Free Republic

A major California McDonald’s franchisee is speaking out against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) new minimum wage law that will force fast food businesses to pay workers at least $20 per hour, saying menu items would become “unaffordable” if scaled to the increased wages. Kerri Harper-Howie, a Los Angeles-based franchisee who owns 21 McDonald’s locations across the state with her sister, says her profits will tank while trying to keep up with the guidelines from the California Fast Food Council, which Newsom created in 2023.

Researchers say that in 2022, a record half of people in the United States renting a place to live used a massive chunk of their income for rent and utilities. In its article, published Thursday, NPR cited a recent report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University regarding the desperate situation that is hurting people across the nation. The center’s report found that in 2022, “as rents spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, a record half of U.S. renters paid more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities. Nearly half of those people were severely cost-burdened,...

If a bill banning the use of fossil fuels in the creation of green energy projects were to become law, it would be the end of renewable energy. There’s no feasible way to manufacture and transport wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles without fossil fuels. New York state Sen. George Borrello, R-Wyoming County, has introduced a bill to require that all wind turbines, solar collectors and infrastructure for producing green energy be manufactured and constructed without the use of fossil fuels. His bill would also apply to the manufacture and distribution of electric vehicles. If the bill were to...

Siemens Energy announced Thursday that it will be undergoing a technical review after it was found that up to 30% of its wind turbines could have faulty components, according to statements made by the company. Siemens Energy, an international energy company that seeks to “decarbonize global energy systems,” announced that it is withdrawing its profit guidance for the year after subsidiary Siemens Gamesa found that there was a “substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components.” The company believes that between 15% and 30% of its installed fleets are suffering from component failures, Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Gamesa,...

The blight on the landscape of abandoned and decommissioned wind turbines stimulated Colorado's U.S. Reps. Ken Buck, Doug Lamborn and Harriet Hageman, Wyoming, to introduce the Production Tax Credit Reform Act. According to a press release, the bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to require energy companies remove decommissioned wind turbines from leased land as a condition of receiving federal tax credits. Currently energy companies are not obligated to remove wind turbines from leased land once they are decommissioned, putting the onus on landowners — typically farmers and ranchers — to remove the turbines. According to the United States Geological...

Make electricity unreliable and unaffordable and you’ll soon turn your economy to ashes. Australia is on the brink of a major recession, and energy costs are front and centre. Power prices will jump by 25 to 30% next month following the closure of yet another perfectly operable 2,000MW coal-fired power plant. Since the Federal Government’s Renewable Energy Target was ramped up by the Labor government in 2010, Australians have been hit with double-digit percentage increases in their power bills every year since. Households are being hammered by rising interest rates and power bills that they simply cannot afford. Then there...

It should be the obligation of older citizens to try to improve the prospects for their successors. But, here in California, as seen in a new report issued by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, we seem to have adopted an agenda designed to make things tougher for them.Millennials everywhere face many challenges. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that, even when working full-time, they earn $2,000 less than the same age group made in 1980. Nationwide, a millennial with a college degree and college debt, according to a recent analysis of Federal Reserve data, earns about the same as...

There is no other way to rebuild the house that was torn down by the Unaffordable Care Act. In my commentary this past Sunday, I broadly explained why there is no before the Unaffordable Care Act to go back to. Maybe it was too broad, because some Senators and House Republicans are still saying the American Health Care Act does not go far enough on delivering what was promised to the American people. Republicans promised to repeal the UCA, but they did not say how. The House Republicans came up with a three-phase approach to get as much of the...

Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with GOP leadership today on the Hill and told the public that step one of Trump’s presidency will be to make good on a campaign promise to repeal President Obama’s flailing Affordable Care Act. While we have dissected the many strategies that Republicans can take in crafting their own plan, let’s take a look at three major reasons why ObamaCare failed the American people. 1. Skyrocketing costs: At no point in time did the $3-trillion-a-year ObamaCare plan work in favor of controlling the soaring health care costs in our country. While middle-class consumers were hit...

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is a bit apoplectic that the left, which has always wanted single-payer health care, is still pushing for single-payer health care. "Why," he frets, "do we hear not just conservatives but also many progressives trashing President Obama's biggest policy achievement?" He goes on to say, "A lot of what I hear from the left is not so much a complaint about how the reform falls short as outrage that private insurers get to play any role. The idea seems to be that any role for the profit motive taints the whole effort." Krugman says...

