Free Republic

Earlier this week, the Trump administration took another step toward liberating the economy by rolling back a Biden-era rule that needlessly hampered oil and gas production. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that, with this and several other deregulatory actions, the administration “is unleashing domestic energy and revising burdensome, unworkable Biden-era oil and natural gas policies.” That’s the good news. The bad news is that President Donald Trump has barely scratched the surface of the gargantuan administrative state, and other Trump policies are raising the cost of doing business, a report released today by the Competitive Enterprise Institute shows. In its...

How reliant is your state on Uncle Sam’s wallet? Every year, billions in federal tax dollars are redistributed to the 50 states and the District of Columbia through grants, contracts, and benefit programs. *** Their dependency score blends two metrics: the state’s return‐on‐taxes ratio and the share of state revenues coming from federal sources. Importantly, this data does not include Medicaid payments.Finally, a state’s political affiliation is based on its voting history in the past five presidential elections. New Mexico tops the 2024 list for states most dependent on the federal government, with a perfect score of 100. Its residents...