The Accounting Trick That Will Haunt Public Pensions

Encouragement for riskier investments. State and local government employee pensions around the country are significantly underfunded. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which is the closest thing that comes to a regulator of public pensions, tells them, through its accounting rules, that the single best thing pensions can do to     ... MORE

Rich Lowry: The Party Of Government

Democrats have one true allegiance.     At the Democratic National Convention, the Charlotte host committee knew its audience. “Government,” the narrator says in a video produced by the committee for the opening of the convention, “is the only thing we all belong to.” The Obama campaign quickly disavowed the video. But it captured all  ... MORE

VIDEO: Johnny Carson Show - Interview with Ayn Rand

Investors.com: Better Off? Let's Count The Ways We're Not

No, the country is not making slow progress.      All weekend, Democratic party leaders kept fumbling their answer to a simple question: Are we better off than we were four years ago? There's a good reason for that: We're not. It wasn't until Monday that the campaign was able to figure out how to answer the question, with Obama's deputy campaign   ... MORE

Ramesh Ponnuru: Obama Vs. The Constitution

The rule of law is on the ballot.       There were warning signs about President Obama’s fealty to the Constitution even before he took the oath of office. As a senator he had voted against the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, arguing that Roberts was deficient in the “empathy” required for the position. In a speech during his  ... MORE

VIDEO: Land of The Freebies, Home of the Enslaved

Zack Colman: Obama, EPA Move Toward Cap-And-Trade

Pushing up fuel costs. President Obama’s use of executive authority and his Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) interpretation of existing laws might have laid the groundwork for renewed cap-and-trade efforts, political experts said Wednesday. The courts have approved many of the EPA’s pollution regulations, giving Obama license to propose new rules, former EPA Administrator Carol Browner said during a Politico-hosted panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.... MORE

Neal Boortz: The 'Risk' Of Being Poor

Please stand back.   I’ve been waiting for day to say this; waiting to calm down enough that my keystrokes won’t break the keyboard. I heard some lady say something on TV, and seldom have I heard a more idiotic statement from someone in a position to know better … I mean this is so magnificently ignorant – even stupid – that if this woman’s ignorance were   ... MORE

Steve Chapman: Gas Prices And Political Mythology

Don't count on political lip service.   If there is any issue you can be sure will come up during a presidential election campaign, it's gasoline prices. They are simple, important and plainly visible to anyone who drives. They're the classic pocketbook issue: When prices are low or at least falling, voters somehow feel better than when prices are high or rising.   ... MORE

John Stossel: What I Ask Of Romney And Obama

Free people should be left alone by government. The Republican Convention ended on the theme "Believe in America." That sounded nice, but it was just another platitude. Mitt Romney's speech was filled with platitudes: "We will honor America's democratic ideals. ... We're united to preserve liberty." Please. Liberals and conservatives have real     ... MORE

VIDEO: Richard Bernstein - Multiculturalism & Diversity

Barry Farber: The 'Polls' That Tell The Real Story

Why Obama loses handily.    A few weeks ago, I predicted an Obama defeat by a wide margin. Many of you responded with typical scorn and rage. Not all of you. Some of you reacted with pity – and one or two of you, devoid of political passion, even offered to give me the medication such a dire condition obviously required. Now that my out-on-a-limb lunge ... MORE

CNN Fact Check: About Those 4.5 Million New Jobs ...

Dems neglect to mention 5 million jobs lost.   Anyone watching the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night heard the number 4.5 million several times. "Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action, and now we've seen 4.5 million new jobs," San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the party's keynote     ... MORE

VIDEO: The Truth Behind Teachers Unions

Amy Payne: $16,000,000,000,000

Debt increases 50 percent under Obama.     Yesterday, the U.S. national debt passed $16 trillion. On President Barack Obama’s watch, the debt has increased by 50 percent, as campaign promise after campaign promise has drowned in a sea of federal spending. When he was running for President, Obama condemned George W. Bush for adding $4 trillion  ... MORE

Romney And Obama Foolishly Ignore The War On Drugs

by Ted Galen Carpenter.      One of the least discussed issues in the presidential campaign is the war on drugs. That's unfortunate, because that crusade has been an expensive catastrophe both domestically and internationally. During the decades since Richard Nixon declared a "war" on illegal drugs in 1971, the United States has spent nearly one    ... MORE

Washington Times: Obama's Internet Tax

FCC should not impose multibillion-dollar tax the web.    The government doesn’t handle technology well. When Uncle Sam comes into contact with something new, his first instinct is to impose familiar regulations and taxes regardless of whether doing so makes any sense. So it’s no surprise the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: 'Bait And Switch' Taxes

The numbers don't lie.   We have heard many times from President Barack Obama how he plans to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires," but not on the middle class. Apparently, if you don't happen to be a millionaire or billionaire, you don't have to worry. But the numbers say otherwise -- and say so big time. The actual tax increase pans being   ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas DiLorenzo - The FDR Myth

