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Big Government

 See “Bureaucrats,”  here.

Opinion Headlines

  1. Big Government. Book review, “Saving Us From Ourselves” by David Polansky of: “Political Order and Political Decay,” by Francis Fukuyama.   10-3-14
  2. Big Gov’t. “The Organic Food Protectionists.” [Genetic labeling ballot initiatives would harm competitors and raise costs for consumers.] 10-27-14
  3. Big Gov’t. “Italy’s Economic Suicide Movement.” [Protests against Renzi’s labor reforms illustrate Europe’s jobs problem.] 10-27-14
  4. Brazil Sticks With Statism. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. [But Brazilians may someday learn that the one-party state and indefinite rule are the real long-term projects of the PT (Worker’s Party.) 10-27-14
  5. Big Govt. “The Market Votes on Brazil.” [The country proves again that there’s much ruin in a nation.] 10-28-14
  6. Big Govt. “The Chile ‘Miracle” Goes in Reverse.” By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. [Investment and growth are falling, and now the government targets private schools.] 11-3-14
  7. Big Government. “The Roots of Government Meddling in Mortgages.” By Judge Glock. [Federal Land Bands created in 1916 were the Fannie Mae model. They too went belly up.] 11-4-14.
  8. Japan’s Wizards of Ease. [More QE can’t make up for fiscal and regulatory blunders.] 11-1-14
  9. Big Government. “Better, Cheaper Protection Against the Next Superstorm Sandy.” By Collin O’Mara et.al. [Ending Government insurance subsidies and investing in the land’s natural defenses would save billions in disaster relief.”] 11-1-14
  10. Big Gov’t. “Something Fishy in Sarbox Land.” By Bill Shepherd. [How many groupers does it take to expose federal overreach and a flawed law gone wrong again.?] 11-5-14
  12. Big Government. “For Want of a Grouper.” [Prosecutors charge a fisherman for throwing one back in the water.] […Sarbanes-Oxley…] 11-7-14
  13. Big Gov’t. “Something Fishy in Sarbox Land.” By Bill Shepherd. [How many groupers does it take to expose federal overreach and a flawed law gone wrong again.?] 11-8-14
  14. Big Gov’t. “The Washington Mind.” [The Beltway is shocked that Internet regulation might hurt investment.] 11-14-14
  15. Big Gov’t.  Jonathan Gruber’s ‘Stupid’ Budget Tricks.   [His ObamaCare candor shows how Congress routinely cons taxpayers.] 11-15-2014
  16. Big Gov’t  LTE. “No Sex, Lies and Videotape: Gruber Saga Continues.” 11-22-14
  17. Big Gov’t. “Loretta Lynch’s Money Pot.” [Someone should ask the AG nominee about the Hirsch brothers.] 11-22-14
  18. Big Govt. LTE. “ Government Regulation Run Amok”   11-22-14
  19. Big Govt. LTE. “Revive the Economy by Getting Control of Government” 11-28-14
  20. Big Government. “Terrorizing Taxpayers.” [Both parties want to backstop insurance for big developers.] 12-5-14.
  21. Big Gov’t. “K Street’s Biggest Opponent.” By Kimberley A. Strassel. 12-12-14.
  22. Big Gov’t. “The Benefits of Liberty.” [Where government recedes, private markets heal and begin to thrive.] 12-27-14
  23. Big Gov’t. LTE. “Kafka Would Feel Right at Home.” 12-27-14
  24. Big Govt. “The Infrastructure Medicine Show.” By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. [Today’s low interest rates are hardly a signal of investor confidence in government.]   2-4-15
  25. Big Govt. “A Poor Standard of Justice.” [The S&P settlement shuts down discovery into political payback.] 2-6-15
  26. Big Govt. LTE. “Spenders Appeal to Human Nature.” 2-9-15
  27. Big Govt. “Regulation is Good for Goldman.” [Lloyd Blankfein and Elizabeth Warren find common ground.] 2-12-15
  28. Big Gov’t. “Capital Hill Pickpockets.” By Casey B. Mulligan. Book review of: “Hidden in Plain Sight.” By Peter J. Wallison. [Risky loans made by Fannie and Freddie were the biggest factor that led to the financial crisis – and the direct result of federal policy.] 2-25-15
  29. Big Govt. “Government Food Cops Are Out to Lunch.” Dietary guidelines look nothing like how people really eat. Maybe that’s why they don’t work.] 2-27-15
  30. Big Govt. “Hit Us Again, Harder.” [The EEOC won’t stop using bad evidence that loses cases in court.]   2-28-15
  31. Big Gov’t. “A Fight to Keep Catholic Schools Catholic.” By Ryan T. Anderson et.al. [In San Francisco, the archdiocese is under fire for teaching according to church doctrine.] 3-6-15
  32. Big Govt. “The Menendez Charges.” [The timing has produced skepticism on the right and the left.] 3-9-15
  33. Big. Govt. “Eric Holder’s Speech Police.” [Justice gears up to prosecute campaign “coordination.’] 3-10-15
  34. Big Govt. “Ending Federal Loan Fraud.” 3-11-15
  35. Big Govt. “Apple Dumpling Gang.” [A federal appeals court scoffs at the company’s antitrust bloodhound.] 3-11-15
  36. Big Govt. “Partnership for Big Government.” [Wealthy New York CEOs endorse highter costs for small business.] 3-17-15
  37. Big Govt. “The Army’s Fort Hood disgrace.” By Kathy Platoni. [No one who supervised the shooter has been held to account, but the victims are denied pay and benefits.] 3-20-15
  38. Big Govt. “Antitrust Snoops on the Loose.” By Keith N. Hylton. [“…the continuing Apple litigation…”] 4-3-15
  39. Big Govt. “The U.S. Department of Land-Hogging.” By Shawn Regan. [Nearly half of the West is owned – and badly managed – by the feds. States want to step in.] 4-3-15
  40. Big Govt. LTE. “This Land is Your Land. No, It’s Washington’s Land.” 4-10-15
  41. Big Govt. “The Alinsky Way of Governing.” By Pete Peterson. [What happens when those in power adopt ‘rules for radicals’ to attack their less powerful opponents.] 4-10-15
  42. Big Govt. “It’s Happy Hour, and Uncle Sam Is Pouring.” By Wayne Hoffman. [State budgets are dangerously dependent on Washington. Look out if the cast flow stops.] 4-11-15
  43. Big Govt. “Information Is Not a Crime.” By L. Gordon Crovitz. [“Financial markets have always thrived on information…But now the Obama administration claims that too much information is a crime…”] 4-13-15
  44. Big Govt. “The Battle of Washington.” By Daniel Henninger. [“…It’s hard to know…What we know for sure is that the lady in the Scooby van has to spend 19 months arguing for more of the same.] 4-16-15
  45. Big Govt. “The Menendez Indictment.” [Harry Reid was at the same meeting that Justice says is evidence of a crime.] 4-16-15
  46. Big Govt. LTE. “Alinsky’s Tactics Are Effective but Do We Want them?” 4-16-15  [See #41 in this index list of articles.]
