Free Republic

Bernie Sanders reveals his new government programs to be funded by new taxes, massive lawsuits, military cuts Bernie Sanders unexpectedly released a fact-sheet Monday night explaining that he'd pay for his sweeping new government programs through new taxes and massive lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, as well as by slashing spending on the military, among other methods. The move sought to head off complaints from Republicans and some rival Democrats that his plans were economically unrealistic, especially after a head-turning CBS News interview in which the frustrated Vermont senator said he couldn't "rattle off to you every nickel and...

Of all the depressing facts about the once great City of Detroit, this to me is the most upsetting: In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000. Government -- federal, state, and local -- made this happen. I know this from experience. Government corrupted the Detroit work force. That corruption drove away my company too. Until 1984, I was a business owner in the city, employing about 20. I moved my business 60 miles away. I didn't want to leave, but I was, in effect, forced to. Many think that crime spurred...

For many, the ability to deal with a complex issue like universal health care insurance reform equates to listening repeatedly, to the same song over and over. For most of us, after a while you get tired of listening and turn it off. This is precisely what's happening to the universal health care debate, America's public is tuning out. Obama knows this, and will thus capitalize on a sleepy public, who's current behavior will allow him and his supporters to enact universal health care reforms, with unfavorable results for most of us.

Speaking to a town hall of mostly ObamaCare supporters on August 11, 2009, the President compared the money-losing U.S. Post Office as an example of how a government-run program can compete with private enterprise. Oops!

Hundreds of birds that dropped dead on Somerset County cars, porches and snow-covered lawns, alarming residents over the weekend, were all of a rather foul breed of fowl -- the notorious European starling, which the United States Department of Agriculture killed on purpose…. Yesterday, the USDA acknowledged a few mistakes of its own in spreading the word in the area around a Princeton Township farm, where it applied a pesticide Friday to kill 3,000 to 5,000 starlings plaguing a livestock farmer. "It was raining dead birds," said Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine….

A New Mexico legislator came to me with this problem. Often, he said, constituents would seek his support for some ill-advised expenditure of state funds for “programs” that would supposedly “'create jobs.” The legislator knew instinctively that most of these programs were worthless, but how to argue that point was his problem There's a parable in economics called the “broken window fallacy.” Suppose that you break your window, and it costs you $30 to have it repaired. The $30 creates a small job for the person who repairs it and a few dollars for the glassmaker. So would a program...

Bill Cosby’s status as sage is confirmed by the release of his new book, co-authored with Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School, Come On People: On The Path From Victims to Victors. Cosby and Poussaint remind us that black America’s hope for escape from abysmal self-destruction is moral formation — not government programs or blaming white people.  This book will arouse needed controversy as it challenges the victim mentality often promulgated by men like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, and other black liberal elites. Cosby and Poussaint are direct, candid, and engender a spirit of urgency. We...

It was a signature plan of Bill Clinton's presidency: Attack the rising crime rates of the early 1990s by putting 100,000 more cops on America's streets. Ten years later, the grant program known as COPS (for Community Oriented Policing Services) has given $10 billion to help more than 12,000 police agencies hire and reassign officers. Politicians and police chiefs across the nation have said that COPS is a big reason for the sharp decline in crime rates that began in the late 1990s. But now, with the largest buildup of local law enforcement in U.S. history winding down, a lessflattering...

Kerry is on TV right now giving a "foreign policy speech". He is complaining about the cost of the Iraq war and that other countries are not paying enough of the cost. He said that in Gulf War I, other countries paid 95% of the cost of the war. Thus the US only paid 5% of the costs. My question, is this true?

New Book on the Federal Government regarding its responsibility to its citizens in the implementation of programs for the same.

Tooth decay is the single most common chronic disease among Idaho children, but many families earn too much money to qualify for government assistance and still can't afford dental coverage for their kids. "I got an application in today -- they made $2,000 more than what CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) would allow, so they're just kind of stuck in the middle," said Kathy Ellis, Idaho coordinator of the Caring Foundation for Children. The Caring Foundation, administered by the health insurer Regence BlueShield of Idaho, gives kids from that middle no-insurance zone free dental care, up to $1,000 worth for...

Miami's Community Redevelopment Agency gave a little-known painter about $24,000 in cash and subsidies over a one-year period as part of an obscure ''Artist-in-Residence'' program tailor-made for him, not long before negotiating a deal to buy his late father's church. Ernest King, an often-homeless street artist with a felony arrest record, received food vouchers, clothing allowances, and even hundreds of dollars for paintings paid by Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. and then-CRA Director Annette Lewis, who were then reimbursed by the CRA, records from the city's finance department show. Taxpayer payout to King from the CRA: $11,000 -- rent $7,860...

AUSTIN -- Archbishop Patrick Flores and other religious leaders are mounting a late attack on the new state budget plan, saying they're outraged that Gov. Rick Perry and lawmakers are picking on children, the elderly and mentally ill to balance a budget. "If they cut the budget and they cut the services, people are going to be in a much more horrible, worse condition," said Flores, archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Antonio. Flores was bishop of the El Paso diocese in 1978-79. State lawmakers are expected to vote this weekend on a final $118 billion budget. Budget writers...

<p>Senior systems analyst Patricia Fluno was shocked when she found out last summer that she and 11 colleagues in the Lake Mary (Fla.) offices of Siemens (SI ) were being replaced by techies brought in by Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest information-technology (IT) consulting firm. Fluno, 53, couldn't understand how Tata and Siemens could bring Indian workers into the U.S.</p>

For years now, Americans have been growing fatter. Studies show that the poor are even more likely than the average person to be obese. Food stamps and other federal meal programs, he said, were launched at a time when hunger was a serious threat to the underprivileged. Today most of the poor have no problem getting enough to eat, according to Besharov. In spite of the fact that millions of Americans have stopped receiving public assistance, the government spent $40 billion on food programs last year, more than ever before. Besharov said that how much people eat is directly connected...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Over the last 25 years, outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to subsidized school lunches sickened tens of thousands of students and school staff, sent hundreds to the hospital and caused one death, according to a new report. Currently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends about $7 billion annually to provide food or funding for more than 33 million lunches and breakfasts served daily to American schoolchildren. "However, USDA directly provides only a small percentage of food served in schools," according to lead author Dr. Nicholas A. Daniels of the University of California, San Francisco,...

WASHINGTON, July 12 (UPI) -- There is a reason why new government programs seem to proliferate, and why existing programs -- even bad ones -- can be as hard to kill as Count Dracula. It is set up that way on purpose using a very specific technique, according to Charlotte Twight, who spoke at a forum at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. on July 11. "The reality is that today, the government seems to grow, even when the public doesn't want it to grow, and seldom shrinks, even when the public would prefer it to shrink," said Twight. As...

Dear Reader: I am taking the unusual step in sending this editorial comment to all of our e-newsletter subscribers because there is an issue before Congress that I feel is so important that it needs you to write letters to get it to pass Several weeks ago I was invited to an important briefing at the White House in which President Bush outlined the CARE Act (Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment) which would put faith-based ministries on an equal footing for government programs for helping the homeless and doing other social programs for which secular organizations now get funding. The...