FreedomTalks

It’s infuriating that the death tax is still on the books.  No one need deal with forking over huge sums to the government after a family member passes, and, as NAM’s ShopFloor blog reminds us today, it’s a policy with the potential for devastating economic ripple effects.  Here’s a note from a business owner that [...]

East and West Coast elites in the media and Congress have long controlled the debate over U.S. energy policy, and they sometimes use that power to hamstring competitors in Southern, Midwestern, and Mountain states. For example, the Clean Air Act and other policies favor dirty eastern coal over cleaner low-sulfur coal in Utah. [...]

Watch this video of the college student that exposed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for planting questions in Iowa.

What’s going on with U.S. energy policy?  The New York Times asks, with the clear understanding that what should be going on is the passage of some expensive, restrictive energy bill, and John C. Felmy of API answers — but in a way that actually makes sense:
 John C. Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum [...]

Andrew Sullivan isn’t convinced by Jon Cohn’s argument that government-run health care won’t have any serious effect on medical innovation. Taking issue with Cohn’s idea that “The goal is to reduce our spending moderately and carefully,” Sullivan writes:
And why should we reduce spending at all if we don’t want to and the market reflects it? [...]

On Sunday, Congressman Ron Paul talked to Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. He discussed his views on everything from foreign policy to fiscal responsibility.

Milton Friedman died one year ago today. Here, via CEI’s OpenMarket, is your moment of Milton Friedman rememberance:

Why not create a government board to centralize decision-making for medical innovation?  TNR’s Jonathan Cohn makes the case:
All of them would establish independent advisory boards, staffed by leading medical experts, to help decide whether proposed new treatments actually provide clinical value.
…Of course, the idea of involving the government in these decisions is anathema to many [...]

Everyone interested in the myriad complicated ways in which money gets (mis)managed in Washington should read Robert Novak’s column today, but here’s the most important graf:
During a confusing week on Capitol Hill, lawmakers engaged in games difficult for insiders to understand and incomprehensible for ordinary voters. As the first Congress controlled by Democrats since 1994 [...]

The news should have made banner headlines, but few paid attention as the U.S. national debt passed the $9 trillion mark this week. I suppose the lack of interest is understandable, since the citizens who will be stuck paying this bill are mostly in grade school. The sad thing: the national debt was [...]