Biden’s policies would continue to make fuel and goods expensive. Republican candidates’ proposals would help reduce their cost. Although Americans know that 2024 is an election year, they might not know that energy is on the ballot. The election's outcome will determine the amount people will pay for gasoline and electricity; what appliances ...

If Governor Murphy installed all his planned wind projects, New Jersey residents would each pay $8,000. Danish wind company Orsted did New Jersey residents a favor when, despite the state's tax incentives, it withdrew from its Ocean Wind 1 and 2 offshore-wind projects due to financial difficulties. Democratic Governor Phil Murphy's ...

Biden can use these new wars to announce that he has changed his policies on U.S. domestic oil production. Oil and natural-gas prices spiked after Iran-backed Hamas invaded Israel over the weekend. With the supposed transition to net zero, some might expect the prices of electric batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels to follow suit, but ...

The Michigan Ford–CATL plant would enable the CCP to benefit from tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. With Ford's announcement that it would suspend work on its $3.5 billion Michigan–China battery partnership due to the United Auto Workers strike, the beleaguered company may have extricated itself from a political briar bush. The ...

Electrification of vehicles is leading not only to shrinking worker incomes but to a fundamental fracturing of the Democratic Party coalition. The big economic news at the end of last week was the start of a strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union against all three major U.S. automakers. This is the first strike against President ...

Harold Hamm provides the story of his life and a timely ode to American energy independence. There's no book like Game Changer: Our 50-Year Mission to Secure America's Energy Independence (Forefront Books, 2023) by Harold Hamm. The 300-page life story spans not only the history of oil production, but the history of a boy with twelve siblings ...

The EPA has America on a path to all pain and no gain. It was a bad week for anyone who thought China would cooperate on emissions reduction. President Xi Jinping reiterated that his country would set its own path on the issue and not be influenced by outside factors, according to the Washington Post and Bloomberg. This contradicts Xi's 2015 ...

New proposed regulations on automobile emissions from the Environmental Protection Agency would require new car sales to be 60% electric by 2030 and 67% by 2032, compared to fewer than 6% in 2022. EPA is also planning new rules for power plants, driving up the costs of the electricity needed to charge these vehicles. These rules would ...

Thousands of Belgian and Dutch farmers are being sacrificed on the altar of climate change. They are losing their livelihoods as their governments crack down on emissions of nitrogen oxide (from manure) and the use of ammonia in fertilization. On March 5, Peterdutch63, @paslagter, a Dutch farmer, tweeted, "Tonight was the last time we milked ...

Research suggests that electric vehicles are no silver bullet against global warming. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will allocate more than $15 billion in credits and loans for electric vehicle and battery manufacturers, as well as tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles. The stated rationale: these cars produce fewer carbon emissions ...

On the last day of its term, the Supreme Court stops the Environmental Protection Agency from making policy without express congressional authorization. The Supreme Court saved a crucial decision for the last day of its term, ruling 6–3 in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that the Clean Air Act does not allow the EPA to move ...

If President Biden wants to tackle higher prices, he should forget about more tax hikes and instead reverse his policies on domestic oil and natural gas production. Amid a crashing stock market and a looming recession, President Biden has reiterated his plans to reduce inflation by raising taxes on corporations and upper-income Americans. ...

To avoid recession and reduce inflation, it's time for a change. New inflation data show annualized inflation persistently above 8%, with inflation over the past 3 months running at almost 10%. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that "we have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take" to deal with it. But Mr. Powell cannot do ...

Workers around the country face a sellers’ market for their skills—and they’d rather keep the dues money for themselves. Tight labor markets empower workers more than any union. That's why it's unlikely that the 7,500 Amazon workers at the JFK8 plant in Staten Island, New York, who are voting today on whether to join the Amazon Labor Union, ...

President Biden's decision to ban imports of Russian oil products should be accompanied by a decision to increase production at home, and replace Russian crude oil with additional imports of Canadian crude. Our Canadian friends have plenty to sell us. By announcing a reversal of prior policies President Biden would change expectations about ...

Enjoy Christmas travel now, but get ready for flight diversions and cancellations after the holidays. In preparation for the rollout of 5G wireless services by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile on January 5, the Federal Aviation Administration will shortly issue new rules to keep aircraft and passengers safe. The FAA will prohibit flying to ...

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that was voted out of the Senate on August 10 has no funding for strengthening the Global Positioning System (GPS) to make sure that Americans can navigate without getting spoofed. The House should correct the Senate's omission. With $50 billion over the next decade allocated in the bill ...

An executive order to mandate electric-vehicle sales presents economic and environmental problems. On August 5, President Biden issued an executive order setting a goal that, by 2030, half of new vehicles sold in the United States must be electric–including fuel-cell electric, plug-in hybrids, and full-battery electric. Today, only about 3 ...

The Transportation Department has ideas for a backup, but it needs money from Congress. GPS is vital to Americans, but hacking it has never been easier. Protecting the civilian Global Positioning System, an invisible utility the federal government pays for, falls to Transportation Secretary ete Buttigieg. He would do well to use the results of ...

