Vermont needs more business investment, but not from tax incentives
Attracting new businesses to Vermont is a laudable goal, but tax incentives are not the way to do that.
10 ways the Trump administration beat back excessive regulation in 2017
Federal rulemaking slowed dramatically in 2017, with the Trump administration issuing two-thirds fewer regulations in its first year than both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
McClaughry: The Trump ‘economic catastrophe’; Climate Justice Alliance rejects carbon tax
At the moment Donald Trump’s presidency seems to have produced a big adrenaline shot for a relatively stagnant U.S. economy.
Roper: Time for Congress to end ‘dues skimming’
Medicaid is a program intended to help the sick, elderly, disabled and poor, but in Vermont, it is also being used to quietly pad politically friendly unions’ bank accounts.
The origins of ‘hate speech’
Not since George Orwell’s “thoughtcrimes” — the author’s word for unapproved thoughts in his novel “1984” — has there been so little regard for the dangers of controlling free speech.
McClaughry: The difficult legislative agenda of 2018
The biennial session of the Legislature that convenes this week will face more than its share of hot button issues. Here’s a quick survey of the 2018 agenda.
The ‘reverse Robin Hood effect’ of farm handouts
The federal government takes the hard-earned money of taxpayers and gives handouts to farm households that generally make a lot more money than they do. This wealth transfer subsidizes the $15 billion “safety net” for agricultural producers, which ostensibly exists to help these businesses address agricultural risk.
Moore: How do things look as we wrap up 2017?
According to the most recent information from the federal Office of Management and Budget, the country has been experiencing 3 percent growth for the past three quarters, and that number appears to be holding for the fourth quarter. Growth like this has not been experienced since before the Great Recession.
Smith: Sanders win against homeschool families
Sanders won the point of order, and the parents of homeschooled K-12 kids will be denied the use of their 529 account to assist their kids to get a better education, while Bernie rages on about the rich and the big corporations.
It’s time to fully repeal the unjust and immoral death tax
If policymakers are going to “make American great again,” then they need to get rid of those policies that are the very antithesis of American principles.
A surprising legacy from my father, Antonin Scalia
My father’s approach wasn’t contrarianism for its own sake. The point was to challenge listeners out of complacency, to inspire them not by affirming what they knew to be true, but by provoking them into reconsidering their preconceptions.
I’m a pediatrician. Here’s what I did when a little boy patient said he was a girl.
Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA and is stamped into every cell of our bodies.