  47. Big Govt. LTE. “Reduce Burdens to Revive the Vitality of Silicon Valley.” 4-21-15
  48. Big Govt. “This is the Last Thing First Resonders Need.” By Aliysia Finley. [A Los Angeles County project shows how much can go wrong with a federal emergency-broadband plan.] 4-21-15
  49. Big Govt. “Why States Should Boycott the Federal Clean Power Plan.” By Kenneth C. Hill. [Better for states not to comply with the EPA’s plans than to go along and absolve the feds of accountability for the mess.] 4-22-15
  50. Big Govt. “Philanthropies as Creatures of Government.” By James Piereson. [Foundations increasingly seem eager to subsume their own power to the whim of politicians and bureaucrats.] 4-22-15
  51. Big Govt. “Rear-view Regulation.” [Justice pretends video consumers have no choice but to buy cable.] 4-25-15
  52. Big Govt. LTE. “The Government is Big on Antitrust, Except in Medicine.” 4-28-15
  53. Big Govt. LTE. “The Deficit as a Percentage of GDP.” 5-1-2015.
  54. Big Govt. “A Big Data Financial Retreat.” [Finra walks back its needless and risky house of Cards.] 5-1-2015.
  55. Big Government. , LTE “Government Continues to Hurt U.S. Productivity Growth.”   5-21-15
  56. Big Gov’t. “Department of Deal-Killing.” [Why does the FCC get to decide if Charter can buy Time Warner Cable?] 5-27-15
  57. Big Govt. “$27,887,000,000,000” [Uncle Sam still stands behind 60% of all U.S. financial liabilities.] 5-26-15
  58. Big Govt. “Barack Obama, Re-Founding Father.” By Daniel Henninger.   [“…With Congress rendered moribund, the new branch of the American political system is the federal enforcement bureaucracy…”] 6-4-15
  59. Big Govt. LTE. “We Need to Re-Re-Found America.” [see “Barack Obama, Re-Founding Father” 6-4-15] 6-15-15
  60. Big. Govt. “Obama Wants to Pick the Clintons’ Neighbors.” By Jason Riley. [The administration is forcing low-income housing into wealthy enclaves, whether or not anyone wants it.] 6-17-15
  61. Big Govt. “Lessons From a Little Pink House, 10 Years Later.” By Ilya Somin. [Since the Kelo decision, 45 states have passed laws reforming eminent domain, with mixed results. ] 6-22-15
  62. Big Govt. LTE. “The Feds Take Over Formerly Local Zoning and Housing.” 6-23-15
  63. Big govt. “Profligate Puerto Rico on the Brink.” By Daniel Hanson. [The governor says debts of $70 billion can’t be repaid. No wonder – serious solutions haven’t been tried.] 6-30-15.
  64. Big Govt. “A Government Snoop That Puts the NSA to Shame.” By Newt Gingrich. [The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to monitor 95% of all credit-card transactions by 2016.] [“…the agency is funded through a fixed percentage of the Federal Reserve budget…”] 7-2-15
  65. Big Govt. “America’s Greece” [Puerto Rico is a failed welfare state that needs a Detroit-like overhaul.] 7-3-15
  66. Big Govt. LTE. “Profligate Puerto Rico’s Problems So Possible to Predict.” 7-9-15
  67. Big Govt. Copyright. “Auto Makers Try to Stop the Gear Heads.” [You may think you own your car, but tinkering with its software might violate the manufacturer’s copyright.] 7-9-15
  68. Big Govt. “’Smart Cities’ Will Know Everything About You.” By Mike Weston. 7-13-15
  69. Big Govt. “Whatever Happened to Religious Freedom?” by Roger Pilon. [When cake bakers and others are fined for adhering to their beliefs about same-sex marriage, a new kind of discrimination is upon us.] 7-14-15
  70. Big Govt. LTE. “Dealing with Puerto Rico, the Dollarzone’s Own Greece.” 7-13-15
  71. Big Govt. “The Government Insurance Complex” [Big Insurance hires its regulator as its new ObamaCare lobbyist.] 7-17-15
  72. Big Govt.. “Obama’s Ill-Conceived Overtime Rule.” [The proposal will deliver marginal benefits and disrupt the workplace flexibility that most employees want.] 8-7-15
  73. Regulation. “Tesla Is a Compliance Company.” [The electric-car maker’s entire business model is rapidly becoming a regulatory creation.] 8-8-15
  74. Big Govt. LTE “Little State Choice With the FHTF Funds.” 8-12-15 [[ Federal Highway Trust Fund (FHTF)]]
  75. Big Govt. “What the United States Owes Puerto Rico.” By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Mark Medish. [Allowing the U.S. territory to fall prey to the claws of vulture creditors is unjust and unacceptable.] 8-14-15
  76. Big Govt. “Obama Targets Financial Advisers.” [Labor’s new fiduciary rule will limit advice for middle-class savers.] 8-17-15
  77. Big Govt. “An Airline Investigation That Misses the Bus.” By Joseph Schwieterman. [How can airlines gouge Northeast fliers when fleets of modern buses give consumers so much choice?] 8-19-15
  78. Big Govt. LTE. “Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Got Itself Into Its Mess.” 8-20-15
  79. Big Govt. “Put Fannie and Freddie Out of Taxpayer’s Misery.” By Edward DeMarco. [Seven years after the crash, why is the American public still on the hook for three out of every four new mortgages.?] 8-21-15
  80. Big Govt. “Puerto Rico Plays Chicken With Its Creditors.” By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. [Failure to negotiate in good faith could cost the island the help it seeks from Washington.] 8-24-15
  81. Big Govt. LTE. “What’s Wrong With Advisers Putting the Client First?” 8-22-15
  82. Big Govt. “The Pause That Refreshes.” [Obama’s effort to reduce ‘unreasonable burdens’ expands costly rules.] 8-27-15
  83. Big Govt. LTE. “More Problems, More Government.” 9-2-15
  84. Big Govt. “My Old Kentucky Double Standard.” [Vilifying a county clerk while lauding other official disobedience.] 9-4-15
  85. Big Govt. “Why Must Kim Davis Be Jailed?” by Wm. McGurn. [A federal judge chose the nuclear option instead of finding a reasonable accommodation.] 9-8-15
  86. Big Govt. LTE “Decades of Trying to Solve The Wrong Problem at HUD.” [“…Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation…”] 9-19-15
  87. Big Govt. “Government Shutdown as Self-Promotion.” By Karl Rove. [Planned Parenthood ought to be defunded, but trying to do it this way invites disaster.] 9-24-15
  88. Big Govt. “The Sage Grouse Switcheroo.” [An ‘endangered’ reprieve hides some destructive fine print.] 9-28-15
  89. Big Govt. “Tracking Government Waste – There’s an App for That.” By Tom Coburn. [Citizen activists can now monitor online how elected federal and state officials are spending their money.] 10-7-15
  90. Big Govt. “The Feds Go Turbo.” [A new study shows how Energy rules raise costs for consumers.] 10-9-15
  91. Big Govt. “Government Food Flight.” [Renegade pasta and other tales from the school lunch revolt.] 10-16-15
  92. Big Govt. “Washington’s Revenue Windfall.” [Taxpayers provide an 8% increase in revenue, but entitlements keep rising.] 10-19-15
  93. Big Govt. “The Best Worst Budget Deal.” [Obama gets more spending, the GOP gets some disability reform.] 10-28-15
  94. Big Govt. “Freeing Indians From Obama’s Grip.” By Rob Bishop. [Tribes want the freedom to develop their own land, but the government refuses.] 10-28-15
  95. Big Govt. “Wisconsin Moves to Rein in the Licensing Game.” By Luke Hilgermann. [Barring municipalities from passing laws that discourage jobseekers.] 10-31-15
  96. Big Govt. “Puerto Rico Doesn’t Need Bankruptcy.” By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. [Washington’s rush to allow PR to default is about votes not economics.] 11-2-15
  97. Big Govt. “Government Land Grab.” [A fund to buy private property needs some limits from Congress.] 11-3-15
  98. Big. Govt. LTE. “Native Americans Deserve a New, Free Start.” 11-3-15
  99. Big Govt. “Little Sisters of the Government.” [“…the saga of the Little Sisters of the Poor and their challenge to ObamaCare’s birth control mandate…”] 11-10-15
  100. Big Govt. LTE. “The Government, the People and Public Lands.” 11-18-15 (See. 11-3-15, here)
  101. Big Govt. “Revolt Against Racial Auto Profiling.” [To Team Obama, if your name is ‘Johnson’ you must be black.] 11-24-15
  102. Big Govt. “What Really Sank Brazil.” By Mary Anastasia O’ Grady. [The media blame oil parices. The true culprit is years of antigrowth policies.] 12-14-15
  103. Big Gov. LTE. “Why Government Workers Have Low Turnover.” 12-17-15
  104. Big Gov. “The Obama Secrets Regime.” By Kimberley A. Strassel. [Republicans ban the IRS from private email. But why not all federal employees?] 12-18-15
