Standards.

Here’s all you need to know, really: Obama to deliver statement on IRS mess at 6pm ET, will feign outrage on behalf of conservative groups he’s demonized for 5 years. — Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 15, 2013 While we wait, let’s chew on some of the other claims of IRS bias out there. I’m leery [...]

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The effects of government intervention.

Wages are down.  Jobs are stagnant.  The economy hasn’t generated the kind of growth that should fuel consumer spending.  Yet we are seeing consumer confidence and spending numbers that belie the normal metrics that measure economic health.  According to US News’ Rick Newman, economists suspect that an underground economy has begun to bypass the normal [...]

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Knowing your audience.

There have been reports that the bipartisan group of senators working on an immigration plan have reached an agreement on a pathway to legal status to the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants, but Republicans dodged the issue earlier this week, insisting that there’s still plenty of work to be done before they’re ready to roll [...]

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Pour some sugar on me.

While the Obama administration has been working overtime to push their sequestration-scaremongering campaign, all about how $85 billion in cuts means that we won’t be able to afford White House tours or as many border patrol agents, it is amazing to me that stuff like this somehow never even gets a mention. Hey, how about [...]

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Yes.

There is no sector of the American economy that has been so systematically and unnecessarily coddled for so long as agriculture. Stretching back to the 1800s, the federal government has been steadily piling on a hugely complex network of subsidies, payouts, grants, insurances, exemptions, regulations, loan programs, tariffs, production controls, protections, and who even knows [...]

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I only laugh to keep from weeping.

This perfectly encapsulates one of the many prices we are all now collectively paying for an ever-expanding and intrusive federal bureaucracy: That it can now be more worthwhile for businesses to divert serious time, money, and resources into pursuing “political intelligence” at the opportunity cost of dedicating those efforts to providing a better, more efficient, [...]

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Who could've seen this coming?

Throughout his perpetual campaigning, President Obama has made a big point about being the champion of students and young people in helping to make college more accessible and affordable and helping out with student debt — and yet, miraculously, here we are with student-loan debt and college tuition prices both quickly ballooning, and no end [...]

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Checks and balances.

On Monday, the Supreme Court conspicuously declined to review a case that will now stand in the favor of growers who want to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture California Table Grape Commission over grapevine patents — to which I say, good. McClatchy reports: In a decision noteworthy for farmers nationwide, the high court declined [...]

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The absence of a mastermind.

Based on the classic essay by Leonard Read, a beautiful production from the Competitive Enterprise Institute explaining how the market works to create a simple pencil: The market is truly an amazing thing. Much of the time, as illustrated by the story of the pencil, it functions so well that we can get away with [...]

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Big government has got to go.

There are a fair few issues over which I would heartily disagree with longtime Rep. Ron Paul, but there are also a heck of a lot on which I most vociferously would agree: Limited government, sticking to the Constitution, federalism, free markets, fiscal solvency, classical liberalism, free speech; he knows how to talk a great [...]

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Truth bomb.

Because it’s a bit of a slow-ish day and because the importance of encouraging robust economic growth in the face of our current global crises cannot be understated, here’s former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with a solo (click on the image to watch via RCP). She gets it, emphasis mine: Because always in international [...]

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Unintended consequences.

When allowed to function properly, the free market works very smoothly in bringing people the goods and services they want, in the amount that they want them, and for the price at which they value them. As much as people don’t like hearing it, the laws of supply and demand are no less vital in [...]

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What the what?

In an interview with MSNBC this morning, President Obama owned up to some vague plans to grow the federal bureaucracy even more by creating a new “secretary of business” position in the executive branch. Via The Hill: In an interview with MSNBC, the president said he wants to consolidate a number of business and trade-related [...]

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Pigs flying?

Lately, there has been a kind of mock-panic at the thought of a bacon shortage, driven by higher feed costs and a drought throughout the Midwest.  However, the effect of these conditions hasn’t been a shortage, but rather higher prices passed on to consumers — which might make bacon less accessible, but doesn’t create a [...]

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A "physical nexus"

Free market capitalism makes for a rough battlefield at times, and in the area of online sales the competition can be intense. Now it looks like one of the top sellers, eBay, will seek to go head to head with Amazon in terms of fast delivery for late shoppers as the holidays approach. eBay has [...]

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State of the state

Last month we noted that Michigan had joined the list of states where governors and legislatures were wrestling with the issue of lost tax revenue through internet sales. (The “Amazon tax” concept, as it’s come to be known.) Now yet another voice has jumped into the debate and it comes from one of the rising [...]

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A RINO among rhinos.

Newt Gingrich has made visiting local zoos a staple of his campaign touring — no doubt he feels he’s in his natural wonkish habitat posing for photo ops amongst the flora and fauna. This morning in North Carolina, he took his final donor-funded trip to the zoo with the press — NBC’s Andrew Rafferty provided [...]

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Solutions.

Ever since Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress, Republicans have repeated the slogan, “Repeal and replace.” Yet, the “replace” element of that piece has never been particularly clear. What, exactly, is the Republican plan for health care reform? As a conservative, it seems to me perfectly legitimate to just say, “Repeal.” It’s not necessarily the role [...]

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One rule to bind them all

Last year we talked about the simmering battle brewing over the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would set the stage for having states collect sales taxes from internet marketers such as Amazon. Honestly, given that this is, in general, a move which includes the phrase “more taxes,” I initially expected a lot more pushback on it [...]

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