FreedomTalks

The Castle Coalition has a crowded map showing locations of eminent domain abuse across the nation.   According to the site
In just one five-year period (1998-2002), there were more than 10,000 actual or threatened condemnations for private use
all of which are included on the map.  On the Coalition’s Legislative Center page there is another map, showing [...]

Thanks to state political leaders and a failing utility, 25,000 residents of Queens, New York City, have been without electricity for nearly a week. City residents are forced to buy power from Con Edison, a company granted a special monopoly. Yet, the technology exisits to give consumers a choice in power companies. As [...]

The Chinese central bank yesterday opted to increase the banking reserve requirement to tighten credit and cool the sizzling economy after the government reported 11.3 percent growth in the second quarter. As more growth will almost certainly mean more exports, this has many U.S. policymakers even more worried about our increasing current account deficit with China. As [...]

Dan Kopelman, candidate for Arapahoe County Treasurer in Colorado, quickly signed FreedomWorks Candidate Tax Pledge refusing to support any legislation that increases Colorado’s tax burden or weakens TABOR. 
Kopelman helped lead the winning fight against the stealth proposed tax increase election in Aurora in May. 

Yesterday the Democratic Leadership Council unveiled a plan for higher education that will cost taxpayers $150billion and will hold schools and students accountable to Washington. As Neil McCluskey of explains in an article posted at Cato, politicians want votes, professors and administrators want more money and prestige, and students want to pay less [...]

A recent publication from scholars at the American Enterprise Institute examines the benefits of market-based approaches to environmental regulations. The authors argue that most nonmarket approaches have very high costs relative to benefits, while market-based regulations are much cheaper and more effective. From this analysis, they conclude that environmental externalities, such as pollution, are best solved by environmental taxes and [...]

The Fed recently released the minutes from its June meeting. Find them here. 
While core inflation was higher than projected, the Board expects inflationary pressures to ease in the coming weeks. This, coupled with dovish nature of Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress yesterday, has many analysts believing that the Fed will pause rate hikes at their next [...]

Sikha Dalmia at Reason Foundation has an interesting commentary on comprehensive 450 plus page study by CNW Marketing Research that finds that the dust-to-dust energy costs of Hummers are lower than those of gas-electric hybrid automobiles.  Although many environmentalists will likely blink their incredulous eyes, after two years of looking into all the minutiae that [...]

An editorial in today’s Washington Times discusses the negative effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations on small businesses. The one-size-fits-all approach of Section 404, which mandates an annual internal audit in addition to the already required external audit, makes the cost of compliance disproportionately high for many small cap companies. While the SEC has long acknowledged the strain 404 puts on these firms, [...]

While Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Debbie Stabenow are facing very tough challenges this fall, FreedomWorks Michigan is continuing to build its grassroots base throughout the state. One of our priorities will be educating voters about the tax-and-spend policies of these two liberal politicians, and the dire state of the Michigan economy.
Michigan has an unemployment rate [...]