  105. Big Gov. “Why the Trial Bar and Its Friends Detest Arbitration.” By James R. Copland, 12-26-15
  106. Big Govt. LTE “How Arbitration Has Advantage Over a Trial.” 1-4-16 (See 12-26-15 here.)
  107. Big Govt. “The Western Land Revolt.” [The Bundy siege is wrong, but so is government abuse.] 1-6-16
  108. Big Govt. “Playing Government Powerball.” By Allysia Finley. [“Under what circumstances is a gambling racket legal? When the bookie is government…” 1-13-16
  109. Big Govt. “Shrinking MetLife” [The feds break off a piece of the insurer, but can they win in court?] 1-15-16
  110. Big Govt. “Through Hell and Flint Water.” [The real scandal is government failure – local, state and federal.] 1-21-16
  111. Big Govt.  LTE. “We Should Learn the Lessons of Flint’s Water.” 1-28-16 [“…The Flint, Mich, water system is socialism – government control of the facilities of production…”]
  112. Big Govt. “The Food Pyramid Scheme.” By Steven E. Nissen and Nina Teicholz. [The feds’ dietary guide is based on dubious science — and now Congress wants an impartial review.] 1-29-16
  113. Big Gov’t. “Parks and Political Recreation.” [Senators want to make permanent a federal land purchase fund.] 2-3-16
  114. Big Gov’t. LTE. “Deficit Has Many Fathers, Uncertain Future.” 2-3-16
  115. Big Govt. LTE. “Feds Criminalize Things That Aren’t Crimes.” 2-5-16
  116. Big Govt. LTE. “Office for Civil Rights Should Respect Rights.” 2-5-16
  117. Big Gov’t . “A Reality Show for Surveillance.” By Homan W. Jenkins, Jr. [Red-light cameras show us the flaw in the theory that government will ‘nudge’ us into doing the right thing.] 2-6-16
  118. Big Gov’t. “For This 6-Year-Old, The Law Sees Only Race.” [Lexi, who is 1.5% Choctaw, was taken from loving parents because they didn’t share her ancestry.] 3-25-16
  119. Big Government. “FBI vs. Apple Isn’t Over.” By L. Gordon Crovitz. [Fourth Amendment issues remain. Both sides need to argue more forthrightly.] 3-28-16
  120. Big Government. “Why Americans Hate Government.” [The regulators who destroyed Decker College have never been held accountable.] 3-28-16
  121. Big Government. “Fiscal Years Should Come in Pairs.” By Yuval Steinitz. [A government that budgets annually spends half its time planning, and only half implementing. ] 3-31-16
  122. Big Gov’t, [BookShelf, by Joseph C. Sternberg] “The Free Stuff Majority.” “Conspiracies of the Ruling Class.” By Lawrence B. Lindsey.   [How can we believe most Americans want smaller government when even Tea Partiers cling to Medicare and Social Security?”] [“…Progressive governance has failed by just about every practical measure that matters. But it has been a tremendous political and philosophical success…”] 4-1-16
  123. Big Govt. “Cracking Washington’s Black Box.” [A new effort to check the assumptions behind government decisions.] 4-4-16
  124. Big Govt. “The Panama Papers in Perspective.” [The news here are the incomes and bank accounts of politicians.] 4-5-16
  125. Big Govt. LTE. “Why Indian Child Welfare Act Was Needed.” 4-6-16 (See #118, here)
  126. Big Govt. LTE. “Americans Love and Hate Their Government.” 4-8-16
  127. Big Govt. “Jack Lew’s MetLife Tantrum.” [He’s furious that a judge called out the many flaws in his analysis.] 4-9-16
  128. Big Govt. “Dallas Property-Rights Abuse.” [The city drives out long-time businesses to make way for hipsters.] 4-13-16
  129. Big Govt. LTE. “Government’s Crystal Ball Is More Open Now.” 4-13-16
  130. Big Govt. “Impeachment Won’t Save Brazil.” By Ruchir Sharma. [Government spending eating up 41% of GDP, is smothering the economy of the still-emerging nation.] 4-19-16
  131. Big Govt. “National Parks: Lost in the Wilds of Neglect.” By Shawn Regan. [The maintenance backlog is $12 billion — and it shows. Here’s how to start afresh.] 4-25-16
  132. Big Govt. “Government Crime and Punishment.” [Accountability in Michigan but not in Washington, D.C. ] 4-26-16
  133. Big Govt. “The Encryption Farce.” [Justice and the FBI can’t get their Apple stories straight.] 4-26-16
  134. Big. Govt. LTE. “Who Will Help When Big Government Comes for You?” [“…Little Sisters of the Poor Say ‘Yes’ to the Court…”] 4-26-16
  135. Big Govt.  LTE. “Eminent Domain Abuse Hurts Farmers’ Rights.” 5-1-16
  136. Big Govt. LTE. “Getting the National Parks Back Up to Speed.” 5-2-16
  137. Big Govt. “The Quickening.” [Why is Justice suing one of the nation’s most careful FHA lenders?] 5-4-16
  138. Big Govt. “Obama’s Got Flint’s Back.” [Good question: Why is government failing at so many levels?] 5-6-16
  139. Big Govt. “Obesity: The New Hunger.” By Robert Paarlberg. “The government obsession with ‘food insecurity’ obscures the real problem.  American’s are too fat.” 5-11-16
  140. Big Govt. LTE. “Flint and All Taxpayers Should be Concerned.” 5-13-16
  141. Big. Govt. “No Property Rights Zones.” [Mbobo loses in Dallas, and other cities are pulling the same trick.] 5-14-16
  142. Big Govt. “Obama’s Transgender ‘Guidance.” [The white House starts another culture war to drive liberal turnout.] 5-17-16
  143. Big Govt. “The Miscarriage of Justice Department.” [A federal judge slams U.S. lawyers for deceiving the courts on immigrant deportations.] 5-23-16
  144. Big Govt. “Washington’s Chicken Retreat.” [“…to list was never about helping that particular range bird. I was part of an attempted federal land grab by green activists…”] 5-25-16
  145. Big Govt. “When Taxpayers Carry All the Risk.” By Eric Crown. [Too many insiders launch companies on the public’s dime — like a $15 million subsidy for balloon rides. ] 5-25-16
  146. Big Govt. LTE. “Where’s Accountability for Justice’s Lawyers?” 5-27-16
  147. Big Govt. TSA. “The TSA’s Summer of Lines.” [They’re from the government and they’re here to make you wait.] 5-28-16
