Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Just a few months ago, Mexico looked like the poster country for soda tax advocates. “One of the world’s highest soda taxes appears to be working. After just one year, purchases of sugary drinks in Mexico are down 12 percent, a new study shows,” crowed the Bloomberg editorial board in January. “Public health authorities hailed the…
Many people already think Tennessee is one of only a handful of states with no income tax, but as middle-class retirees can attest, it is anything but. While the state does not tax income from labor, it has levied a 6 percent tax on investment income since the establishment of the Hall Income Tax in 1929….
Regulation doesn’t prevent financial crises—a fact that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act conveniently ignored. Born from the myth that deregulated markets caused the 2008 crisis, Dodd-Frank inserts the federal government into virtually all components of the financial sector. The legislation polices everything from derivatives markets to payday lending, and it…
Bangladesh has become a hotbed for Islamic extremists, and a recent spree of murders demonstrate a move away from democracy and freedom of speech in the South Asian nation. Six men posing as couriers broke into the apartment of Xulhaz Mannan, an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and hacked Mannan and his friend, Tanay Mojumdar,…
New Balance Athletic Shoes, which manufactures some of its shoes in the United States, has recently been pushing Congress for a “Made in the USA” sneaker mandate for new military recruits. Reps. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, and Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., (who just happen to represent states where New Balance factories are located) eagerly are behind the…
In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, Stalin, Brezhnev and the rest would literally airbrush out of photographs those who fell out of favor. Killing them and sending family members to Siberia did not suffice; they had to be erased from collective memory. In this famous photograph, commissars who were killed or were…
In the week prior to the administration signing what should constitute an international climate treaty, one think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was subpoenaed for casting doubt on the agreement’s associated science of climate catastrophe. As disturbing as such thuggery from state attorneys general would be in any case, the premise of the subpoena is…
Of all the words that the American people use to describe Congress today, one of the most common—and accurate—is unaccountable. As hardworking men and women across the country continue to protest dysfunctional and costly regulations, the response from their elected lawmakers remains the same: blame is shifted, fingers are pointed, and scapegoats are brought forth…
Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has announced that Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank would default on most of the $422 million payment currently due on the U.S. territory’s debt. As Puerto Rico’s debt crisis evolves and Congress looks for ways to improve draft legislation addressing the crisis, the Government Development Bank default can inform observers’ understanding of…
The North American bison, widely known as the buffalo, will now likely be recognized as America’s “national mammal”—on par with the bald eagle. (The bill is heading to the president’s desk.) It is a fine tribute to a creature etched into American lore. While praises are already being made to the efforts of conservationists and modern…
The Army and Air Force vehemently oppose developing career prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys in their respective Judge Advocate General’s Corps, a position that confounds professional attorneys not only in their sister service—the Navy—but also across the vast civilian profession that includes district attorney and public defender offices. Given the compelling case against their position,…
Hollywood liberals are known for their contempt of conservatives, but their idea to produce a “comedy” about a demented President Ronald Reagan in his second term is far more offensive than usual. It’s also at total variance with the facts. Actor Will Ferrell appears to agree, and has announced he will not take part in…
Whoever takes over the White House in 2017 will face an aggressive, revanchist Russia that is a threat to the United States and our allies. No amount of wishful thinking can obscure this fact. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas region of Ukraine is just one example in a long list…
It appears that the pop star Prince may have died without a will, leaving behind a multimillion-dollar estate. Although Prince has one full sister and five half-siblings, Prince’s family members will not be his biggest heirs. Both the federal government and Minnesota’s state government will assess so-called “death taxes” or estate taxes on Prince’s assets,…
In an ideal world the federal government would collect all of the taxes that it was owed—and then spend only what it intended to. Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. The tax gap and improper payments serve as reminders that the federal government is not very good at administering complex programs. Instead, every year we have a…
In Jan. 2012, an interviewer from the Univision Spanish-language TV network asked President Barack Obama why he was continuing to deport illegal immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere. He replied that this was “because that’s the law that’s on the books right now. And the way our system works, the president doesn’t have the authority to…
The House of Representatives will consider the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Reauthorization Act (SOAR Reauthorization Act) on Friday, which would reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The OSP has allowed thousands of low-income and minority students in Washington, D.C., to thrive at schools of choice in the district, despite the Obama administration’s multiple…
When it comes to religious liberty debates, big businesses don’t want the people to decide. Or at least they don’t want the people of Missouri to decide. While the more explosive battles in Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina about bills regarding religious liberty and LGBT accommodations have gained national attention, Missouri has flown mostly under…
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has released a plan to update the way businesses deduct the cost of capital expenses. Wyden is right to focus on capital cost recovery as a key way to improve the economy, but his plan does not go far enough to fix the problem because it focuses on administrative issues rather…
He has been out of office for nearly three decades, and yet the name of Ronald Reagan is heard often today. Even as history fades and the precise details of his presidency become less distinct, many believe that the fortieth president of the United States would have answers to the complex and almost implacable issues…