Gas prices will come down, but other troubles lie ahead

April 14, 2026

Gas prices have been very high for the last five years. While such things are frequently blamed on the current administration, and often rightly so, there are quite a few factors involved. Some of those are: availability and the price of crude oil, refining costs and profits, transportation, storage, blending and retail, regulations, and taxes.

Another factor is the company from which you may purchase gas. Some gas stations can purchase gas at better prices than others due to various factors, including the size of their company and how much gas it purchases for all of its subsidiaries. Smaller companies, or single stations do not have the purchasing power of larger companies.

In the Biden/Harris administration, the main factor was regulation. Today, in the Trump administration the military activity in Iran is a big factor. However, one major factor that is not usually addressed in such cases is the effect federal and state taxes have on prices.

Data from taxfoundaton.org tells us that the federal government charges 18.4 cents per gallon. While each administration could perhaps do something about that, they rarely do. And something administrations cannot do anything about is the amount of taxes each state places on fuels. This is generally referred to as a “user fee.”

Additional information from taxfoundation.org is a list of state gas taxes, which range from 8.95 cents per gallon in Alaska to 70.92 cents per gallon in California. The difference between the highest and the lowest state tax rate is nearly 62 cents per gallon.

The five highest gas taxes in the country are: 
California - 70.92 cents per gallon
Illinois - 66.4 cents per gallon
Washington - 59.04 cents per gallon
Pennsylvania - 58.7 cents per gallon
Indiana - 54.5 cents per gallon
Michigan - 48.2 cents per gallon

On the other side of this issue are the five lowest gas taxes:
Alaska - 8.95 cents per gallon
Hawaii - 18.9 cents per gallon
New Mexico - 18.88 cents per gallon
Arizona - 19 cents per gallon
Oklahoma and Texas - 20 cents per gallon

Local readers may be interested to see that Virginia drivers pay 41.6 cents per gallon and West Virginia drivers pay 35.7 cents per gallon in taxes.

So, in the state with the highest tax rate, California drivers will pay 89.32 cents per gallon in taxes, and drivers in Alaska will pay 27.35 per gallon in taxes, when the federal tax is figured in.

Thus, while the actions of a given administration may have a positive or negative effect on gas prices, state and federal taxes definitely have an effect.

Looking at per gallon gas prices over the recent past, provided by the Energy Information Administration, average prices in President Donald Trump’s first term were $2.42 in 2017, $2.72 in 2018, $2.60 in 2019 and $2.17 in 2020.

During President Joe Biden’s tenure, prices were $3.01 in 2021, $3.95 in 2022, $3.52 in 2023, and $3.30 in 2024.

When Trump took office for the second term in 2025, the average price was $3.10. By February of 2026, the average price had dropped to $2.80.

The current rise in prices has a few factors behind it, including the increases in crude oil prices due to the Iran conflict. Also, prices tend to begin rising each spring, as spring break and vacation travel picks up, increasing demand for gasoline.

The general feeling is that when the Iranian conflict slows or ends, and when travel slows in the fall, prices will return closer to the level of Trump’s first term.

As if the high fuel costs were not enough of a problem, an article in the April issue of Newsmax magazine reports on efforts of some states to track how much their citizens drive. “Critics warn they will inevitably lead to user fees based on miles driven, thereby restricting the long-cherished American dream of hitting the open road.”

The article continues, suggesting this “Big Brother” technique will enable states to track your every move, and “also impose a per-mile surcharge to discourage commuting or long-haul driving.” “It could also be used to penalize those who drive during rush hour or other peak driving times.”

One goal of this vehicle tracking is to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions by limiting auto mileage and to compensate for declining gas tax revenues caused by electric vehicles and more efficient gas-powered engines.” Or maybe, if this doesn’t work, they will just raise the gas tax. Drivers in California, Illinois, Washington, et al, will surely like that.

Economist Stephen Moore worries that such fees could cause prices to rise, as the cost of delivering merchandise will rise. He also noted, “The fact that they’re going to have these monitors, it’s almost like having a camera on you everywhere you go.”

Noting that vehicles are “liberating inventions,” you can go where you want, when you want, he says, “That’s why Communist countries didn’t allow people to have automobiles. They love mass transit because they know where you’re going, and they can direct where you are going.”

Given the negatives of vehicle tracking, maybe this temporary rise in gas prices isn’t as bad as we think it is.

Progressive policies create disasters for the American people

December 9, 2025

Back in May the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted an article that addressed “Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens Driving Under the Influence.”