  148. Big Govt. TSA.  LTE.  “The Badly Managed TSA Needs Real Reform.”  5-31-16
  149. Big Govt.  LTE.  “Will the FWS’s Chickens Try to Roost Again?”  5-31-16  (See 5-25-16 Big Govt.)
  150. Big Govt. “The Army Corps of Abuse.”  [The Supremes rebuke another misuse of the Clean Water Act.]  6-2-16
  151. Big Govt. “Bringing Justice to Justice.”  [Sen. Chuck Grassley wants answers from DOJ on prosecutorial abuse.]  6-6-16
  152. Big Govt. LTE.  “Getting the Benighted TSA to Pass Inspection.”  6-8-16
  153. Big Govt. “The FCC Hoists the Jolly Roger on Your Cable Box.”  By Peter M. Lenkov.  [A move supposedly meant to expand consumer choice will delight data-coveting Big Tech – and pirates.]  6-8-16
  154. Big Govt. “White House Rules.”  [Obama vetoes the bipartisan repeal of his costly fiduciary rule.]  6-9-16
  155. Big Govt. “Washington Lets Apaches Wear Feathers.”  [The end of ‘Operation Powwow’ is a victory for religious freedom.]  6-13-16
  156. Big Govt. “Hey, Jay Leno, what About Tesla’s Dependence on the Taxpayer.” By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.  6-18-16
  157. Big Govt. “LTE.  “Do We Want Government to Suppress Debate?”  6-24-16
  158. Big Govt. “GE Is Free.”  [The company escapes from Washington’s too-big-to-fail club.]  6-30-16
  159. Big Govt. LTE.  “Give Musk Some Credit for His Innovations.”  7-6-16 (See #156 here)
  160. Big Govt. “Will Tesla Be Toyota-ed?’  by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. [Joshua Brown’s ‘self-driving’ crash was one more example of distracted driving.]  7-13-16
  161. Big Gov’t. “Executive Branch Overreach:  Where Are the Judges?”  7-29-16
  162. Big Govt. “Uncle Sam Needs a Refi.”  [Treasury should lock in more federal debt at today’s low rates.]  8-1-16
  163. Big Govt. “Too Many Politicians Try to Hide the Real problem.”  By Ron Johnson.  [When government fails, more government is proposed —  like asking the arsonist to put out the fire.]  8-3-16
  164. Big Govt. LTE.  “Debt:  You Can Borrow Money Until You Can’t.” 8-12-16  (See #163, here)
  165. Big Govt. “Your Tax Dollars Fund Palestinian Terror.” By David Feith.  [How do U.S. aid transfers square with laws against funding terrorism?  Willful blindness helps.]  8-12-16
  166. Big Govt. “How Elites Forsake Their Countrymen.” By Peggy Noonan.  “Those in power see people at the bottom as aliens whose bizarre emotions they must try to manage.]  8-13-16
  167. Big Govt. “Trust in Business vs. Government.”  [The public likes the private economy more than the politicians do.]  8-16-16
  168. Big Govt. “From DeLorean to Tesla.”  By Homan W. Jenkins, Jr.  [With enough government handouts, a car company never has to break even.]  8-17-16
  169. Big Govt. “The Pipeline and the Short Seller.”  [Emails show a federal regulator shared non-public information with an investor.]  8-17-16
  170. Big Govt. “The Diversity Police Raid the boardroom.”  By Mike Gonzalez.  [Forcing firms to disclose the race and gender of their directors is a step toward de facto quotas.]  8-18-16
  171. Big Govt. “Have You Checked Your Risk Level Lately?” by George Melloan. [Federal obligations and guarantees have ballooned since 2009. Taxpayers are on the hook for trillions.] 8-27-16
  172. Big Govt. “The 5,000- Year Government Debt Bubble.” By James Freeman. [Should investors buy the most expensive bonds in recorded history?”] 9-1-16
  173. Big Govt. LTE. “The 5,000-Year Bubble Has Had a Good Run.” 9-8-16
  174. Big Govt. “Lame Ducks Are Plotting a Post-Election Budget Raid.” By Andy Koenig. [With Government funding set to expire, Democrats are preparing for a December spending binge.] 9-13-16
  175. Big Govt. “Washington’s Wake- Up Call.”   By Mitch Daniels.  [Sky-High debt and dismal growth are testing Americans’ faith in democracy.]  9-14-16
  176. Big Govt. “Practical Fixes for a Broken Washington.”  By Philip K. Howard.  [“…Like many Americans, I believe our government is broken.”]  9-19-16
  177. Big Govt. LTE.  “Few Want to Wake Up to a Massive Debt Call”  9-19-16  (See  #175, here)
  178. Big Govt.   “Utah’s Native Tribes Want Jobs, Not Federal Paternalism.  By Naomi Schaefer Riley.  [If Washington designates a new 1.9 million acre national monument, area communities will suffer.]  9-24-16
  179. Big Gov’t. “The Subprime Superhighway.”  By Phil Gramm.  [The U.S. and Europe are lowering capital standards for ‘investments’ in public infrastructure – ignoring the lessons form 2007—08.]  10-3-16
  180. Big Govt. “Jack Lew’s MetLife Denial Syndrome.”  [Why is Treasury still keeping the New York insurer’s cash?]  10-10-15
  181. Big Govt. “Tom Perez’s Junk Data on Palantir.”  [The Labor Department finds discrimination without victims.] 10-27-16
  182. Big Govt. “The Bundy Brothers Verdict.”  [A jury says prosecutors didn’t prove their conspiracy charge.]  11-4-16
  183. Big Govt. “Obama’s Fiscal Legacy.”  [The President’s luck is about to run out – on his successor’s watch.]  11-9-16
  184. Big Govt. “Tom Perez Strikes Out.”  [A federal judge says Obama’s new overtime rule is illegal.]  11-25-16
  185. Big Govt. “A Gingrich Commission on Government.”  [Newt is looking for a role, and this would fit his evangelism.] 12-1-16
  186. Big Govt. “Bringing Home the Davis-Bacon.”  By Philip Mark Plotch.  [“…the provisions of the 85 year old …Act that artificially inflate the wages of construction workers and employ an army of bureaucrats…”]  12-2-16
  187. Big Govt. “How the Feds Can Really Spread the Wealth Around.”  By Paul Kuplec.  [Moving federal agencies to cities like Detroit can shrink budgets and boost declining regions.]  12-9-16
  188. Big Govt. “Living Off the Fat of Washington.”  By James Bovard.  [If Trump is going to ‘drain the swamp,’ he might start with wasteful ag subsidies.]  12-12-16
  189. Big Govt. “Winding Down Fannie and Freddie Is Easier than It Seems.”  12-16-16
  190. Big Govt. “Connecticut’s Spendthrift Capital Eyes the Wealthy Suburbs.”  By Stephen Eide.  [The mayor of Hartford – junk-rated and taxed to the max – talks up a ‘regional’ solution to the city’s woes.] 12-17-16
  191. Big Govt. “Secretary of Federal Imperialism.”  [“…The Interior Department is responsible for managing  640 million acres of federal land – 29% of the U.S…]  12-19-16
  192. Big Govt. “Is Communism Cool?  Ask a Millennial.”  By Andrew Clark.  [The U.S.S.R. broke up 25 years ago – ancient history for some.]  12-23-16
  193. Big Govt. “Obama’s Political Monuments.”  [He stretches the Antiquities Act as a gift to Harry Reid.]  12-30-16
  194. Big Govt. “Trump Can Reverse Obama’s Last-Minute Land Grab.”  By Todd Gaziano and John Yoo.  [The White House is trying to lock up millions of acres, but no president can bind his successor.]  12-31-16
  195. Big Govt. “James Comey’s Best Service.”  [The new AG should ask the director to resign for the good of the FBI.]  1-13-17
  196. Big Govt. “A New Arkansas Supermajority to Take On Government Bloat.”  By Greg Kaza.  [Three Democrats defected last year after the election.  The Clintons would hardly recognize the place.]  1-14-17
  197. Big Govt. “Save the Arts by Ending the Endowment.”  By Patrick Courrielche.  [The NEA doesn’t live up to its mission of supporting excellence.]  1-26-17
