The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced an “historic” rule that will allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter (OTC) and restores a smidgeon of freedom for Americans. In a press release announcing the rule, the FDA stated, It is designed to assure the safety and effectiveness of OTC hearing aids, while…
The Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) is suing a Houston-area distiller for trademark infringement. The commission owns a trademark on the phrase “Texas Two Step.” The distiller wants to market a handmade vodka called “Texas Two Step.” But that is where the similarities end. Trademarks do not prohibit others from using a phrase. They do prohibit…
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced funding of $113 million for the Family Self-Sufficiency program. The program is a part of HUD’s “economic justice” agenda. When she announced the program, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said, We’re looking at everything through a lens of equity and how we address systemic racism….
For fifty years, environmentalists have been predicting impending disaster if we do not dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels. These predictions are a modern version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and we must question their credibility. In the 1970s, environmentalists predicted a new Ice Age and widespread famine. Their solution was a dramatic…
Today’s political climate is one of a perpetual demand for conformity. Both Progressives and conservatives demand conformity. They merely disagree over who should be conforming and to what. Conformity means acting as others deem appropriate. It means subordinating one’s own judgment to the judgment of others. America’s educational system, which is dominated by Progressivism, is…
In a stunning, though not surprising, display of the Progressive framework in action, a coalition of more than 220 housing activists has called for Biden to enact national rent control. They encouraged the President to “regulate rent through every available authority” as a part of the Administration’s efforts to reduce inflation. The coalition wants the…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said that he supports parents’ “choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.” The Republican Party of Texas has listed school choice as a priority in the upcoming legislative session. However, rural Republicans oppose school choose measures. They…
A recent headline on CNN.com implies that the tax and energy bill recently passed by the Senate will save Americans on electricity bills. While touting all of the tax credits the bill will offer, the story engages in a massive evasion. The bill, the story states, contains a bevy of tax incentives aimed at pushing…
To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, try to control those who can.” Cea Weaver, a housing activists at New York’s Housing Justice for All is a prime example. Weaver has been a leading voice for tenant “protections” in New York, including a “rent stabilization” law—a euphemism for price controls—passed…
In 2024, voter in Los Angeles will vote on an initiative that would force hotel operators to rent vacant rooms to the city’s homeless. Despite what voters might think, force isn’t the solution to the city’s homeless problem. California has long allowed voters to dictate how property owners can use their property. As a result,…
For years, tenants and housing activists have complained that there is a housing shortage and that “the rent is too damn high.” While failing to tell us what rent would not be “too damn high,” they trot out a variety of proposals which do virtually nothing to increase the housing supply. According to the National…
For more than a century, discussions of government policy have followed the wrong framework. The resulting policies have not solved the problems that they were intended to address. Indeed, those policies have just made the problems worse. The wrong framework leads to bad choices, and bad choices lead to undesirable results. I call the framework…