Free Republic

Conservatives, not liberals, are best positioned to build—and in many cases, are already doing so. The Democratic Party is in total disarray. Its exhausted leadership has struggled to focus on any single front to concentrate its fire on the new administration, while AOC and Gavin Newsom do their warmups for the 2028 primaries. DOGE cuts and trade wars could give Democrats a launchpad for retaking the House in 2026, but it does not give them a positive platform in any meaningful sense. Perhaps that is why a new book from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson has captured the policy world’s...

In March 2010, Professor Veronique de Rugy of George Mason University released a study about President Obama’s stimulus package. It contained many informational gems: *Public entities received 42 percent of awards under the stimulus package, but received over half of dollars awarded (meaning they got larger chunks of change than private contractors); *Even according to the administration, $285,814.61 was spent to create each job under the stimulus; *On average, Democratic districts received 1.53 times the amount of awards that Republicans were granted, with Democratic districts receiving 2.65 times the amount of stimulus dollars Republican districts received. Democratic districts received 73...

In 1992, the 400th richest person in America made $24 million. In 2007, the 400th richest person in America made $138 million (or $87 million, inflation-adjusted). Now, that almost certainly wasn't the same guy. There's a lot of churn at the top of the money pyramid. In all of the 1990s, only 25% of the Fortunate 400 made more than one appearance. But the overall message is the same. The rich keeping getting richer. According to the IRS, which recently released 2009 data from the 400 richest individual income tax returns, the real runaway growth in wealth has come from...