  198. Big Govt. “Meet the Victims of the Administrative State.”  By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.  [Multiply these two cases thousands of times over and you can understand America’s doldrums.]  1-28-17
  199. Big Govt. “The President’s Right to Say ‘You’re Fired.”  By Philip E. Howard.  [Today’s civil-service system violates the Constitution.  Trump has the power to fix it.]  1-30-17
  200. Big Govt. “An Antipoverty Veteran Now Wages War on Dependency.” By Jason L. Riley. [How Peter cove came to realize that jobs, not government aid, offered the route to prosperity.] 2-8-17
  201. Big Govt. “If You Kill a Migratory Duck, Your Goose May Be Cooked.” By Allysia Finley. [A century-old law stymies development to protect common fowl like crows and hummingirds.] 2-16-17
  202. Big Govt. “Sally Yates’s Legacy of Injustice at the Department of Justice.” By Howard Root. [In 2015 she signed a memo that makes a potential criminal of every CEO. Time to tear it up.] 2-17-17
  203. Big Govt. “Calling Off Obama’s Restroom Cops.” [Trump may soon rescind the transgender bathroom ‘guidance.’] 2-21-17
  204. Big Govt. “A Notorious’ 2016 for Ginsburg and Comey.” By Laurence H. Silberman. [The justice’s politicking and the FBI director’s appropriation of prosecutorial authority likely did lasting damage.] 2-25-17
  205. Big Govt. “Utah Faces Down the Rock-Climbing Industrial Complex.” By Terry L. Anderson. [Companies selling outdoor gear lobby endlessly for more federal wilderness – subsidized by the taxpayer.] 3-11-17
  206. Big Govt. “The Warren Buffett of Cultural Investing.” By Joyce Winslow. [Regarding cutting gov’t funding for the NEA – the National Endowment for the Arts.] 3-13-17
  207. Big Government. “The Health Bill’s Fiscal Bonus.” [The best chance in a generation to control a runaway government.] 3-15-17
  208. Big Govt. “Category 5 Flores.” [A Florida Republican keeps a trail bar payday going for another year.] 4-1-17
  209. Big Govt. “Obama’s Debt Interest Bomb.” [Rising interest payments are already showing up in the federal fisc.] 4-11-17
  210. Big Govt. “Curtains for Global Financial Regulation.” By Peter J. Wallison. [With Trump in the White House, the G-20’s dream of world-wide bank controls is dead.] 4-13-17
  211. Big Govt. “Do Agencies Have to Follow the Law?” [The Supremes hear a bellwether statute of limitations case.] 4-18-17
  212. Big Govt. “The Tort Bar’s Senate Undertaker.” [Someday, and that day will come soon, it will ask Mr. Graham for a favor.] 4-21-17
  213. Big Govt. “Trump’s Monumental Task.”  [A review of federal land grabs, especially in the West, is long overdue.]  4-28-17
  214. Big Govt. “Does the Public Need Protection From Rogue Auctioneers?  By Luke Hilgemann and Russ Latino.  [Mississippi’s governor now has to approve new rules from professional licensing boards.]  4-29-17
  215. Big Govt. “With Liberty and Pizza for All.”  [HHS issues a pepperoni calorie count reprieve.]  5-4-17
  216. Big Govt. “$697,177 for a ‘Climate-Change Musical’:  You Call that Science?” [Research is often a wise investment of tax dollars – but agencies also fund ridiculous boondoggles.]  5-13-17
  217. Big Govt. “The Ivanka Entitlement.”  [Democrats are already calling a $25 billion subsidy too stingy.]  5-26-17
  218. Big Govt. “Trump Faces the Fury of a Scorned Ruling Class.”  By George Melloan.  [The ‘threat’ that has elites quaking is his serious attempt to curb federal power and cut spending.]  5-26-17
  219. Big Govt. “A Government Agency That Produces Real Innovation.”  By Mike Kalutkiewicz and Richard. L. Ehman.  [What does Trump have in common with the National Institutes of Health?  Patents.  6-23-17
  220. Big Govt. “Big Foundations Double Down on Government Mistakes.”  By James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley.  7-8-17
  221. Big Govt. “It Costs Taxpayers bundle, but Is It Art?”  by Roger Kimball.  [A $10,000 grant for theater ‘celebrating the saguaro cactus’?  The National Endowment said yes.]  7-11-17
  222. Big Govt. “Ethics for the D.C. Ethicists.”  By Kimberley A. Strassel.  [Walter Schaub’s exit is the grandstanding of a pious political operator.]  7-14-17
  223. Big Govt. “Do Texas Lawmakers Want a State Bathroom Policy?”  by Jon Cassidy. [The lieutenant governor forced a special session to push a bill on transgender access to public restrooms.]  7-15-17
  224. Big Govt. “What Swedes Give Up for ‘Free’ Money.”  By Zach Maher.  [When the state treats childrearing like a job, make sure you don’t run afoul of the boss.] 8-15-17
  225. Big Govt. “Texas Political Prosecution.”  [Another dubious case against a politician who riled the status quo.]  8-21-17
  226. Big Govt. “The Seattle Tax Fight.”  [An illegal bid to pave the way for a state income tax.]  8-21-17
  227. Big Govt. “First Resilience, Then Boondoggle.”  By Homan W. Jenkins, Jr.  [Maybe we should start budgeting for the kind of bailout Houston will need.]  8-30-17
  228. Big Govt. “An Obama Pay Rule Dies.”  [Companies won’t have to disclose reams of wage and salary data.]  8-31-17
  229. Big Govt. “Teen-Pregnancy Subsidy Panic.”   [The feds don’t need to spend $200 million on a failed sex-ed program.]  9-7-17
  230. Big Govt. “Why Entitlements Keep Growing, and…”  (The Weekend Interview with John R. Cogan by Tunku Varadarajan.) [Once granted, benefits always multiply and are nearly impossible to repeal.  Only three presidents have been able to rein them in.]  9-9-17
  231. Big Govt.  Regulations. “In Utah, the Federal Government Puts Prairie Dogs Over People.”  By Mike Lee and Jonathan Wood.  [The question for the U.S. Supreme court is whether protecting rodents counts as ‘interstate commerce.’]  11-4-17
  232. Big Govt. “It’s the Last Stop on the Light-Rail Gravy Train.”  By Randal O’Toole.  [Mayors want new lines that won’t be ready for a decade.  Commuters will be in driverless cars by then.]  11-11-17
  233. Big Govt. “The Right Move on Monuments.”  [Trump puts an end to a federal land grab in southeast Utah.]  12-6-17
  234. Big Government. “An Attack on My Privacy in Wisconsin’s Political War.”  By Leah Vukmir.  [A rogue state agency took my personal emails and filed them under ‘opposition research.’]  12-11-17
  235. Big Govt. “Florida’s Legal Tourism.”  [Judges and politicians turn the state into a trial-lawyer paradise.]  12-16-17
  236. Big Govt. “Split Up the Ninth Circuit – but Not Because It’s Liberal.” By Mark Brnovich and Ilya Shapiro. [The court has too many judges, leading to backlogs and inconsistency in applying the law.] 1-12-18
  237. Big Govt. “The Rule of Shutdown Politics.” [Democrats oppose a bill that reauthorizes children’s health care.] 1-18-18
  238. Big Govt. “Nashville Taxpayers Subsidize Soccer. What’s Next, Curling?” by Justin Owen. [Government largess for popular sports is bad enough. Unpopular ones are even riskier.] 1-20-18
  239. Big Govt.  “Protecting Legal Fraud in Florida.’  [Republicans in the state Senate try to block insurance reform.]  1-22-18
  240. Big Govt. “The Next Money-Fund Bailout.” [Republicans want to tee up mutual funds for taxpayer guarantees.] 1-29-18