It named 14 Americans who are now dead, which it described as “just a handful of Americans whose lives were taken too soon at the hands of illegal aliens driving under the influence.”

Of those 14, eight were less than 20 years-old, three were 10 years-old or less, two were in their 40s and one was 70. Most of the drunk drivers were from Honduras, with others from Venezuela, and Mexico. 

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin commented that “Far too many American lives have been lost because of illegal aliens driving drunk.”  “These Americans killed by drunk-driving illegal aliens should still be with us today, and we feel their absence in our schools and offices, at our dinner tables, and throughout our communities. President Trump and Secretary Noem have reopened the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office to serve all victims of illegal alien crime and their families.”

The VOICE office was opened in 2017 by the Trump administration. It is a resource for those who have been victimized by crime that is related to immigration, the article said. However, the Biden/Harris administration closed the office, leaving victims of crimes by illegal aliens without access to many support services and resources.

Worse, yet, are the number of Americans who have been murdered, with illegal aliens having been charged with the crime.

Among those victims are: 

* Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered on the University of Georgia campus, allegedly by Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, in February 2024. 

* A 12-year-old girl named Jocelyn Nungaray killed in Houston, Texas. She was found murdered in a creek in June 2024. Two Venezuelan nationals, Johan Jose Rangel Martinez and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, who had recently entered the U.S. illegally, have been charged with capital murder.

* Rachel Morin, who was the mother of five, was found murdered in August 2023 in Maryland. Another illegal alien, a Salvadoran national who was in the country illegally, was later arrested and charged in connection with her death.

* A Missouri police officer, 44-year-old David Lee, was killed in 2024 by Honduran Ramon A. Chavez-Rodriguez, an illegal alien. 

These are only a few of the victims. Even one death at the hands of an illegal alien is too many.

There are two problems in the horrors these Americans and their families and friends have experienced at the hands of illegal aliens in the country. First is them being here at all. Second is the ridiculous frequency with which some of these illegals have been treated with kid gloves instead of getting the punishment they so well deserve.

Going easy on criminals is an insult to their victims, and a disgusting failure of prosecutors and judges.

One example is the case of the death of 22-year-old Logan Frederico, who was brutally murdered by a criminal during a break-in at the home where she was visiting friends. Her killer had a record of 39 arrests and 25 felonies. Despite this record, and the accumulated felonies, he had spent less than 2 years in jail.

The state attorney general had assigned an accomplished death penalty litigator to this case, but the progressive district attorney called this “premature” and “reckless.”

Then there is the murder of Iryna Zaruska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was tragically murdered in an unprovoked stabbing attack while riding a light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina last August. A video showing the attack was aired soon afterward.

Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old homeless man with 14 prior arrests for various offenses, including armed robbery, has been charged with first-degree murder.

Yet, despite his criminal history dating back over a decade, known mental health issues, and having forfeited bond on three occasions, a soft-on-crime judge released him back onto the streets following his most recent arrest last January, and he was able to murder an innocent woman.

Some in law enforcement positions, like prosecutors and judges, charged with prosecuting crimes and punishing criminals to protect the public, seem to think rehabilitation is a superior path to jail time.   

Over the last few years we have seen such “solutions” to crime and police work as “reimagining policing,” diverting 911 calls away from the police department, finding alternatives to arrest, prioritizing “restorative justice,” “deemphasizing” some felonies, and eliminating cash bail. 

GovFacts.com explains the sensible, traditional idea of dealing with criminals. It tells us that “punishment and retribution form the core mission. Society demands consequences when someone breaks the law. A proportional punishment acknowledges the moral weight of criminal acts and provides victims with a sense that justice has been served.”

The idea is for punishment to be so unpleasant that the perpetrator regrets his/her actions, and not do it again, and to discourage others from committing crimes.

But the progressive idea is to merely tell the criminal, “don’t do that anymore” and that will be all that is really needed. As with all “woke” ideas, these sound good, but don’t work, and in reality, are just stupid.

We need harsh punishment. Lawbreakers must pay a real price.

Too much government control negatively affects the people

October 22, 2024

We have all probably noticed that over the last few decades, and likely almost as long as the country has existed, the federal government has been growing and has gotten much bigger, much more powerful, and mind-bogglingly expensive.

While the addition of new government departments, agencies, offices, etc., and their increases in size, may have been intended to improve government functioning, and were done for the best of reasons, that has often not been the result.

While the elements of government are constitutionally under the control of the administration and Congress, that leadership changes fairly often, and with those changes come different ideas about how government should work. But most of the personnel in the various administrative departments and agencies stay in their positions for years or decades, and while they are there they develop their own ideas about how their part of government should work.

