Free Republic

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that Spain be expelled from NATO over its failure to match the higher defense spending requirement he has engineered. "We had one laggard, it was Spain," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "They have no excuse not to do this, but that's all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO frankly." In June, the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to massively boost defense spending over the next decade under pressure from Trump, who at the time threatened to punish Madrid on trade for resisting the new target of five percent of...

Since Donald Trump's election, some leftists have been trotting out analyses showing that many states that voted for Trump are also states where federal spending plays a disproportionately large role in the statewide economy. In other words, many of those states that talk a lot about states rights and less federal government - it is pointed out - also receive an especially large amount of federal spending in that state. In many cases, this claim is correct. As this mises.org analysis shows, many states within the Trump heartland are what many might call "moocher states" because the residents there - taken...

One in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the government is pushing to enroll more — in many instances working to overcome Americans’ “pride,” self-reliance or failure to see a need. “Our common goal is to increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” the United States Department of Agriculture explains on its “Outreach Toolkits” page. “Our purpose is to ensure that those going through difficult times can feed their families healthy, nutritious food. By working as a team, we can accomplish these goals.” The USDA has adopted a range of strategies and programs designed to bring more people...

This contraception thing … are you operating under the mistaken impression that what we’ve been talking about here is a right to use contraception? Not so. If you listened carefully to the words of the now-famous Sandra Fluke you will have heard that the issue wasn’t whether or not she or her horny classmates could use contraception – but rather who would pay for it. Fluke, you see, was demanding that the pills and condoms be paid for by someone else; and now she’s been joined by aaaaaaacitivists across the country. Somehow in this age of entitlement contraception has become...