  241. Big Govt. “What Amtrak Keeps Telling Us.” By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. [The real world is forever punching holes in the dream of high-speed rail.] 2-7-18
  242. Big Govt. “This Subsidy for China Is Dumb as a Post.” By Jayme Smaldone. [Overseas competitors undercut me thanks to an old mail treaty.) 2-7-18
  243. Big. Govt. “Garbage In, Garbage Out in L.A.” [A new recycling program leaves residents feeling like Oscar the Grouch.” 2-7-18
  244. Big Govt. “Another Plea From Fannie Mae.” [The mortgage ward of the state needs $3.7 billion from taxpayers.] 2-17-18
  245. Big. Govt. “Why America Is Going Broke.” By John F. Cogan. [Entitlements are driving deficits and debt. Absent reform, the problem will soon become a crisis.] 2-22-18
  246. Big. Govt. “Career Civil Servants Illegitimately Rule America.” By Todd Gaziano and Tommy Berry. [Leslie Kux has never been elected or confirmed by the Senate. She’s issued nearly 200 regulations.] 3-1-18
  247. Big Govt. “The Worst Law in America.” “Congress can limit the damage of New York’s unjust Martin Act.] 3-26-18
  248. Big Govt. “Governments Steal Emergency Money.” [State politicians spend 911 fees on their own priorities.] 5-4-18
  249. Big Govt.  “A Useful Spending Debate.”  [Republicans can win a ‘rescissions’ battle if they make their case.]  5-14-18
  250. Big Govt. “A Housing Boom, Then a Volcanic Eruption.” By Keli’I Akina. [Hawaii’s Legislature creates a perverse incentive to live in high-risk lava zones.] 5-21-18
  251. Big Government. “Entitlements Will Eat America’s Economy.” By John R. Kasich. [As we did in the 1990s, lawmakers should put aside partisanship and get to work on reform.] 5-31-18
  252. Big Govt. “Fresh Air in the Swamp.” [Trump’s civil-service orders address all too common abuses.] 6-1-18Big Gov’t. “Andrew Cuomo’s Extralegal Coercion.” By Boyden Gray. [Hayek was right. Such tactics are risk to society’s freedom.] 6-7-18 (“…Mr. Cuomo issued a statement in April warning financial institutions that they faced ‘reputational risk” if they do business with the National Rifle Association…”)
  253. Big Govt. “Trump Goes on a Spending Diet.” By Kimberley A. Strassel. [He promised no more Obama-size deficits. Can he lean on GOP lawmakers to deliver?] 6-8-18
  254. Big Govt. Marijuana. “On Legal Weed, Let States Tend Their Own Gardens.” By Randy E. Barnett. [A new Senate bill would conform federal marijuana enforcement to each state’s laws – a win for federalism. ] 6-11-18.
  255. Big Govt. “Administrative Law Smackdown.” [The Supreme Court strikes a blow for political accountability.] 6-22-18
  256. Big Govt. “When the City Comes for Your Home-Based Business.” By C. Jarrett Dieterle and Shoshana Weissmann. 7-16-18
  257. Big Govt.  “A Government Press Corps.”  [New Jersey decides to subsidize journalists for local coverage.]  8-6-18
  258. Big Govt.  “Commissions Are Mulvaney’s Error of Omission.”  By Susan E. Dudley and Sally Katzen.  [His reorganization plan doesn’t go far enough in reconsidering the ‘headless fourth branch.’]  8-6-18
  259. Big Govt. “The New Tariff Bureaucracy.”  [Want a steel exemption?  Meet your Commerce Department overlords.]  8-7-18
  260. Big Govt.  “Saving New Jersey, if That’s Possible.” [“…Behold recommendations last week ay a bipartisan legislative commission to scale back public-employee benefits…”]  8-13-18
  261. Big Govt.  “Double Religious Jeopardy.”  [Colorado targets the Christian baker who won at the Supreme Court.]  8-17-18
  262. Big Govt.  “After a Hurricane, FEMA Makes the Disaster Drag On.”  By Parker Abt.  [Federal rules fail to take local laws into account, making it especially hard for the poor to get aid.]  8-28-18
  263. Big Govt.  “Rubio’s Family-Leave Benefit Will Go the Way of All Entitlements.”  By John F. Cogan.  [From Civil War pensions to Medicare and Medicaid, they always start modest, then bust the budget.]  9-5-2018
  264. Big. Govt.  “Government Can’t Rescue the Poor.” By Phil Gramm and John F. Early.  [Federal programs have reduced material poverty at the cost of promoting idleness and dependency.]  10-11-18
  265. Big Govt.  “Jack Lew’s Last Defeat.”  “Treasury takes Prudential off the too-big-to-fail-list.]  10-19-18
  266. Big Govt.  “Brother, Can You Spare Three Billion Dimes?”  by Michael Moritz.  [A San Francisco ballot measure to throw money at the homeless with no plan.]  10-29-18
  267. Big Govt.  “When Local Lawmakers Won’t Take No for an Answer.”  By Paul Jacob.  [Nashville voters enacted term limits 24 years ago.  The Metro Council seeks repeal for the seventh time..]  11-3-18
  268. Big Govt.  “Big Brother Isn’t Watching You.” B Andy Kessler.  [Some Americans fear ‘authoritarianism.’  The Chinese have to endure the real thing.] 11-5-18
  269. Big Gov’t.  “For $8.41 in Unpaid Taxes, the Government Took Uri Rafaeli’s House.  [How Michigan misuses a procedure meant to target pirate ships and drug lord’s mansions.]  12-8-18
  270. Big Gov’t.  “The GOP’s Food-Stamp Failure.”  [Pat Roberts kills even modest work rules in the farm bill.]  12-10-18
  271. Big Government.  “Lawyers Have Rights, Too.”  By Jacob Huebert and Timothy Sandefur.  [In 32 states, they’re forced to pay fees to politicized bar associations.]  12-21-18
  272. Big Govt.  “Lawmakers Are Doing a Bad Job – So Give Them a Raise?”  by Steven Malanga.  [States where lawmaking is part-time work have a better record of handling taxpayer’s money.]  1-12-19
  273. Big Govt.  “Vision Zero, a ‘Road Diet’ Fad, Is Proving to Be Deadly.”  By Christopher D. LeGras.  [Emergency vehicles get stuck on streets that have been narrowed to promote walking and bicycling.]  1-19-19
  274. Big Govt.  “India’s Ethnic Quotas Are a Cautionary Tale.”  By Sadanand Dhume.  [Originally intended to help tribals and ‘untouchables,’ preferences have expanded even to upper castes.]  1-25-19
  275. Big Government.  “What Feeds Big Government Isn’t Only Ideology.”  By Alberto Mingardi.  [Anthony de Jasay had a ‘flint-hard’ understanding of the structural forces behind the modern state.]  2-5-19
  276. Big Govt.  “Why Service Is Lousy in High-Tax States.”  By Steven Malanga.  [There’s an almost inverse relationship between burdensome levies and infrastructure quality.]  2-20-19
  277. Big Govt.  “The Debt Crisis Is Coming Soon.”  By Martin Feldstein.  [To avoid economic distress, the government has to reduce future entitlement spending.]  3-21-19
  278. Big Govt.  “Albuquerque’s Electric Bus Takes A Wrong Turn and Goes Nowhere.”  By Stephen ford.  [Advocates force businesses along historic Route 66 to suffer while they indulge their transit fantasies.]  3-30-19
  279. Big Govt.  “$2 Trillion From Whom?”  [Who’s going to pay for a bipartisan public works spending blowout?”  5-1-19
  280. Big Govt.  “Honey, We Shrunk the Ex-Im Bank.”  [And nobody outside Washington noticed.]  5-2-19
  281. Big Govt.  “Racial Spoils in Washington State.” [“…Washington State legislators…voting to restore racial and gender preferences in state government.]  5-6-19
  282. Big Govt.  “What Socialism Meant for My Great-Grandfather.”  By Helen Raleigh.  [A modest Chinese farmer’s livelihood was wrecked in the name of ideals that sound all too familiar.]  7-8-19
  283. Big Govt.  Environment.  “A fund That Will Never Run Dry.”  [Some Republicans want to put another federal program on autopilot.]  7-10-19