Peter Schiff: The Real Fiscal Cliff

Low interest rates will rise.   As we head toward the end of the year, the media’s fixation with the congressionally imposed “fiscal cliff” will reach a fever pitch and no doubt become a major factor in the presidential campaign. The danger is supposed to arise from the simultaneous implementation of $2 trillion in automatic spending “cuts”   ... MORE

Amy Payne: Union Money In Elections

Big money in politics? Look for the union label.    This election year, millions of Americans will donate to the political candidates and initiatives of their choice at the local, state, and federal levels. But for unionized workers, union dues come out of their paychecks and go to political causes—and they aren’t consulted on where that money  ... MORE

VIDEO: The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws

Alan Bjerga: The Welfare State Is A Great Growth Industry

Food-stamp use climbs to record.    Food-stamp use reached a record 46.7 million people in June, the government said, as Democrats prepare to nominate President Barack Obama for a second term with the economy as a chief issue in the campaign. Participation was up 0.4 percent from May and 3.3 percent higher than a year earlier    ... MORE

Christopher Elliott: Democrats, Republicans And The TSA

Like it or not, TSA is an election year issue.  American voters, who have felt powerless against the allegedly invasive screening methods used by an expanding TSA, got an unexpected gift from a very unexpected place last week. At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., the party adopted a platform that included a pledge to reform the TSA.    ... MORE

King Obama Issues Major 'Green Energy' Executive Order

by Becket Adams.   Between conservatives focusing all their attention on the successes/failures of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and the left having a meltdown over the supposed “racism” and unprecedented disrespect of Clint Eastwood’s “Empty Chair” routine, little attention has been given to an executive order issued last    ... MORE

The Silent But Deadly War On Drugs

by Gretchen Burns Bergman. The War on Drugs, which began the year that my first son was born, has wreaked havoc on our families for over 40 years, because it isn't really a war against drugs. It is a war against our own people, and it has stealthily eaten away at the fabric of our lives for decades. These punitive and discriminatory drug war strategies      ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Rising Cost Of College

Walter E Williams: Upward Mobility Barriers

Effects of restrictive economic restrictions and licensing.  Let's pretend that we have the political guts to expand economic opportunities for people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. What vested interests should be attacked, and what economic regulations should be targeted for elimination? It doesn't take a lot of money to become  ... MORE

Theo Caldwell: Police-State Conventions

Republicans need to rethink domestic security.   “They know better than we do.” This was the comment of a Republican attendee, surveying the massive security surrounding us at the GOP Convention in Tampa. What began as a mumbled musing about the militarization of an American metropolis settled into a calm self-assurance that,   ... MORE

VIDEO: GREEN BEAM AGAINST WARRANTLESS SEARCHES

Kenneth Gould: The High Cost Of College

An economic explanation. Despite good intentions, government has reduced price competition; as a result, prices have risen much faster than they otherwise would. Many news articles are starting to note that middle and upper-middle class parents are having trouble paying for their children’s college educations. Most of these articles see this  ... MORE

Steve Conover: 'Top Down' Vs. 'Bottom Up'

“Top-down economics” is a hijacked phrase.    Objectively, it should be the label assigned to rule-of-czar capitalism steered by government officials. Instead, campaign rhetoric has been assigning it to rule-of-law capitalism driven by consumers and entrepreneurs—supposedly a system steered by the already-rich, in which money gradually    ... MORE

Star Parker: Only Issue Now Facing Americans Is Freedom

Keeping it simple. The political parties throw a lot of glitz at us with their made-for-TV spectaculars, which we call conventions. But the bottom line defining the choice facing Americans this year is stark and clear, and these conventions provide no new insights or information. If you think we’re struggling because we don’t have enough  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Obama's Dreams

The primary danger of confident ignorance. After reading Barack Obama's book "Dreams from My Father," it became painfully clear that he has not been searching for the truth, because he assumed from an early age that he had already found the truth — and now it was just a question of filling in the details and deciding how to change things. Obama did not   ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - ObamaCare Nullification

Steven Greenhut: Police Unions Bullies Cross Line

To serve, protect, embarrass and extort.   California city officials typically spare police officers even modest reductions in the pay and pension packages that are a main source of local budget problems, even when the other alternatives are cuts in public services or even municipal bankruptcy. The common explanation is politicians are afraid of the  ... MORE

The Condensed Liberal Handbook Of Racial Code Words

by Michelle Malkin.   Thumper the Rabbit’s parents always taught him, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” If the left’s self-appointed Omniscient Diviners of True Meaning have their way, conservatives in the public square won’t be left with anything at all to say. Ever. It’s a treacherous business exercising your freedom of   ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny of the Month (August 2012)

Individualism, Collectivism And Other Murky Labels

by Sheldon Richman.   Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist.    ... MORE

Robert Zubrin: The Green War On Poor

Democrats used to care about poor and working people. In a nearly full-page op-ed appearing in the business section of the August 25 New York Times, Cornell professor Robert H. Frank lays out the new green agenda for tax policy. According to Professor Frank, stopping global warming may require carbon taxes of about $300 per ton of carbon    ... MORE