These concepts frequently are at odds with what is expected by the people, and what best serves their interests. As a result, terms like “deep state” and “administrative state” have arisen to describe them.

Complaints about this troubling problem are not unusual, and quite often highlight true problems caused by a particular area of government. But the complaints quite often fall on deaf ears, or do not have needed support to change things. A recent correspondence from the CEO of a South Carolina electric cooperative to its customers is a good example.

Palmetto Electric Cooperative President and CEO, A. Berl Davis Jr., identified and explained one such problem brought on by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Davis began by discussing referees in a football game, who he said often operate as if they are more important than the game itself. “I think of the Environmental Protection Agency the same way,” he wrote. “The role they fill is a critical one, but their recent set of regulations on power plants is a bad call. Unfortunately, the consequences will be much worse than merely losing a ballgame. The EPA’s latest interference in the energy industry threatens our access to reliable, affordable electricity. It’s one more reason our cooperative’s energy costs are rising, along with inflation and the increasing price of wholesale power from one of our primary power sources, Santee Cooper.”

EPA’s recent rule aimed at existing coal and new natural gas power plants requires them to either greatly reduce their output or install carbon capture and storage. “In theory, carbon capture and storage, or CCS, might sound like a neat idea. A power plant’s carbon emissions could be injected deep underground rather than released into the atmosphere,” Davis wrote. “But in practice, CCS is unproven and unbelievably expensive. No utility in the country has successfully pulled off CCS at the level the EPA is requiring for America’s fleet of power plants.”

This action’s expense results in higher prices for consumers, and also puts power suppliers in a crisis. As he explains it, “South Carolina urgently needs more power supply, not greater restrictions on our existing power plants or the ones our state needs to build. Our state has already struggled to supply sufficient electricity during the coldest hours of the winter, such as when freezing weather led to rolling blackouts in parts of South Carolina during Christmas 2022. And South Carolina’s power needs are only increasing amid the state’s rapid population and economic growth.”

Some help can come from solar farms, he notes, but also recognizing that solar power is not always there when it is needed, like on cold winter mornings and at night when the sun isn’t shining.

“To keep up, we will need to be able to rely on 24/7 energy sources including natural gas and, at least for now, coal. Yet the EPA seems intent on throwing its yellow flag and ejecting those reliable power plants from the game,” Davis wrote. “The job of keeping the lights on is hard enough during a challenging time for the energy industry. We don’t need the government making it any harder or more expensive for you.” And this problem affects other states, too.

He said further that Palmetto Electric Cooperative is joining other organizations to fight the EPA’s dangerous rules in court and in the Congress.

Decisions like this one are made by bureaucrats in government offices, not by the one law-making body that we have: Congress. Where the environment is concerned, decisions like this one are often the result of political positions and ideals, not on actual problems and needs, and the effects they will have on the people that the bureaucrats exist to properly serve.

The “administrative state” must be brought under control. Our government needs to be reduced in its degree of control, its size and its cost. Its focus must be restored so that it works for the good of all of the people, not just the political faction that most government employees favor, whatever that may be.

In the election next month there is the opportunity to do one of two things: either continue the current trend and increase the size, cost and control of government by electing radical Democrat liberals/socialists, or say a loud “no” to that.

Increasing federal control reduces our constitutional freedoms

September 19, 2023

Actions by those in positions of authority to push the boundaries of that authority took a huge step recently when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a public health order outlining efforts to combat gun violence in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. 

“I’m going to continue pushing to make sure that all of us are using every resource available to put an end to this public health emergency with the urgency it deserves,” she said. “I will not accept the status quo. Enough is enough.”

A provision of that public health order temporarily suspended both the open and concealed carrying of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County by those who had been granted carry permits by the state government.

The violations would result in civil penalties, not criminal penalties, but the fines imposed could be up to $5,000 per violation.

This action attempted to suspend rights guaranteed to the people by the U.S. Constitution, and that action brought swift and harsh criticism from both sides of the political aisle, and resulted in law suits against the action.

In response, U.S. District Court Judge David Urias agreed with plaintiffs who pointed out the violation of constitutional rights. He granted a temporary restraining order to block the suspension of gun rights. The order will remain in place until an Oct. 3 court hearing.

The rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution cannot be suspended on the whim of a mere elected official, whether that official is the president, a governor, an attorney general or a mayor. Yet this woman believed she had that authority in order to combat a local problem, a problem that many of her constituents argue is really not that much of a problem.