  284. Big Govt. “To Kill a Federal Program.” [Job Corps lives on, despite poor results and unsafe campuses.] 7-15-19
  285. Big Govt. “A New Small Business Burden.” [aiming at drug dealers and terrorists – but hitting mom and pop.] 7-16-19
  286. Big Govt. “The Bipartisan Spending Party.” [Two more years with no tradeoffs and no fiscal accountability.] 7-24-19
  287. Big Govt. “Secret Laws for the Powerful.” By Mark Chenoweth and Peggy Little. [Federal agencies too often legislate via informal, obscure rules and letters.] 7-24-19
  288. Big Govt. “Justice Drops Another Call.” [“Oops, another dropped call by government antitrust attorneys…] (Re: T-Mobile / Sprint merger) 7-26-19
  289. Big Govt. “Chicago Betrays the Public Trust or Obama.” By Richard A. Epstein. [Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council arbitrarily stops the Bottini family from building on its land.] 7-26-19
  290. Big Govt. “Faster Wireless vs. the Swamp.” By Holman W Jenkins, Jr. [ Industrial nose-clamps will be needed to make the T-Mobile settlement palatable.] 7-31-19
  291. Big Govt. “How to Balance the Budget – Again.” By Michael Solon. [A GOP Congress and a Democratic president struck an unlikely deal in 1997. It succeeded.] 8-5-19
  292. Big Govt. “’Social Credit’ May Come to America.” By F.H. Buckley. [It no longer seems paranoid to worry about surveillance and facial recognition.] 8-29-19
  293. Big Govt. “The Free Spirits of Burning Man Meet the Man.” By Jillian Kay Melchior. [The heavy-handed federal government could regulate the eccentric annual gathering out of existence.] 8-31-19
  294. Big Govt. . “Subduing the Housing Godzillas.” [The Trump Treasury has some good ideas for shrinking Fan And Fred.] 9-10-19
  295. Big Govt. “Administrative State Under Judicial Fire.” [Appeals courts brawl over agency power. Will the Justices intervene?] 9-20-19
  296. Big Govt. “Trump’s Pen Limits Executive Power.” By Mario Loyola. [But its’ still too easy for agencies to abuse their authority.] 10-21-19
  297. Big Govt. “The Patriot Act Goes Too Far.” By Buck McKeon and Gene Schaerr. [Section 215 needs major reforms to safeguard core American liberties from government overreach.] 10-28-19
  298. Big Govt. “Move the Bureaucrats out of the Beltway.” By Terry Wanzek. [It no longer makes sense to cluster federal agencies and their employees in Washington, D C. ] 11-30-19
  299. Big Govt. “’The Interagency’ Isn’t Supposed to Rule.” By Carl J. Schramm. [The Constitution gives the president, not a club of unelected officials, the power to set foreign policy.] 12-5-19Big Government. “A Prosecutorial Bridge Too Far.” [A supreme Court case could make rimes of common political mischief.] 1-13-20
  300. Big Govt. “Professional Budget Wrestling.” [Friday Night SmackDown offers more sincerity.] 2-11-20 (“…Democrats and their media friends ae complaining that the Trump Administration still has no plans to balance the budget…)
  301. Big Govt. “We’re from the Government and We’re Here to Build a Bike Path.” By Steven Malanga. [Municipal officials are using eminent domain to take private property for recreational uses.] 2-15-20
  302. Big Govt. “Axon Takes On the Feds.” [Can the FTC legally act as prosecutor, judge and jury?] 2-22-20
  303. Big Govt. “The Strength of Mayors.” (Bookshelf by Edward Glaeser. “The Nation State.” By Rahm Emanuel. [Rahm Emanuel believes that city leaders are better than state and federal politicians at dealing with society’s most pressing issues.] 4-1-20
  304. Big Govt. ”Upgrade Our 8-Track Government.” By Andy Kessler. [Squandered funds lead to ancient software. That gives us crashes and delayed checks.] 4-20-20
  305. Big Govt. “Government May Take the Lion’s Share of America.” By Stephen Moore. [If Pelosi prevails, federal, state and local spending will top 50% of GDP.] 6-1-20
  306. Big Govt.  “Your Sunny Fiscal Update.”  [Spending hit a record $5.005 trillion over the last nine months.]   7-14-20
  307. Big Govt.  “Where to Turn In times of Crisis.”  (Bookshelf by Leslie Lenkowsky.)  “Civic Gifts.”  By Elisabeth S. Clemens.  [During wars, natural disasters and epidemics, Americans looked for help from one another.  Over time, voluntarism gave way to government.]   7-20-20
  308. Big Govt.  “Trump’s Fair Housing Restoration.”  [A deregulation that limits federal control of local zoning.]  7-27-20
  309. Big Govt.  “A Defeat for Antitrust Adventurism.”  [An appeals court rebukes the FTC’s assault on Qualcomm.]   8-12-20
  310. Big. Govt.  “Justice-FTC Antitrust Feud Is the Wrong Kind of Competition. “  by Johm P. McGinnis and Linda Sun.  [A congressional drafting error from 1914 led the agencies to clash in court over Qualcomm.]   8-14-20
  311. Big Govt.  “The Post Office’s Problem Isn’t Trump.”  [Democrats cry sabotage.  But mail volume is way down, and the USPS is losing billions of dollars.]   8-14-20
  312. Big Government.  “Allow Us to Present the Pandemic Bill.”  [“…Sorry to spoil the spending fun, but there’s no such thing as free borrowing…”]   9-3-20
  313. Big Govt.  “Self-Government Minus the Self.”  (Bookshelf by Adam J. White.)  “Law & Leviathan.” By Cass B. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule.  [Two Harvard professors – one from the left, the other from the right – defend the ‘morality’ of the administrative state.]   9-24-20
  314. Big Govt.  “The Alternative to a Bailout for Fiscally Mismanaged States.”  By Jonathan Williams and Dave Trabert.  [If New York and Illinois spent like Florida and Texas, they’d save enough to put away the tin cup.]  10-17-20
  315. Big govt.  “A Stimulus Dollar Is Only a Dollar.”  By Andy Kessler.  [Democrats devise magic ‘multipliers’ to justify spending, but the returns never show.]   12-7-20
  316. Big Govt.  “What Isn’t the Matter With Hartford?”  [Once famous as the insurance capital of the world, Connecticut’s capital city is falling apart.]   1-2-21
  317. Big Govt.  “The Pandemic Spending Hangover.”  [Federal debt has reached 100% of GDP even before Biden’s plans.]   2-13-21
  318. Big Govt.  “States Fight the Tax-Cut Ban.”  [Thirteen more AGs sue to stop the takeover of state fiscal policy.]   4-3-21
  319. Big Govt.  “Biden’s Multitrillion-Dollar Gamble.”  By Peggy Noonan.  [It could pay off, but only if voters actually see that roads and bridges are being built and improved.]   4-3-21
  320. Big Govt.  “Cradle-to-Grave Government.”  [The latest Biden plan rejects the old social contract of work for benefits.]   4-29-21
  321. Big Government. “How Long Can America Keep Borrowing?”  by Bob Kerrey and John C. Danforth.  [The debt crisis has grown far worse since 1994, when we headed a bipartisan panel.]   6-21-21
  322. Big Govt.  “Partisan Debt, Bipartisan Debt Limit?”  By Thom Tillis.  [Democrats need to take responsibility for their $5.4 trillion spending spree.]   8-18-21
  323. Big Govt.  “A Simple Rule Could End Debt-Ceiling Shenanigans.”  By Alan S Blinder.  [Federal debt may face a downgrade if Democrats and Republicans don’t agree to increase the limit.]  8-24-21
  324. Big Govt.  “The Entitlement State’s Bankruptcy Dates.”  [“…the annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees reports released Tuesday…”]     9-2-21
