| News Round-up
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ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Global warming alarmists and skeptics alike report that Heartland Institute senior fellow James Taylor scored a decisive victory over Ray Bellamy, an official presenter for Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, in a global warming debate in Tallahassee, Florida. Nearly a year has passed since the Florida legislature passed H.B. 7117, handing over $100 million in subsidies to the renewable energy industry, and Gov. Rick Scott is seeking proof the taxpayer dollars are actually benefiting Florida’s economy. United Nations officials have repeatedly predicted more warming than has occurred in the real world, according to a leaked copy of a draft United Nations climate report. You might think the Affordable Care Act’s primary aim, as the name indicates, would be to make affordable health insurance available to every American. You’d be wrong: Its aim was actually to make health insurance available to every American and empower the federal government to manage the insurance marketplace from on high, regardless whether it made the insurance coverage unaffordable in the process. It’s not often that cynical official Washington is outraged by chutzpah, but it happened recently when 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking for a delay in the effective date of Obamacare’s medical device tax. Democrats are desperately hoping the states will accept the Medicaid expansion being foisted on them by President Obama’s health care law, but they may be disappointed. EDUCATION January’s fiscal cliff deal delayed major cuts to federal education spending—at least until March, when mandatory cuts are slated to decrease it by 8.2 percent, or $4 billion. Public education has taken many forms over the last 300 years. Early in our history, public education referred to formal instruction in public settings outside the home. As public teaching became increasingly common in the latter half of the 18th century, communities began creating tuition-free schools that operated independently, much like today’s charter schools. Wisconsin’s department of public instruction wants to charge taxpayers twice for the same thing: a big sum to indoctrinate teachers in “cultural sensitivity” and another $19,969 to tell how much that cost. BUDGETS AND TAXES Actor Gérard Depardieu's decision to flee France for Belgium to avoid a 75 percent marginal tax rate on incomes above $1.3 million sends a message we here in America should heed: Those who are singled out for tax increases are not stationary targets. The means of avoiding and evading the taxman are legion. After several years of cuts in aid, offloading of state expenses, and unfunded mandates, Maryland county officials who gathered for their annual conference have decided “enough is enough,” said Rick Pollitt, new president of the Maryland Association of Counties. FINANCE, INSURANCE, REAL ESTATE Germany's central bank plans to bring back to Germany almost 700 tons of gold reserves it keeps in New York and Paris. A federal judge last fall struck down the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) current iteration of federal position limits on holdings of commodity futures contracts. A month and a half later, the CFTC announced the commission would appeal the court’s decision. At this time, therefore, the federally imposed position limits are in limbo. TECH It’s the New Year, the pre-dawn of President Barack Obama’s second term – in which he is free to be more “flexible,” and is resolved to engage in even more illegal, unilateral power grabs. LEGAL AFFAIRS A soda fountain in St. Paul may be fined $500 by city inspectors for selling candy cigarettes.Lynden’s Soda Fountain opened a few months ago but was recently warned it was violating the city’s ban on candy cigarettes, passed in 2009. It said it won’t keep selling the candy cigarettes or bubblegum cigars, but it is promoting the incident. “Stop in and try a Soda at half price between now and the end of the year while sugar is still legal!” the store stated in a Facebook post. |
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