Melissa Langsam Braunstein: The Nanny Tax

Hiring a nanny? Prepare for plenty of red tape. There are certain laws everybody breaks.  Everybody jaywalks, nobody respects the speed limit, and nobody pays taxes for the children’s nanny.  But would more parents follow nanny-related laws if the system were more straightforward? As a new mother, I wonder. I had spent several years as a full-time   ... MORE

John Stossel: Can Government Do Anything Well?

No one can be trusted to manage the economy. I’m suspicious of superstitions, like astrology or the belief that “green jobs will fix the environment and the economy.” I understand the appeal of such beliefs. People crave simple answers and want to believe that some higher power determines our fates. The most socially destructive superstition of ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Reducing Black Unemployment

Jeff Jacoby: Freedom Of Association, Even For Augusta Ntl

In America, private clubs are allowed to exist. Now that the 2012 Masters Tournament is over, the hounds of political correctness have stopped baying at Augusta National Golf Club over its membership policies. The gender-grievance industry is moving on, looking for a new target to harangue. Yet as the Augusta National brouhaha recedes, there are  ... MORE

Lucy Steigerwald: Almost Free To Discuss Ending Drug War

Latin American leaders talk drug legalization. Will Obama join in? On Friday in Cartagena, Colombia, leaders from North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean will gather for the Summit of the Americas. There’s no official agenda, nor is there much word as to what definitely will be discussed beyond freer trade and "civil ... MORE

VIDEO: Does the Minimum Wage Hurt Workers?

Stephanie Banchero: School Vouchers Gain Ground

Louisiana is expanding their program.   Louisiana is poised to establish the nation's most expansive system of school choice by adopting a package of vouchers and other tools that would give many parents control over the use of tax dollars to educate their children. The initiative would effectively redefine vouchers, which have typically helped lower- ... MORE

Gary Horne: What? The Magic Words Aren't Working!

The awful truth is beginning to dawn on the left. The magic words on which they have relied to make government grow may not work anymore. The consequences could be catastrophic for progressives. So it isn't hard to understand why the progressives would visualize a Supreme Court ruling against ObamaCare as "unprecedented." The case of Wickard  ... MORE

Steve Chapman: The Minimum Wage Mirage

All workers are not worth $9.80 an hour.    Unemployment remains high; job growth is sluggish; and millions of Americans have given up hope of ever finding work. So how do creative legislators propose to generate new hiring? Easy: Make it more expensive. That's right. In Congress and several states, some lawmakers want to increase the legally mandated      ... MORE

James Poulos: A Permanent Captive To Crony Capitalism

Live by the government, die by the government.   For multibillion-dollar 4G LTE startup Lightsquared, the lesson is simple: live by the government, die by the government. For the rest of us, the unfortunate truth is that a vast and growing swath of the economy is, in effect, permanently captive to crony capitalism. As The Washington  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The War On Medical Marijuana

Isabel Otero: The Ozzie Guillen Political Correct-Mess

The thought police ticket the Marlins' manager.   Lately those in the public eye seem to have reverted back to Cold-War memes where someone, most prominently Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, can call Russia our "No. 1 geopolitical foe." I am not sure if this is nostalgia or a sincere attempt to find something to argue about. This week, it  ... MORE

Mark Whittington: IRS, The Iron Fist To Enforce ObamaCare

Half a billion dollars devoted to the task.     One of the arguments raised against the health care reform law is that few people want their health care run by the same people who run the IRS. But the IRS will enforce the law. According to Newsmax, the Obama administration is transferring $500 million to the IRS to allow the tax agency to begin enforcing tax ... MORE

VIDEO: Obama's War On Medical Marijuana


Reason's Matt Welch explains the federal motivation for prohibition.

Declan McCullagh: Internet Provider Pledges Privacy First

Step aside, AT&T and Verizon.     Nicholas Merrill is planning to revolutionize online privacy with a concept as simple as it is ingenious: a telecommunications provider designed from its inception to shield its customers from surveillance. Merrill, 39, who previously ran a New York-based Internet provider, told CNET that he's raising funds to launch a    ... MORE

Michelle Malkin: Strike Back At The Progressive Appeasers

Stop doing business with them.    Let’s stipulate: Activists on the left are free to exercise their rights of speech and assembly to boycott businesses whose politics they oppose. Conversely, activists on the right are free to exercise the power of their pocketbooks and refrain from supporting businesses that shun their values. So, what are you waiting for ... MORE

Washington Times: A Streetcar Named Debt

Rail projects highlight out-of-control spending priorities.    The District on Friday completed the first phase of testing for its $1.5 billion streetcar project. The nation’s capital joins big cities like Los Angeles in advancing the revival of a transportation option that has been obsolete for more than half a century. The Obama administration is spearheading the  ... MORE

Dunn & Milloy: A Strategy To Stop EPA Science Abuse

Promoting unjustified concerns and panics.    There is a way to stop the EPA's abuse of science and prevent their continued aggressive regulatory activity that destroys the economy and causes harm to Americans. Primarily, we have to hold the EPA to good scientific principles and stop the EPA's overreaching and panic mongering. The method ... MORE

VIDEO: FOX NEWS - Cell Phone Tracking


Private cell phones are routinely tracked without a warrant.

