In The News

Bartlett Cleland of the Institute for Policy Innovation writes: The VAT is attractive to those who…[w]ant to grow government… Whether or not those proposing such taxes are interested in expanding the scope of government is almost irrelevant, because once the tools for such expansion are in place they can be used by future politicians to grow government subtly.  Similarly, whether a tax is labeled as a VAT or not is also irrelevant if the function is the same—for example by not allowing companies to deduct wages.

President Obama took a few minutes in his State of the Union Address to propose the U.S. embark on a “moonshot” effort to cure cancer. But his comments reveal a real ignorance about the cancer challenge.

Obama promised to usher in a new appreciation for big government, but his policies, lack of transparency, and obvious deceptions have turned the public very negative.

Change just a few words in the communists’ platform and you have the Democratic presidential campaigns.

The Renewable Fuel Standard has been a boon to corn growers but hardly anyone else, writes Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas.

The repeated congressional attempts to repeal the ACA reflect the law's unpopularity, said IPI's Merrill Matthews. About 40% approve and 52% disapprove of the ACA, according to a December CBS News poll. "It's about premiums and high deductibles. If people had seen premiums going down, you would see widespread support for Obamacare. But, what you do have is something that has created turmoil in the market and a huge amount of frustration with people trying to get affordable coverage."

As IPI’s Merrill Matthews wrote for the Wall Street Journal, ethanol mandates increase the cost of driving, adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than do fossil fuels, and was crafted at a time when the junk science of “peak oil” was scaring entrepreneurial Americans into developing hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology that has transformed the U.S. into one of the world’s largest energy producers. That Cruz could back this policy and remain at the top of the polls in the Hawkeye State suggested that the fever associated with addiction to federal subsidies was breaking.

The Environmental Protection Agency is mandating that more ethanol be blended into gasoline, but Merrill Matthews notes in our pages the inconvenient truth that “ethanol adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than it eliminates by replacing fossil fuels.”

The renewable fuel has cost drivers an extra $83 billion to fill their tanks since 2007, and it does little or no good for the climate.

An executive order isn’t the best way to topple Obamacare, but Obama has used that tactic so many times that it will be very hard for future presidents to reject it when an executive order could be used effectively.