Recently we have seen government mandates and restrictions on our freedoms during the Covid pandemic, and others ostensibly to save the planet from climate change due to too much CO2 in the atmosphere.

The actions taken during Covid, and currently to combat the climate change that many people believe in, may actually have been taken for the best of reasons. However, they also constitute restrictions on the personal freedoms that the United States is known for. And they frequently inconvenience people and raise prices on things they want and need.

We recently increased our level of energy independence, but it was wiped out almost as soon as President Joe Biden took office. That forced the purchasing of materials and fuels from other countries like China and Russia, raised fuel prices substantially, and put thousands out of work. 

And, by the way, American oil and natural gas are the cleanest in the world. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., noted recently that “If we replaced Russian natural gas in Europe [with American natural gas], for one year, just one year, that would lower 215 million tons of emissions because our natural gas is 41 percent cleaner than Russian natural gas.” Biden’s war on fossil fuels has negatively affected his goal of reducing CO2 emissions.

Biden’s efforts to kill fossil fuels now has him campaigning to do away with gas-burning stoves, furnaces, fireplace logs and grills; creating stricter specifications for common appliances like clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, and others that will substantially increase the cost of those products.

There is the manic effort to decrease gas- and diesel-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles that cost much more, depend almost entirely upon China and other countries for the materials to build their batteries, and require fewer American employees to produce them than conventional vehicles. And then there is the needed enormous increase in our electric grid to be able to recharge these tens of thousands of EVs that Biden wants.

The Department of Justice not long ago involved itself in a local matter. When parents attended school board meetings to register their displeasure with some things that were going on in the school their children attended, the DOJ labeled them “domestic terrorists.” 

Even if the parents were behaving inappropriately, or even violently, it is not the job of the federal government to become involved in state or local matters. That is how our republic is designed.

This nation was formed by the several states that united for that purpose. They did not give up their right to control themselves in local matters by creating a federal government. The states still have a large degree of sovereignty that is protected by terms of the U.S. Constitution.

What we are seeing is an increasing effort by Democrats to empower the federal government to control virtually everything that goes on in our country. They are “fundamentally transforming” the country. 

That contradicts two of the primary goals of the Founders of the United States of America: a large degree of personal freedom, and a federal government limited in its power.

If this power-grab is allowed to continue, the once-great United States of America will some day in the future degenerate into just another Cuba or Venezuela, as the protections provided by the Constitution are gradually erased.  It will be a country whose citizens are at the mercy of autocrats who have complete control.

Our government needs to be reined in, restored to its original intent

April 18, 2023

In November of 1863, a few months after the Union defeated the Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech now known as the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago,” he began, referring to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was an historic speech, despite its mere 271-word length.

But at the end of the speech he referred to the U.S. government as “that government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Looking at what our once limited government has grown into, it seems more like the government is by some people and for some people. So much of what happens today is less “for the people,” meaning the U.S. citizenry as a whole, than for some people, and for the government people.

The federal government is too big, too expensive, and too powerful. 

In September of 2021, federal civilian employees numbered about 2.85 million. The U.S. population in 2021 was approximately 333 million. This means that there was one federal civilian employee for every 118 persons.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “the federal budget for fiscal 2022 was $6.3 trillion. The federal deficit in 2022 was $1.4 trillion, equal to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product, almost 2 percentage points greater than the average over the past 50 years.”

USA Facts provides this information:

* The federal government collected $5.0 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2022 (FY 2022) — or $15,098 per person. 

* The federal government spent $6.5 trillion in FY 2022 — or $19,434 per person — including funds distributed to states. 

* Federal revenue increased 14.3% in FY 2022 after collecting more personal income taxes, social security taxes, and auctioning spectrum for commercial wireless and broadcast use. 

* Federal spending decreased 12.4% in FY 2022 after remaining relatively flat in FY 2021. 

* The federal government spent 28.7% more than it collected in FY 2022, resulting in a $1.45 trillion deficit. 

* The national debt hit $30.9 trillion last fiscal year. That is $931,000 per person.

“In today’s world, it’s rare for the federal government to balance its budget, meaning revenue is higher than expenditures,” Politifact reported. “Since the 1960s, only five years have had balanced federal budgets: 1969 under President Richard Nixon; 1998, 1999 and 2000 under Bill Clinton; and 2001 under George W. Bush.” 

A balanced budget does not mean that there was no national debt. Andrew Jackson, who served from 1829-37, “is the only president to preside over a total elimination of all remaining debt while having a balanced budget,” according to Politifact.

