Free Republic

Gasoline prices are on their way up again. So too is the ire of gasoline purchasers who skipped Econ 101 in school...

California's tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, is heavy. The Register reported that per-person state and local taxes, fees, licenses and "intergovernmental revenue" amount to $8,634, ranking California 13th-highest among the states. California businesses fare worse, the Tax Foundation said, ranking 48th in tax climate, based on corporate, income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes. What's unsaid is the effect on individuals of extremely high corporate taxes. Companies not driven out of state or out of business are less likely to hire or expand, more likely to contract and struggle to provide for current employees...

The logic of the Obama Administration is that out of its sense of fairness, it will provide what America lacks. Not merely a chicken in every pot, but a condom, an insurance plan and any other convenience of modern life needed by those who otherwise might have to do without – or, perish the thought, have to fend for themselves. It’s quite incidental to the Equalizer-in-Chief that these acts of governmental “fairness” to balance all of life’s scales of inequity must come at someone’s expense, which tilts another scale out of balance. But, as we said, that’s incidental...

... A child’s mother sent the kid, a preschooler mind you, to school with a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice. Is there any conceivable grounds here for government intervention? No? Think again. Bauer reports that the lunch from home “failed the mandatory lunch inspection”...

Nearly half of U.S. households receive government benefits. We’ve reached record highs of those relying on government-paid benefits, which is to say, benefits paid for by taxpayers, which is another way of saying redistributed wealth. Which is another way of saying socialism....

Won’t those tax-subsidized electric cars solve heaps of problems? Not exactly. There are two examples that run against the politically correct grain: . . .

President Barack Obama has been hammered lately over his health mandate that every employer must provide insurance coverage for contraception, abortifacients and even sterilization, things many religious people find to be sinful, according to the tenets of their faith. As our editorial today points out, this is an egregious violation of First Amendment guarantees to the exercise of religious beliefs when the state demands people act against their beliefs. The White House today has suggested a compromise, which is transparently absurd...

Thomas Jefferson said: "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." The third president wasn't Catholic and, arguably, probably not Christian. But he understood that for the government to compel people to pay for something they find morally repugnant is "sinful and tyrannical." The 44th president clearly thinks otherwise...

Here’s a mind-boggling explanation of how the state government, setting out to manipulate private manufacturers into making electric cars, gets so tangled up in its special treatment for special constituents that its bureaucratic web ends up working against itself. The California Air Resources Board, second only to the federal EPA in government heavy-handedness, adopted rules ostensibly to cut down on smog and, of course, global warming. Tucked into the folds of this bureaucratic diktat is a provision that some call “a loophole.” Yes, we’re as shocked as you to find that the dictatorial among us would allow for exceptions to...

The Republican establishment is having a bad week. It’s darling Mitt “Arnold Schwarzenegger/Nelson Rockefeller” Romney, whose main virtue has been said to be his electability, stumbled big time by losing all three contests this week to Rick Santorum, he of no organization and less money. Now comes this quite troubling news out of Ohio, at least if you’re from the Mitt-Arnold-Nelson wing of the party: Head to head against President Barack Obama, Romney comes in second, 45 percent to 41 percent, according to Rasmussen Reports. . .

Mitt Romney is supposed to be the only Republican who can defeat Barack Obama, a boast that is belied by his trailing of Obama in the polls. The assumption is that the muddled middle, those folks with less strident ideology who are more open to compromise, will be the deciding factor in November. As we used to say in the neighborhood, “Oh yeah?” We offer this advice . . .

Two sweeping public employee pension reform measures won’t be placed on the November ballot, as their backers couldn’t raise the $2 million or so to mount petition drives for either, it was announced today. And if you think that’s bad, consider the fact that three huge tax increase measures are likely to be on the ballot, as our editorial today notes...

Rick Santorum may have swept all three states Tuesday in the latest Republican presidential contests, but the big winner might have been Democratic President Barack Obama...

Let’s stipulate that this is purely conjecture. OK. But can you remember or find an instance in the history of the United States when voters changed presidents during a war? Go ahead and look it up. No, LBJ and Vietnam didn’t meet that test. He quit. He wasn’t voted out...

Tuesday’s balloting had to deflate the Romney campaign as Rick Santorum, who now has won more states than Mitt, swept all three elections in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. Even Ron Paul beat Romney in Minnesota – by 10 points. Romney, whom nearly everyone was crowning nominee after his decisive Florida victory, clearly isn’t the darling of a large swath of the Republican faithful. We won’t belabor this except to say there are a few things that bode ill, not just for Romney, but for Republicans...

It's not good when people want to raise taxes. But, ironically, it may turn out to be good that so many different people want to raise taxes in California. It appears increasingly likely that three competing tax initiatives will appear on the November ballot, which could result in voters rejecting them all. We don't often agree with Gov. Jerry Brown, who is pushing one of the three tax increases. But we do agree with the governor that several initiatives on the same ballot could confuse voters and divide the pro-tax vote, resulting in none of them passing. The difference is...

We enjoyed the letter to the Wall Street Journal last week from 16 scientists who said there’s “no need to panic about global warming,” and of course it drew a response from a warming faction of scientists saying essentially, “yes there is.” Adding some perspective to this they-said/they-said back and forth is yet another letter we saw today from Martin Hertzberg . . .

We're sure there will be those who read this post and blame the messenger, yours truly. But we’re just passing along a suggestion from a reader. Here goes: “…here is a fair idea for all us tax payers. In the investing world, shareholders get 1 vote for each share they own. . ."

Just in case there is anyone out there who still thinks the global warming alarmist movement is about the globe warming (which it hasn’t been doing for quite some time), it might be instructive to consider the words of one of the warmist champions. Today we offer it up as our Global Warming Quote of the Day: . . .

Is there anyone paying attention who still believes anything Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has to say on any subject? This is the governor who campaigned to end smoke-and-mirror gimmickry in government budgeting. We know how well he delivered on that. He assured Californians $4 billion would magically appear to balance the budget. About half showed up. He also promised that the budget was balanced when he signed it. Yep, it’s already billions in the red. Now we have . . .