A story by Matthew Wald in the New York Times on January 9th demonstrates the poverty of governmental attempts to pick “winners” in the realm of green technologies, the wasteful subsidy programs supporting that policy goal and the huge costs
An article in a recent issue of The Economist (“Sweet Land of Subsidy,” December 3rd to 9th, 2011, p. 42) tells the story of Iuka, Mississippi, a small community (2000 pop. 3,059) in Tishomingo County, where the local economic development
The world price of crude oil has been on a roller coaster lately, gyrating above and below $100 a barrel. Several weeks ago, prices at the pump reached $5 a gallon in some places but seem to have settled down,
Hard on the heels of his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in which he jawboned the owners of private businesses to increase hiring in return for federal tax breaks and other subsidies, President Obama has included in his
President Obama, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, was right to focus on the challenges the United States faces as domestic companies try to compete with low-cost global competitors. But he was wrong to suggest that the
According to a Poll Position survey conducted in late October, 45 percent of Americans said “No” when asked whether the U.S. government should stop helping to fund NPR; 39 percent said “Yes.” Only those respondents identifying themselves as Republicans favored,
Environmental Protection Agency officials Wednesday provided power companies and states with new guidance on EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gases. A D.C. lobbyist for two major power companies told Bloomberg News that “the energy and manufacturing sectors will essentially be
Economists and pundits, who contend that the Federal Reserve System has little room to maneuver in using monetary policy to jump-start our anemic economy, often have claimed that America is mired in a Keynesian “liquidity trap”, a situation in which
The United States never was intended to be a democracy, but rather a compound republic delegating clearly enumerated powers to the federal government and creating a masterfully designed system of checks and balances amongst its three branches meant to limit
Although President Obama’s executive order imposing a six-month moratorium on drilling for crude oil and natural gas in ultra-deep waters within the 200-mile territorial limit recognized by international law has at least temporarily been suspended by a federal district judge,
Article I, section 2, of the Constitution requires the populations of the various states to be enumerated every 10 years. The first such census was conducted in 1790; its main purpose was to apportion seats in the House of Representatives