.3%. In 2020, they...

Pity Chuck Schumer, with AOC sniffing around for the scent of primary vulnerability while the Murder Turtle across the aisle is tenting his fingers, whispering “Excellent,” as the majority leader publicly nadlers himself. He’s got Nancy Pelosi jumping into the race for Most Senile Senior in the Dem leadership, alleged moderates terrified of 2022, the bro-betrothing weirdos of the progressive left, and a desiccated old freak in the White House who intervened and only made things worse. But Chucky’s real problem is the Wonder Twins, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are driving him nuts with their stubborn refusal to...

WASHINGTON — As Democrats push ahead with President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan, they’re promising historic investments across the arc of an education — from early childhood to college and beyond — in what advocates describe as the most comprehensive package of its kind in decades. The education provisions in Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal would serve as a bedrock for schooling opportunities for countless Americans and test the nation’s willingness to expand federal programs in far-reaching ways. Equity is a focus, as it seeks to remove barriers to education that for decades have resulted in wage and learning...

As a former assistant chief of police and founder of a company that provides security services, I thought I knew much about the business of protecting people. But career politicians in Washington are giving all of us a masterclass in how to safeguard the interests of ultra-wealthy and powerful people like themselves through a multi pronged expansion of the death tax. If passed, the effort would destroy American jobs, eliminate incentives for small and family-owned businesses to grow, as well as further cement the status of society's most elite echelon. The provisions of concern – a reduction in the federal...

WASHINGTON — White House officials are outlining plans to build and restore more than 2 million homes, a response to the volcanic rise in housing prices over the past year. First, it intends to deliver 100,000 affordable housing units over three years through a series of administrative changes. It will increase mortgage availability through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for manufactured houses and buildings with two to four units. The government also intends to make it easier for would-be owners and nonprofits to buy homes that failed to sell in foreclosure auctions, as well as expand outreach to local governments...

In the past few decades, there have been several undeniable trends. First, the power of government at all levels, from all three branches, has increased dramatically. Simultaneously, the quality of life for ordinary Americans, especially those living in cities, has decreased significantly. Thus, as ordinary citizens have ceded more power and control to government “experts” the living conditions in our country have deteriorated considerably. The American “dream” of upward mobility and a better standard of living than the previous generation is now impossible for many young couples. Our country’s working-class citizens are finding it more difficult to survive economically. These...