This is the political Santa who delivers subsidies of various sorts to farmers or “alternative energy” manufacturers. The Santa who redistributes vast sums of money for educational expenditures, or public housing, welfare and food stamps, or government defense contracts, and even “bridges to nowhere.”
Featured · Health Care · Podcast
Research Fellow Sean Parnell talks with Jeff Anderson, Executive Director of the 2017 Project. The two discuss Anderson’s organization’s plan for replacing Obamacare with a more market-friendly system. The 2017 project is based on a combination of tax credits, reform of the individual insurance market, and high-risk pools.
Citizens concerned about high-cost electricity, skyrocketing government debt, and massive giveaways of hard-earned tax dollars to crony corporations should call or email their senators and their congressman – and explain why these subsidies should end now.
Thirty states, including Ohio, have renewable portfolio mandates. These laws require a certain percentage of electricity to be generated from renewable sources, primarily wind and solar power.
The United States is more than four years into the Obamacare experiment, and it appears Americans of all ideological persuasions are going to be disappointed by the results.
What is far and away the most important global trade commodity? Food. People have to eat. Before the world’s peoples can afford to purchase from us an iPhone, or a Ford pickup truck – they have to buy (hopefully our) food.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Podcast
Former Oklahoma 7-term Congressman Ernest Istook is leading the charge against a renewal of the wind-power production tax credit which under which the federal government pays wind power producers 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour. Even with this subsidy, wind power is more expensive than traditional fossil fuel power plants.
At Senator Harry Reid’s seventh National Clean Energy Summit held in Las Vegas on Thursday, September 4, Hillary Clinton said: “This is the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.” She wasn’t talking about ISIS or the growing terrorist threat, but about climate change.
With 9-11 nearly upon us, ISIS is brazenly beheading American journalists—with a promise of more to come; Christian congregations have been bombed during worship, churches have been destroyed, monasteries attacked, entire cities purged, hundreds of thousands have fled, while others have been slaughtered; and cities, weapons, banks, and key infrastructures are being captured. Surely, with all of these horrors playing out before our eyes, the crisis in Syria and Iraq is the “most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face.” No, the quote above was made about climate change by Hillary Clinton—the heavy favorite for the Democratic 2016 presidential nomination—before a standing-room-only crowd at Senator Harry Reid’s seventhNational Clean Energy Summit (NCES 7.0) held in Las Vegas on Thursday, September 4.
The Twentieth was the Century of the Welfare State. Governments the world over built and then continuously grew their domestic aid money delivery apparatuses. Tens of trillions of dollars were spent in attempts to raise poor people up and out.
It’s been disastrous.
Economics · Featured · Government · Liberty
It is a rare occurrence when Hollywood produces a film that neither glorifies the welfare-warfare state, nor vilifies capitalists and businessmen. Yet that is exactly what Marvel Studios has managed with the Iron Man series. In the character of Tony Stark we see the pinnacle of the capitalist fantasy: an ingenious businessman who values property rights and self-defense, and who does not compromise those fundamental rights in the face of government intimidation and force.
This Molly Ball piece on the metric which best determines the outcome of elections makes for a fascinating read: essentially, it demonstrates that when Republicans don’t lose the working class by a wide margin, they do well, and when they lose it by 20 points, they don’t. Throw out all the other measures of race and religion – and Republicans even spot the Democrats the ten points! – and the share of the working class vote determines the outcome:
Environment/Energy · Featured · Science
Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast sat down with the New American’s Bill Jasper during the 9th International Conference on Climate Change to talk about the origin and purpose of the conference. Boasting 64 speakers, from a multitude of disciplines, ICCC9 was the most star-studded climate conference yet.
Wind energy produces costly, intermittent, unpredictable electricity. But Government subsidies and mandates have encouraged a massive gamble on wind investments in Australia – over $7 billion has already been spent and another $30 billion is proposed. This expenditure is justified by the claim that by using wind energy there will be less carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere which will help to prevent dangerous global warming.
Environment/Energy · Government
Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Friday signed a law blocking scheduled increases in the state’s renewable power mandates, punctuating a broader effort among the states to roll back the once-fashionable mandates. Just five years ago, proponents of renewable power mandates were aggressively playing offense in the state legislatures. Between 2004 and 2009, nearly half of all states enacted renewable power mandates, requiring a designated share of electricity delivery in the state to come from renewable sources. By 2009, 30 states had renewable power mandates, and renewable power proponents confidently talked of imposing mandates in all 50 states.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Regulation
For years we argued that the farming community should respect OUR right to be organic. Now we’ve switched to denying our neighbors THEIR rights. And that goes against everything it has ever meant to be organic.
Economics · Featured · Government
We’ve seen it in too many sectors of the economy to possibly mention – both domestically and internationally. The greater the government involvement in an economic sector – the greater the ensuing economic damage. To that sector – and the broader economy.
Rewards of tax dollars for the renewable energy industry are so great it takes tax experts days of explanations to locate all possibilities. Additional subsidies are available from the federal government in forms of tax credits, loan guarantees, grants, and possible mandates for energy source use.
After the global warming-battling Edwardsport coal gasification power plant used more power than it generated during the September-to-November time-frame, earlier this month information filed with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission showed the Duke Energy facility operated at less than 1 percent of capacity in February.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Regulation
Mischa Popoff is one of the most formidable opponents of the organic food movement, as this video of his speech to the Far West Agribusiness Association clearly shows. The simple fact that he is carrying to the masses is that the organic industry, particularly the organic certification industry, is a big racket.
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