A 2022 Gallop poll found that 54% of Americans feel our government holds too much power. That figure is comprised of 74% of Republicans, 32% of Democrats and 54% of independents.

The feds rule through laws, rules and regulations. Quora.com tells us that there “are thousands of federal laws in the United States. The exact number can vary depending on how one defines a ‘law,’ as there are also regulations and executive orders that have the force of law. Additionally, new laws are constantly being proposed and passed by Congress.”

In 2017, Forbes.com said, “Let's look at year-end 2016 for starters. Federal departments, agencies, and commissions issued 3,853 rules in 2016, while Congress passed and the president signed 214 bills into law — a ratio of 18 rules for every law. The average has been 27 rules for every law over the past decade.”

“How did it get this way,” the Convention of States online (COS) asks, “Slowly but surely, we allowed D.C. bureaucrats to take over our way of living and push connived agendas in our faces.”

“Since the COVID crisis ensued in early 2020, every day has only allowed for the people to recognize how power abuses in the government are not just possible but extremely common.”

This needs to be fixed. But how? Well, one way is by electing people to the White House and Congress who will restore the republic’s intended limited government status. That, however, is a slow, and very iffy process.

Another possibility is a “Convention of States to rein in the powers of the federal government,” COS states. The states have the ability to call a convention to meet and discuss limiting its size and jurisdiction, adding term limits to federal officials, and writing a permanent budget plan.

“The good news is that already, 19 out of the required 34-state threshold has officially passed the COS Resolution.” Seven other states have passed the Resolution in one house of their government, and 12 others are going to consider the Resolution. “The people are looking for a real solution, not just another temporary fix,” COS added.

This would be a quicker solution than through elections, but it might not produce the desired result.

Clearly, the United States government’s size, cost, and power is a serious problem. And the wandering away from the ideal of government “for the people” — meaning all of the people, not just some of them — that has occurred over recent decades needs to be reversed.

The transformation of the United States of America is ongoing

Today, we are living in crazy and dangerous times. Tens of thousands of people from many countries travel many miles to get to Mexico so that they can enter the United States illegally.

There are different reasons why they want to be here, just as there are different types of people coming here. Some come with criminal intent, such as gang members and drug dealers. Some come because they know they can get a lot of stuff for free.

The most desirable ones, however, realize that America is so much better than where they came from. They can have a good life here. We have freedom, jobs and opportunities, due to the crystal-clear vision of the Founders.

The number of illegal entrants coming into the country is likely above any previous level, with more than 1.4 million people coming in illegally the first nine months of 2021, according to U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations Encounters.

This high number is due to the failure of the Biden administration to do its job of providing border security, whether that is through ignorance of why borders are important, or is a deliberate effort to attract illegal aliens to our country.

Of course, the Biden administration insists that the borders are not open. Perhaps one of them can tell us how open borders, as they imagine them, would actually look, and be worse than what we see with our own eyes.

Even as those migrants from socialist, communist and otherwise poor countries come here to enjoy living in what is regarded by many as the best country on Earth, people in the government of this country continue to increase the control of the government over its people, gradually moving it toward the kind of places these illegal migrants could not wait to get away from.

The Democrats in Congress and the administration are busy transforming America into a government-controlled “paradise” where many things are free, except, of course, the individuals under the thumb of a government that seeks to control important things like healthcare, jobs and many current freedoms.

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D-WV, is a strong opponent of the Democrat’s multi-trillion-dollar efforts to increase dependence on government, calling these proposals that total some 5.5 trillion dollars "fiscal insanity" paid for with "vindictive" tax hikes, that will basically change “our whole society to an entitlement mentality." 

In a shocking display of abysmal ignorance about economics, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question about raising taxes on businesses by saying, “In the past, companies have passed on these costs to consumers… We feel that that’s absurd and unfair, and the American people won’t stand for that,” she said.

She apparently perceives economic matters like most “progressives,” which does not include understanding economics, specifically that every cent a business spends — for materials, wages, advertising, loans for new equipment or expansion, taxes, etc. — is paid for with income from consumers that buy its product or service. And when taxes and other costs go up, prices have to go up to pay for them.

Perhaps this is why they see no problem with humongous spending bills that will add trillions more to the already-gigantic national debt of $28.8 trillion.

A New York Post opinion column by Betsy McCaughey had this to say about the spending bill: “The colossal bill Democrats in Washington, DC, are assembling this week is a slap in the face to Americans who work, pay taxes and support their families. It demeans the work ethic and glorifies government handouts, sending the message that work and self-sufficiency are for suckers: better to climb on Uncle Sam’s gravy train, which will now provide cradle-to-grave benefits.”