To allocate new infrastructure spending wisely, legislators need to understand how Americans’ habits have changed. Covid-19 caused a tsunami of changes to the transportation sector. In its wake, Congress shouldn't design the $1.9 trillion stimulus package as though Americans will eventually return to their pre-pandemic behavior. ...

The FCC’s decision to reallocate transportation safety spectrum will cost lives and slow America’s technological progress. Deaths from Covid-19 are rightly treated as a tragedy. Fatal road crashes are equally tragic, however. About 36,000 Americans died on the roads in 2019, and 2.7 million were injured. Just as government is working to ...

DONALD J. TRUMP wants to build a bricks-and-mortar wall to keep immigrants out of the United States. President Obama wants to build a virtual wall to keep companies from leaving. Neither is likely to work.On Monday, the Treasury Department issued new regulations in an attempt to limit "inversions" — in which American companies are acquired ...

With California and New York moving to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it's worth asking which factors generate higher earnings.Big Brother can mandate a $15 hourly minimum wage, but Big Brother cannot mandate that firms hire workers. As minimum wages have risen, cashiers have vanished from drug stores and food trucks have ...

The Affordable Care Act never would have been passed had Congress known how it would develop. Obamacare barely passed Congress in 2010. If people had known how it would develop, the health-care act would likely never have become law. Back in 2009, when the law was proposed, and in 2010, when it was signed, the Affordable Care Act's ...

The hamburger chain’s parent company could be on the hook for liabilities at local eateries . Judge Lauren Esposito, in a trial in New York City, on Thursday began the process of determining whether McDonald's USA is a joint employer of the hamburger flippers who work in your local McDonald's. For McDonald's employees, the answer to the ...

Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, suggests that Americans should pick a president who favors a carbon tax. But not even Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have proposed a carbon tax as part of their tax plans. All candidates have put forward detailed tax plans, and a carbon tax is not included in any of ...

With Sen. Bernie Sanders even with Hillary Clinton in some national polls and his strong showing in Nevada on Saturday, his tax proposals warrant serious examination. Even if he does not win the primary, his popularity is encouraging Clinton's move to the left.Sanders wants to increase individual, capital gains, corporate, and payroll taxes — ...

Like an alcoholic at a bar, Congress won’t stop at just one swig. The value-added tax can pull in billions of dollars with a rate that seems low. Then, a small increase will net a few more billions. No wonder that almost all countries have a VAT.Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky propose a VAT as a way to pay for cuts ...

A costly new federal rule will hinder firms' ability to tell workers about the drawbacks of unionizing. The Labor Department is about to give organized labor a boost by tilting the law against business. It is proposing a new rule, due out in March to take effect before summer, that will require companies to make public the names of the ...

The overall state of the economy seems to predict presidential winners. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump would benefit if the economy slowed this year. In eight of the past nine elections, if real GDP improved in an election year relative to the prior year, the presidential party in power won, and vice versa. Every ...

In an era of stagnating educational achievement and bloated public school budgets, America’s education system is in dire need of innovation. Despite strong opposition from entrenched interests, the growth in charter schools exemplifies educational innovation in cities and towns across the country.
Charter schools receive public funding but ...

Steven Greenhouse, writing in the Washington Post, offers a novel reason for why the Supreme Court should require teachers to pay union dues: to avoid punishing unions. He explains that "public-sector unions are among the biggest donors to labor-friendly Democratic candidates, and their lobbyists use their influence to go to bat for workers ...

This article originally appeared in MarketWatch"Women earn less than men across our economy — and women of color often lose out the most," Hillary Clinton says on her campaign website.She promises to fight for pay transparency and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would give the federal government more power to intrude into firms' decisions ...

As 2015 winds down, here are seven opportunities Congress missed this year. If we could make them happen in 2016, we could eventually double our economic growth rate from 2% to 4%, enriching Americans and lowering our unemployment rate.Killing the Export-Import Bank. Congress eliminated the Export-Import Bank in the summer, but put it right ...

Although the Islamic State is located in some of the sunniest regions of the globe, it's making money selling not stolen solar panels and wind turbines but stolen oil. That should send a message to Congress, whose new $1.1 trillion spending bill extends the wind-production credit that expired last year and provides a new extension to the ...

Europe's negative interest rates are no way to boost long-term growth. Now that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has announced an increase in U.S. interest rates, what will happen in Europe, where rates are negative? Europe is resorting to negative rates to stimulate its economy, rather than reforming taxes and regulations. Europeans have ...

And Congress shouldn’t vote to spend billions of dollars keeping health insurers afloat. This week, as part of the reconciliation bill, Congress may vote on bailing out health-insurance companies losing money from their participation in the Affordable Care Act exchanges. With an $18 trillion national debt, Congress should stand firm and say no ...

While students from Yale University in Connecticut to Claremont McKenna in California are protesting, demanding more cultural sensitivity, safe spaces and trigger warnings, some students at Princeton University in New Jersey are fighting back. In response to a sit-in of the university president's office by 200 members of the Black Justice ...