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene


Insights and observations from a brilliant mind. How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on, and stop getting swept away by rhetoric? Why should being in a professional sport exempt anyone from prosecution for advocating deliberate violence? Recent revelations of such advocacy of     ... MORE

Gary North: Tax Burden Of 40 Million Government Workers

A crushing burden for taxpayers.  How many people work for governments in the United States. Let's look at the numbers. The usual estimate of the number of employees of the U.S. government is 2.8 million. The estimate is fake. This does not count military personnel. But most important, it does not count contract workers paid by the federal ... MORE

VIDEO: Why Not Print More Money?

Jeffrey Folks: Is EPA Just Sloppy Or Cooking The Books?

Perverting science to attain a "higher" political end.     After issuing a hastily compiled report last year claiming a direct link between groundwater contamination and hydraulic fracturing at Pavillion, Wyoming, the EPA now admits that it may be wrong. Or, it may be, it was intentionally cooking the books. The only question now is whether the findings ... MORE

Jack Hunter: ObamaCare And The Imaginary Constitution

Lawmakers see Constitution as irrelevant. Sensing that there’s a good chance the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — commonly known as “Obamacare” — will be overturned by the Supreme Court, President Obama said recently: “I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism ... MORE

Matt Welch: Why Big Government Is Offensive

The increasingly invasive activities of the state stinks.    I was hoping to make it through life without hearing television commentators repeatedly utter the word transvaginal. Yet that intimate territory is where the country headed in February, and it is where we will increasingly return as long as the government keeps assuming a greater role in our private ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Media Dishonesty And Race Hustlers

Inflaming passions to push a self-serving agenda.    When NBC's "Today" show played the audio of George Zimmerman's call to a Sanford, Fla., police dispatcher about Trayvon Martin, the editors made him appear to be a racist who says: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black." What Zimmerman actually said was: "This guy looks like he's up to no good  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Technically, That's Illegal


Politicians keep Americans in a perpetual state of lawbreaking.

Debra Saunders: Obama, The Happy Drug Warrior

The president's war against the states. Why is the federal government under President Obama arguably tougher on medical marijuana operations than it was under George W. Bush? That's the question that antidrug-war groups have been asking themselves for months. In 2008, antiprohibitionists thought an Obama administration would not tread on medical-marijuana   ... MORE

Jonah Goldberg: Very Few Of The Above

Obama's energy policy is rather picky.    In his speech before the Newspapers Association of America/American Society of News Editors Wednesday, likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused the president of changing positions to get reelected.  For instance, Romney charged that “as president,” Obama “delayed the development of our ... MORE

VIDEO: Top Cop Chooses Not To See Voter Fraud


Even after stranger given Attorney General Eric Holder's ballot.

John Fund: Why We Need Voter-ID Laws Now

The attorney general can't look away anymore. Attorney General Eric Holder is a staunch opponent of laws requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls to improve ballot security. He calls them “unnecessary” and has blocked their implementation in Texas and South Carolina, citing the fear they would discriminate against minorities. I wonder what    ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Hope For The Dead

Human aspiration needs freedom to flourish. What does freedom have to do with rising from the dead? When America was in its infancy and struggling to find a culture and frustrated with governance from Great Britain, the word most frequently uttered in speeches and pamphlets and letters was not safety, taxes or peace; it was freedom. Two acts of ... MORE

Wendell Cox: California Declares War On Suburbia

State's climate-change goals provide the impetus. It's no secret that California's regulatory and tax climate is driving business investment to other states. California's high cost of living also is driving people away. Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor. ... MORE
 

Daniel Mandel: What Is Judicial Activism?

Striking down an unconstitutional law is doing its duty. Last week, President Barack Obama warned the Supreme Court against the perils of judicial activism. Specifically, he warned against the Court ruling unconstitutional Obamacare. "Ultimately," said the President, "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an     ... MORE

VIDEO: Williams & Sowell - Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly

Sheldon Richman: Is Serfdom An Executive Order Away?

The unchecked powers of the executive.  Sometimes a step back helps to provide perspective on a matter. President Obama provided such a step with his March 16 Executive Order—National Defense Resources Preparedness. In it we see in detail how completely the government may control our lives—euphemistically called the “industrial and    ... MORE

Ben Stein: Our Presidential Know Nothing

Besides the Constitution, what else doesn't he know? Here, in outline form, is why the pronouncements from President Barack Obama, warning the Supreme Court to not overturn Obamacare. are so chilling: 1. The President supposedly went to Harvard Law School, graduated from same, was Law Review President of the Harvard Law Review at  ... MORE

VIDEO: Does Government Spending Create Growth?

Nick Schulz: Minimum Wage, Maximum Stupidity

Why Congress should not raise minimum wage.  When economic times are tough, it’s tempting to want to push for an increase in the minimum wage. Supporters see it as giving the deserving poor a badly needed raise. If we only mandate that employers raise the pay floor for their employees, those who earn the least will see a nice pay bump. ... MORE

Victor Davis Hanson: Freedom Or Fairness In 2012?

A conflict of visions.   This should prove to be an ideological election about the economy. Not all campaigns are so clear-cut. Sometimes moderate Republicans raise taxes (as George H. W. Bush did); at other times, pragmatic Democrats cut spending (as Bill Clinton did). But this year, Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, will run an ideological ... MORE