McCaughey mentions “Biden bucks,” which are monthly payments to almost all parents, based on how many children they have. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t even matter whether the parents work or not. She notes that Democrats also promise “virtually free child care until the children turn 5, free community college and, for seniors, new Medicare and elder-care benefits,” and “12 weeks a year paid leave for anyone who claims a family member — even a distant relative like a spouse’s grandmother — needs care.”

“This bill pours money down a rathole,” McCaughey wrote. “It allocates a whopping $45 billion to make community college free. Students won’t have to spend a single dollar on tuition or fees — or pursue studies that prepare them for work. Only about one in five students now finishes community college within two years. A big reason is lack of academic skills when they enter. Nothing in this program will change that.”

Manchin urges “needs testing” to see who really needs these freebies and financial bonuses. That’s moving in the right direction, but the real question that needs an answer is, “are these measures, which will dramatically increase the peoples’ dependence on government, really a proper role for our government?”

The answer to that is a definite “No!” Our government is supposed to be as small, inexpensive and unobtrusive as possible. That’s how it started; that’s what built the country to which so many want to come;  and that’s how the country works best.

Democrats’ strategy for 2020: Free stuff, fear, and gun control

The process of nominating a candidate for president is always a spirited affair. And with 24 people (so far) seeking the Democrat nomination – including a former Vice President, current senators, current and former representatives, some governors and mayors, and a billionaire – who range from well-known to unknown, the stage is set for a lively campaign.

It can get rough, as candidates tear down their rivals and at the same time try build up their own image in the eyes of voters. This year’s nomination process is even wilder than the Republican effort in 2016 when 17 candidates vied for the nomination.

Front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden has been harshly attacked by several opponents in the first rounds of debates, as they work to claw their way to a respectable level in the polls.

No one is safe in this environment, not even the Democrats’ much-loved former President Barack Obama. As Obama’s VP, Biden opened the door to criticism of Obama’s immigration and health care policies.

Liberal MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said the "trashing Barack Obama's legacy” was “insanity.” "We were sort of in a Never-never land last night in that debate. It was bizarre," he said. 

Free stuff is a favored ploy among the candidates, along with dire predictions. In a recent opinion column John Stossel presented the shopping lists and total costs of free stuff offered by several of the candidates.

The list of free stuff contains many items, including:

·         More money for Title I schools

·         Universal pre-K

·         More psychologists and social workers in schools

·         Free college and free community college

·         More money for teachers

·         Forgiving all or some student debt

·         Universal child care

·         “Medicare for All”

·         The “Green New Deal”

·         A government job for everyone

·         Increases in several government assistance areas

Stossel’s major focus was on which items each candidate proposed and how much those items will add to taxpayers total costs.

In comparing the biggest spenders to President Donald Trump’s spending plan, which Stossel said totals $267 billion, he concludes: “We can’t afford it! The federal government is already $22 trillion in debt – $150,000 per taxpayer.”

Stossel continued, “While Trump’s $267 billion is bad, the Democrats’ plans are worse.” He counted $297 billion proposed by Biden, $690 billion from Mayor Pete Buttigieg, $3.8 trillion from Senator Elizabeth Warren, $4 trillion from Senator Bernie Sanders and $4.3 trillion from Senator Kamala Harris. “That would double what the entire federal government spends now. Senator Harris ‘wins’ the free stuff contest.”

There is also a fear factor in campaign rhetoric, as candidates continue to predict global catastrophe if Americans do not make great sacrifices to save the world from climate change. The candidates predict we have only 10 years, or perhaps 12, to turn our lives upside-down in order to save humanity.

The recent hot spell gave a boost to the assumed urgency of this situation, and campaign rhetoric heated up correspondingly.

Contenders prefer various measures to bring a positive effect to the problem of carbon emissions. Biden wants a price on emission-producing materials and tariffs on foreign carbon products. Buttigieg, Gov. John Hickenlooper, Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Cory Booker prefer a tax, or carbon-price on certain products.

All candidates support the enormously expensive “Green New Deal” with all of its job-killing and severe lifestyle-changing requirements to transition to 100-percent clean energy in a decade. This despite the fact that the U.S. leads the world in carbon emission reduction, while other nations lag behind, are not reducing emissions at all, or are actually increasing emissions.

Democrats’ support for more and stricter gun control laws has been long and loud. Last weekend’s two horrible mass murder incidents in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio have added more urgency to the situation among gun control advocates.