New employment data for October led many to assume that a rate increase from the Federal Reserve is in the offing. "Strong Growth in Jobs May Encourage Fed to Raise Rates," wrote the New York Times, and "Strong Jobs Report Strengthens Case for December Fed Rate Liftoff," stated the Wall Street Journal.Not only was the strength of the jobs ...

The United States and Canada are the only two industrialized countries that confer automatic citizenship on babies born within the countries' borders, even if their parents are not citizens. In the United States, this is a constitutional right. The Fourteenth Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and ...

Student athletes aren’t employees, and shouldn’t be allowed to form a union. A decision on whether college football players at Northwestern University should be permitted to unionize is expected later this month from the National Labor Relations Board, just as players are in training preparing for the upcoming season. In 2014 Peter Ohr, the ...

President Obama's Clean Power Plan for existing and new power plants stretches to a combined 2,328 pages, exclusive of supporting documents and fact sheets. The language is Orwellian, with talk of "a partnership between the EPA and the states under which the EPA establishes emission guidelines and the states take the lead on implementing them ...

The Internal Revenue Service swoops in with a money grab. Hey, employers, don't even think about reimbursing your workers' health-insurance premiums. Beginning this month, the IRS can levy fines amounting to $100 per worker per day or $36,500 per worker per year, with a maximum of $500,000 per firm. This Internal Revenue Service penalty is ...

This week or next, the Department of Labor will release new proposed rules on overtime pay. Those rules will fulfill President Obama's 2014 promise to raise the salary level at which employers are required to pay overtime. In an interview with the Huffington Post in March, the president said: "What we've seen is, increasingly, companies ...

"The Affordable Care Act is here to stay," gloated President Obama after the King vs. Burwell Supreme Court decision was announced on Thursday. "Anyone seeking to lead our country should stand up and support this decision," said Hillary Clinton. Not so fast. Today, June 26, is the first day on the path to the eventual rewriting of the ...

Members of the Wage Board, I am honored to be able to submit testimony on the subject of raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 an hour. As former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, I have followed and written about the minimum wage and related issues for many years. Currently I am senior fellow and director ...

Higher premiums, impenetrable bureaucracy — where’s the upside? Obamacare has enmeshed many Americans in a bureaucratic nightmare. True, the law has helped some uninsured people obtain coverage. But millions of people have seen their health-insurance plans canceled, because the plans did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care ...

Facing unemployment, loan debt, expensive retiree payouts and more problems, young people need a lobby. Over the next few weeks 3.5 million of you will graduate and try to find jobs. We’re sorry to tell you that achieving success will be more difficult than it was for your parents or grandparents. Not because you’re less intelligent, or lazier ...

Forbes columnist and Tax Notes editor-in-chief Jeremy Scott suggests that Senator Marco Rubio would not be able to lead on tax reform if elected president because he does not have sufficient experience. "Rubio isn't on the Senate Finance Committee," writes Scott. (Full disclosure: I am a columnist for Tax Notes.)But a president's past ...

As April 15 approaches, many Americans would welcome a simpler tax plan. Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, who is about to declare his candidacy for president, have published a draft tax plan with only two rates and an expanded child credit. But under their plan, tax rates will rise on ...

This week the House and Senate Budget Committees released their proposed budgets for fiscal year 2016. The chambers will go to conference on the budgets after the Easter recess, and a unified budget should pass Congress by the summer.This sounds normal. What is extraordinary is that it has failed to occur for so long. Congress has not passed ...

Gov. Cuomo's proposal to raise the city's hourly minimum wage from $8.75 to $11.50 would harm the very people it is intended to help - poor and low-skill New Yorkers. If the wage floor is raised, they would have fewer job opportunities and less chance of climbing the career ladder.To understand why, do a thought experiment. If raising the ...

Wisconsin now becomes the 25th 'right-to-work' state. Gov. Scott Walker on Monday signed legislation that made Wisconsin the 25th "right-to-work" state. Residents of the Badger State will no longer be required to join a union as a condition of employment. With half the states in the U.S. now designated as right to work, the rest will feel ...

It's bad enough that the Affordable Care Act is raising premiums and deductibles—and perhaps lowering your tax refund. In addition, the ACA has given the Food and Drug Administration the power to go after your favorite vending machine. By the end of next year, according to a new FDA rule, most snack machines must have calorie counts ...

EARLY next month the Supreme Court will hear arguments in King v. Burwell, the latest significant legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act. The petitioners argue that under the statute, the federal government is not allowed to provide health insurance subsidies in the 37 states that have either declined or failed to establish their ...

The Staples office-supply chain is now the latest victim in a series of politically charged attacks from the White House on corporations.In an interview with BuzzFeed, President Obama said: "There is no reason for an employer who is not currently providing health care to their workers to discourage them from either getting health insurance on ...

The good news is that the economy is creating more jobs than ever. Just consider—257,000 more jobs in January, 329,000 in December, and 423,000 in November. The bad news is that the labor force participation rate—the percentage of people who are employed or who are looking for work—has barely moved, from 63 percent in January 2014 to 62.9 ...

On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on the National Labor Relations Board's Christmas power grab.
For those who missed it, NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin announced in December that he had issued complaints against McDonald's franchised restaurants and McDonald's parent corporation ...