In “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” Dr. Frankenstein justified his creation as for the good of humanity. Instead, arrogance drove him to make his destructive monster. Similarly, the modern progressive project sees itself as able to cure humankind’s ills, to set society’s wrongs right—so long as it has enough of other people’s money backing a...
Last year Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned natural gas company, provided some 40 percent of Europe’s gas needs. Gazprom produced 16.6 trillion cubic feet of gas. By comparison, America produced almost 27 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2017 and, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is on track to produce 43 trillion cubic feet of natural...
With President Trump’s signature, a massive tax overhaul and cut became law in late December. With the tax cut came the usual forecasts, with liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writing on March 1 declaring, “You’ve been scammed” referring to American taxpayers, while noting “Yet even before the tax cut, federal tax receipts were looking weak for an...
On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed a massive tax cut and reform bill crafted by Republicans without the help of one Democrat vote. One of the bill’s more controversial measures was the limitation of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to $10,000 through 2026. According to the CPA Journal, taxpayers in California, New York,...
The electricity markets in the two most-populous states couldn’t be more different. California government heavily regulates electricity while Texas allows free market competition in most of the state. Yet, Texas produced about five times the amount of wind power as did California in 2017 while it generated about 29 percent more non-hydroelectric renewable power (California’s strict renewable...
Lawmakers in California are at it again. A few months ago, after President Trump signed the Republican tax cut and reform bill into law, there was a flurry of tax hike legislation out of Sacramento, most of it aimed at businesses. While taxes levy a direct claim on a company’s bottom line, other laws and...
Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, infamously tweeted a link in early April to a story calling for a bloodless civil war to solve America’s problems. The piece, “The Great Lesson of California in America’s New Civil War: Why there’s no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history — one side must win” was...
An old photo on my Twitter stream captured my attention. It was of a German military parade in occupied Warsaw in 1940. My interest in history led me to think about the scene and how it represented a reality far removed from the average American’s experience. The Germans were marking the one-year anniversary of...
This commentary was originally featured in The Federalist on March 13, 2018. A California lawmaker recently came up with the bright idea that waiters who serve unrequested straws should go to jail for six months because … the environment. Another duo of lawmakers have proposed more than doubling California’s business tax under the theory that...
A story out of the United Kingdom details a University of Manchester research project to determine the carbon footprint of the humble sandwich. The upshot: a prepackaged and refrigerated breakfast sandwich with egg, bacon or sausage, produces as much carbon dioxide as a 12-mile car trip. No word on what kind of car the scientists assumed...
California is already seeing residents and businesses flee the state because of its sky-high taxes. Yet unbelievably, two Democratic state assemblymen have proposed to more than double the state business tax – hiking it from 8.84 percent to 18.84 percent on businesses with annual net incomes of more than $1 million. This would be the highest...
In the wake of the deadly Amtrak train derailment that claimed three lives in Washington state, The Seattle Timesreported that state transportation officials were under a tight federal funding deadline which, if missed, would have resulted in millions of federal stimulus dollars going unclaimed. Absent the federal incentive, state transportation officials had targeted a 2019...