Health insurers are proposing to raise Obamacare rates more than in the past - some by more than 70 percent - now that they are finally equipped with all the information they need to price those plans. Plans wanting to raise rates by at least 10 percent next year posted the proposed increase online Monday, as required by the 2010 healthcare law. Insurers are allowed to raise rates each year, but they must publish significant increases ahead of time. Insurers have sold plans in the law's new insurance marketplaces for two years in a row. But the difference in 2016...

North Carolina's largest health insurer says high costs are forcing it to seek higher premium increases than expected. Two months ago, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina said it wanted to raise rates by an average of almost 26 percent in January 2016. But now it's seeking an average 35 percent higher premium for insurance sold under Obamacare. North Carolina is not the only state facing steep raises. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation says dozens of health insurers across the country are increasing premiums well beyond 10 percent for next year.

During debates and speeches, politicians often bring up the financial burden that’s placed on the middle class. We talk about the middle class as though they are this singular entity, who used to thrive until they underwent persecution by the evil 1%. But, realistically speaking, the middle class and the 99% are not really synonymous. So, who are the middle class? In its discussion of historical middle class societies, The Economist reports, “Their members are neither rich nor poor but somewhere in-between…’Middle-class’ describes an income category but also a set of attitudes…An essential characteristic is the possession of a reasonable...

1. Vacations 2. New vehicles 3. To pay off debt 4. Emergency savings 5. Retirement savings 6. Medical care 7. Dental work

**SNIP** Given that the authors of Obamacare had a very specific idea in mind for what constitutes affordable insurance, the American Health Policy Institute is out with a new study that asks a very interesting question: Does Obamacare meet its own standards for affordability? The answer is no. Here are a couple of the key findings from AHPI's study: Even now, under the Affordable Care Act’s own definition, over 105 million Americans will find plans in the ACA’s [Affordable Care Act's] public exchanges to be “unaffordable” when both premiums and deductibles are taken into account. Over 13 million employees with...

On November 4, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) announced that it intends to close a perceived “loophole” in health care reform. This so-called loophole allows employers to offer low cost health plans that don’t cover inpatient hospitalization services or physician services (or both). If that coverage were treated as “minimum value” coverage, then employers could avoid all pay-or-play penalties with low cost coverage and covered individuals would not be able to benefit from premium assistance or subsidies in the health insurance Marketplace. What does this IRS Notice Mean? Once this new rule is final, it means that Non-Hospital/Non-Physician Services...

The fee would pay for half of the annual operating costs of Connect for Health Colorado, the state Obamacare exchange, according to Health News Colorado. The exchange’s latest financial plan comes soon after its oversight board rejected a proposal to hike fees on those who use the website from 1.4 percent to 1.7 percent. Connect for Health Colorado staff has said the increase was needed to keep it solvent. Board members said staff should look at cutting expenses before raising fees, and many had the same reaction to the proposed $13 million fee, which is being called a “general market health insurer assessment.” Others call it...

There are times when the master politician has to be a master illusionist. And there are too many times when he doesn't fool anybody, perhaps not even himself, and some little Toto reveals the Great and Powerful Oz as just another little man behind the curtain. And the illusion can no longer fool even the long illusioned. Despite a beautiful stage setting like the Rose Garden at the White House, the perfect if artificial lighting, and the usual supporting cast of intellectual munchkins in the merry old land of Washington, singing, dancing, prancing and applauding all around. For no matter...

Last week, Moody’s rating agency lowered the outlook for health insurers from stable to negative, blaming Obamacare. Few Americans will shed tears for insurance companies. But the Moody’s announcement is a warning sign to taxpayers. They’ll be getting clobbered. Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses incurred selling Obamacare exchange plans through 2016. The bailout is designed to conceal the failure of the president’s signature health law until he is out of office. No one in the Obama administration talked up the advantages of bailing out insurers. It was...

It's time for your latest Obamacare update, and it will come as no surprise to you that things are not getting any prettier for this monstrosity. Let's just take a jog down Obamacare Avenue and see what is popping out at us from the storefronts this week. Roll down your windows so you can get a clearer look: --Obamacare devotees are still clinging to the idea that this law will expand coverage, but the most recent data indicate that it may fall short of this goal, too, just as it has failed in every other respect. Forbes reports that instead...