Regulation

The federal government's fiscal year ended on September 30. As has been the administration's habit for years with news that might draw negative attention, the Treasury Department conveniently released its year-end Monthly Budget Review Friday afternoon to minimize the discussion of its grim news.

On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen suggested in a videoconference call, as translated into plain English by the Wall Street Journal, that "there could be benefits to allowing the central bank to buy stocks as a way to boost the economy in a downturn."

New York State’s Department of Labor recently made headlines with its rules mandating that employers paying their workforces with prepaid debit cards ensure that employees have “unlimited, free withdrawals” from at least one nearby ATM. This must be the case even if the employees have no bank accounts.  

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch tore into Hillary Clinton’s policies on Squawk Box, arguing that her push for climate justice was de facto “lawyer protection." "Basically what it is, it just takes care of the lawyers,” Welch said on Sep. 20 of Clinton’s plan to promote “climate justice.”

Tuesday morning, Fox Business's Stuart Varney appeared on Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends program to discuss what he called the "terminal decline" in the financial viability and even availability of health plans being provided under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Brian Kilmeade called it "the most under-reported major story in the country by far." A Friday Investors Business Daily…

On Monday's New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota hounded Mike Pence over supposedly signaling he was "wrong" about supporting free trade his "entire professional and public life" due to his running with Donald Trump. Camerota wondered, "You supported TPP. You supported CAFTA. Donald Trump has said about those things that the U.S. is being taken to the cleaners by these trade deals. Which one of you is…

On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, aka "welfare reform," into law. Writeups today at USA Today and in the Washington Post would make readers believe that credit for this accomplishment belongs entirely to Bill Clinton, and that it was his advocacy that brought it all about. The truth is that "ending welfare as we know it" was a…

In a New York Times op-ed with so many holes it wouldn't hold up as swiss cheese, two political science profs, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, set out to reassure the leftist elites that "The Path to Prosperity Is Blue." This would be pretty funny if it weren't for the fact that many of the Old Gray Lady's smug readers will actually buy this nonsense. The pair's presentation tortures economic…

Over two weeks ago, the Bolivarian socialist government of Venezuela under de facto dictator Nicolas Maduro decreed that private-sector and government workers can be forced to work on farms if the military, which is now responsible for food production and distribution in that shortage-wracked country, deems it necessary. Relevant site searches indicate that the country's forced-labor decree…

Food is so scarce in Venezuela that last week a group of starving people broke into a zoo and killed a horse for food. Burdened by government regulations, Venezuela’s economic crisis and its food shortage are forcing many people to leave their country. However, the networks haven’t done much reporting on the subject. The July 31, NBC Nightly News was an exception.

Venezuela’s economy continues to deteriorate under the rule of its socialist president Nicolas Maduro. The collapsing economy, combined with government regulations and price controls created a food shortage so severe some have taken drastic measures. One group of desperate Venezuelans broke into a zoo and butchered a horse for meat on July 24, according to Fusion’s Manuel Rueda.

Now we know why Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's de facto dictator, recently handed over responsibility for food production to the military: He's going to need soldiers on farms and elsewhere in the food distribution chain to keep conscripted workers in line. That's because on July 22, now over a week ago, Maduro's government decreed "... that any employee in Venezuela can be effectively made to work…

The Washington Post “Fact Checker” column is running its critiques of the Republican convention this week, and in the process is trying again to rebuff a figure of $15,000 per household that I employ as a placeholder for the annual cost of federal regulations.