Like the climate change issue, the gun control issue uses fear to attract support. Everyone abhors these senseless killings, and every candidate seeking the Democrat nomination preaches gun control as the solution.

Saturday’s El Paso shooting resulted in 20 deaths and injuries to nearly two-dozen others. The alleged shooter is also believed to have written a 4-page manifesto that provides insight into his motives.

Reason magazine described the manifesto: “The El Paso shooter’s alleged manifesto is racist, anti-corporate, anti-automation, and especially anti-immigrant, and it reflects a general hatred for many aspects of American society.”

It also urges any future mass murders to pick lightly guarded or unguarded target areas: “Remember: it is not cowardly to pick low hanging fruit. AKA Don’t attack heavily guarded areas to fulfill your super soldier COD (Call of Duty) fantasy.”

Any successful response to these horrific events must address soft targets where no defense against someone with evil intentions exists, and especially the mental condition and motivation of the people who carry out these acts.

Guns are inanimate objects. They are not evil; the people who misuse them are evil. Disarming or restricting law-abiding citizens’ gun purchases misses the point.

The most important word in the gun control discussion is “control,” a trait it shares with the climate change discussion. Control is a major aspect of socialism, which is openly advocated by several Democrat candidates.

The future: a $15 an hour minimum wage and more 100 degree days?

The House of Representatives passed a bill recently that would increase the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $15 by 2025. Proponents call this a “living wage.” The House vote was 231-199 with 3 Republicans supporting it and 6 Democrats opposing it. 

It’s not breaking news that raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour is a divisive and hotly debated topic. What’s lacking is any sensible reason to do this, unless you consider vote buying as sensible.

Most minimum wage earners are younger and just entering the world of work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2018 only 2.1 percent of all hourly workers earned the minimum wage, or less. These workers tend to be under 25 years old and work in the food and hospitality industry.

The younger minimum wage workers generally do not require a “living wage,” as many still live with their parents or are college students, and few are the head of a household.

As with other work, some minimum wage workers are really good, some are okay, and some aren’t good at all. But a $15 minimum wage means that the best and worst employees in minimum wage jobs will earn the same $15 wage, which nets out at $31,200 a year for a 40-hour per week full-time job. 

As a matter of sound economics, government should not dictate minimum wages or any wages, other than for government workers. But should this become law, government will have increased the payroll expenses of virtually every business in the country.

While minimum wage workers will reap significant benefits from the increase, business owners will face mandated increases in payroll expenses. For a business to operate successfully it must have more income than expenses. This makes achieving that goal more difficult.

Every employee who was making more than the old minimum wage will get a raise to the new minimum. Those making above the minimum should also get their additional wages added to the new minimum, or they will not be happy.

Where will that money come from? Likely sources are higher product and service prices; reduced employee hours; fewer employees and perhaps more computers and robots. And, if these solutions are not sufficient to maintain profitability, businesses will close and jobs will be lost.

A July report from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to 3.7 million Americans would lose their jobs if the minimum wage were raised to $15 per hour by 2025.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who claims to be an Independent, but is seeking the Democrat presidential nomination, claims the $7.25 minimum is “starvation wages.”

But – surprise, surprise – Bernie does not practice what he preaches. After his statements supporting a $15 minimum wage and raising the minimum above the “starvation” level, many of his campaign workers began complaining that he isn’t paying them at that level. 

It was reported that henceforth campaign workers will be paid at least $15 an hour, but some would have their hours reduced to keep wage expense down. 

Boom! Reality hit the Sanders campaign. But will Bernie learn the economics lesson, or continue to peddle the false narrative that every working person needs to make at least $15 an hour in order to stay alive?

However, because of all the harm this measure will do to the economy, the Republican-controlled Senate will almost certainly vote against the legislation, saving jobs.

In other news, a recent story in a South Carolina newspaper predicted that “by the middle of this century, the number of sweltering days in the Palmetto State is forecast to increase by more than 350 percent if little or nothing is done to stop man-made climate change,” and by “the end of the century, the increase could approach 600 percent.”

Global warming advocates will readily endorse this prediction, especially after last weekend’s very warm temperatures and heat indexes of 100 degrees or more. 

This discomforting prediction comes from a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) showing that the United States is heating up rapidly due to climate changes, which these scientists attribute to human activities.

Increases in the number of days with extreme, dangerously hot weather can be expected to rise sharply in hundreds of cities across the country, the researchers say.

The UCS says it’s already too late to prevent all of the rising heat, but the country can slow down the trend with aggressive action to halt man-made global warming. The UCS did not propose that the nation adopt the wild and crazy Green New Deal, but conceivably might do so at some point.

If humans are causing this warming, can the United States really do enough to stop it? We have led the world in carbon emission reductions for years. Other nations, China and India, to name two, not only are not reducing carbon emissions, they are increasing them.

Why are Americans expected to sacrifice jobs, lifestyle and amenities to try to stop global warming? We must demand that the rest of the world, particularly China, India and the other culprits, catch up with our progress on emissions, and not punish ourselves.

Democrats’ move toward socialism isn’t sitting well with their base

Most would agree that since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States things have been crazier than they have ever been, or at least crazier than they have been in our memory.

The left regards Trump as whacko, even as their own policies push the boundaries of radicalism.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and even Hillary Clinton are still on scene, and they are joined with a cadre of faces new to the race for the Democrat nomination to oppose Trump, or if he is somehow taken out in the primary, or otherwise, whomever the Republicans put up in 2020.

Trump’s unconventional, non-politician, combative style has put off nearly everybody at some time (or always) and the inability of folks to get beyond their personal feelings surely has further gummed things up even more.

But somehow, all of this has emboldened and set free the most radical among the Democrats, who push socialist ideals as if they are actually reasonable.

“The Democrats have become socialists,” stated liberal columnist Dana Milbank back in September of 2017, less than a year after Trump took office.

“This became official, more or less … when [Bernie] Sanders rolled out his socialized health-care plan, Medicare for All, and he was supported by 16 of his Senate Democratic colleagues who signed on as co-sponsors, including the party's rising stars and potential presidential candidates in 2020: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand.”

You may have seen the news since then that all of those folks, and even more, have either declared their candidacy, or hinted at it.

Sen. Harris, the former California Attorney General, suggests doing away with private health insurance, replacing it with single-payer government healthcare.

She told CNN’s Jake Tapper that if people like their current health insurance, they would not be able to keep it. "Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care,” she said. “And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," she told Tapper.

On its face, this actually sounds like a good move. But just ask many a military veteran how government healthcare has worked for them. And the idea that government healthcare would have less paperwork? Where does she think the mountains of existing paperwork had their origin?

But returning to Milbank’s 2017 column, he noted the dramatic shift since 2013, when “Sanders introduced similar legislation” and “he didn’t have a single co-sponsor.”

Democrats obviously believe this approach is their winning strategy, and perhaps even believe it makes sense. The current environment among Democrats has allowed the emergence of a 29-year-old whippersnapper named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to dislodge a long-time New York House member, and quickly rise to fame. So fast and so prominently, in fact, that the old guard was knocked off balance, if balance they ever had.

These folks generally advocate doing away with ICE, open borders, single-payer healthcare - Medicare for All, doing away with private health insurance, abortion up to and even after birth, removing requirements for a photo ID to vote, allowing illegals to vote, radical gun control, raising taxes, free college education, and the Green New Deal.

The latter is one of Cortez’ favored positions. Somehow, despite her wild ideas and silly answers to serious questions, she has garnered a good bit of influence, enough to attract the attention of party leaders in Congress.

And liberal gadfly Michael Moore thinks so much of her that he wants the Constitution amended so that she can run for president.

“It's too bad you have to be 35 to be president,” Moore said on MSNBC. “We put that in the constitution, the Founding Fathers, because people died at 38 or 40 back then. Y'know, we need to lower that. If that was lowered to 30 ...” Obviously, logic is not Moore’s strong point.

These Democrat ideas have gotten so radical that one liberal Democrat, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, raised the flag of caution. “We’ve got to have actionable, practical ideas,” he said. “And I worry — we can’t get into this election season with everybody trying to out-promise one another.”

One survey shows that McAuliffe’s concerns are backed up by data. Democrat and Democrat-leaning registered voters responded to a Pew Research Center survey that by a 53- to 40-percent margin, they want their party to move right, to a more moderate position.

The number of Democrats who view their ever-more-socialist party favorably has fallen from 53 percent last September to 49 percent this year, and 47 percent viewed the party in a negative way.

Interestingly, the survey showed that 58 percent of Republicans seek a more conservative party, while 38 percent seek a more moderate party.

An editorial in Investor’s Business Daily puts things nicely into perspective: ”Socialism is the most pernicious political system ever. Wherever it's been tried, it's led to mass misery, poverty, loss of rights, and even mass killing. Today, Venezuela, North Korea and Zimbabwe are notable examples. True American socialism wouldn't be any better.”

Amen to that.