  325. Big Govt.  “How to Stop Politicians From Cooking the Books.”  By John Steele Gordon.  [A Federal Accounting Board would audit the nation’s accounts the way a CPA does for a business.]   9-13-21
  326. Big Govt.  “That Debt Limit Show.”  [Democrats don’t need the GOP to raise the federal borrowing limit.]   9-21-21
  327. Big. Govt.  “Use the Debt Ceiling to Reduce the Debt.”  By Jon Hensarling.  [The real default risk arises from Congress’s endless borrowing, not from the limit on it.]   9-21-21
  328. Big Govt.  “The New Government Basic Income.”  [The child credit has become a trillion-dollar entitlement for the middle class.]  9-23-21
  329. Big Govt.  “Merrick Garland’s Federal Offense.”  [“…Parents don’t want or need the FBI and federal prosecutors intervening to stifle their legitimate concerns for the education of their children.”]  10-7-21
  330. Big Govt.  “Reconciliation Offers a Shot at Simpler government.”  By Ezekiel J. Emanuel.  [Liberals and conservatives alike should see the benefit of reducing complexity in programs and rules.]   10-8-21
  331. Big Govt.  “Boom Times in the Beltway.”  [“The federal government has never had it so good – literally.”]  10-13-21
  332. Big Govt.  “How the Fed Finances U.S. Debt.”  By Judy Shelton.  [Look behind the federal books to see the ways monetary policy has come to abet runaway spending.]  10-14-21
  333. Big Govt.  “When Federal Employees Telecommute, Why Are Agencies in D.C.?  By Faith Bottum.  [The idea of moving offices to the heartland has been floated for years.  It’s never been more relevant.]  11-27-21
  334. Big Govt.  “This Debt-Ceiling Fight Threatens Democracy as Well as Solvency.”   By David B. Rivkin Fr. And Lee a. Casey.  [A ‘suspension’ rather than an increase would hand an unconstitutional blank check to the president.]  12-7-21
  335. Big Govt.  “A Political Prosecution in Michigan.”  [The Flint lead-water indictments look worse all the time.]   12-28-21
  336. Big Govt.  “Entitlements Always Grow and Grow.”  By John F. Cogan.  [The ‘equally worthy claim’ inexorably prompts further expansion, regardless of lawmakers’ initial limits.]  1-4-22
  337. Big Govt.  “Undeliverable Objectives.”  (Bookshelf by Kevin Kosar.)  “First Class.”  [The U.S. Postal Service, though insulated from competition, hemorrhages money.  One historian’s solution:  Give it more to do.]  1-14-22
  338. Big Govt.  “$30 Trillion in Debt and Counting.”  2-3-22
  339. Big Govt.  “Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny.”  [Ottawa is now freezing bank accounts as if the truckers are terrorists.]    2-23-22
  340. Big Govt.  “Debt and Inflation Threaten U.S. Security.”  By Jeb Hensarling.  [Servicing costs could soon reach $1 trillion a  year, which would crowd out spending on defense.]   2-23-22
  341. Big Govt.  “Mississippi Loses Some Licensing Weight.”  [A dietician wins a legal victory over health department tyrants.]  4-22-22
  342. Big govt.  “Special Districts, Where dreams of Unaccountable Power Come True.”  By Judge Glock.  [Disney’s Reedy Creek is only one of 38,000 such entities nationwide – twice the number of U.S. cities.]   4-26-22
  343. Big Govt.  “The Attorneys General Racket.”  [A group of state AGs seem to have built an unaccountable litigation machine.]   7-16-22
  344. Big Govt.  “Twitter Becomes a Tool of Government Censors.” By Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld.  [Alex Berenson was kicked off at the White House’s urging.  That’s a violation of the First Amendment.]  8-18-22
  345. Big Govt.  “Miami Takes On the Socialist Model.”  By Frances X. Suarez.  [Californians and New Yorkers flock here for relief from high taxes, crime and regulation.]   8-22-22
  346. Big Govt.  “Good Government or Big Government?”  by Stephen Moore.  [The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget seems to have given up that goal.]   8-23-22
  347. Big Govt.  “The High Price of Great Books Daycare.”  [Toddlers often ask ‘why,’ so daycare providers need a college degree?]  8-23-22
  348. Big Govt.  “Jackson’s Water Woes Explained.”  [The Mississippi city is another example of failed local government.]  9-6-22
  349. Big Govt.  “How Welfare Left Americans Poorer.”  [A Census Bureau report shows the high cost of transfer payments.]   9-14-22
  350. Big Govt.  “’Democracy’ by and for the Elites.”  By Emily B Finley.  [Tocqueville predicted that an ‘immense and tutelary power’ would replace genuine popular rule.]   9-26-22
  351. Big Govt.  “The Silent Price You’ll Pay for our Mounting National Debt.” By Red Jahncke.  [The cost of borrowing is near untenable levels.  If we aren’t already in a ‘doom loop,’ we’re getting close.]   9-30-22
  352. Big Govt.  “The Student Loan Bill Comes Due.”  [The $426 billion writ-off pushes the 2022 deficit to $1.4 trillion.]   10-12-22
  353. Big Govt.  “The Tory Warning to U.S. Republicans.”  [Liz Truss is being made the scapegoat for failed tax-and -spend policies.]   10-21-22
  354. Big Govt.  “Government Sleaze and Punishment.”  [The High Court hears two major cases on prosecutorial overreach.]   11-26-22
  355. Big Govt.  “The Ugliest Omnibus Bill Ever.”  [Congress will pass a 4,155 page bill most members will never read.]   12-21-23
  356. Big Govt.  “How Much Washington Really Owes:  $100 Trillion.”  By Vince Kolber.  [Unfunded entitlements are more than twice as large as the official national debt.  The problem is growing.]   12-21-23
  357. Big Govt.  “The Back End of an Omnibus.”  By Kimberley A. Strassel.  [GOP complicity with the spending blowout is one reason it is still in the Senate minority.]   12-23-22
  358. Big Govt.  “Why Federal Spending Exploded.”  By David Henninger.  [Some 50 years ago, Congress voted to insulate itself from external discipline.]   1-12-23
  359. Big Govt.  “Cities Are Headed for Fiscal Trouble Again.”  By Richard Ravitch and William Glasgall.  [New York’s lessons from the 1970s crisis can help as Covid largess ends and tax receipts ebb.]   1-12-23
  360. Big Govt.  “The Debt Threat Keeps Mounting.”  By Jeb Hensarling.  [If you thought the 2008 financial crisis was bad, wait until the government has to stop borrowing.]   1-18-23
  361. Big Govt.  “Why Do Officials Filch Classified Documents?”  by Peggy Noonan.  [Maybe they want a memento of their time in power.  That doesn’t make the matter less serious.]   1-28-23
  362. Big Govt.  “The Second Battle of the Alamo.” [San Antonio votes to permit eminent domain against a bar owner.]   1-31-23
  363. Big Govt.  “Yes, Use the Debt Ceiling to Control Spending.”  By Phil Gramm and Michael Solon.  [As Biden and the Democrats know, it’s hardly a new idea.]   2-2-23
  364. Big Govt.  “A Balloon Pops D.C.’s Myth Bubble.”  By Homan W. Jenkins, Jr.  [Federal agencies have become too comfortable using disinformation.]   2-8-23
  365. Big Govt.  “Ballooning National Debt Is a Rotten Legacy.”  By Wm. A. Galston. “Our kids will inherit a nation less financially sound than it was when we were born.”  4-12-23
  366. Big Govt.  “Spending soars, Revenue Falls.”  5-9-23
  367. Big Govt.  “The Deep State Is All Too Real.:  by David Bernhardt.  [Congress and the courts have shirked their duty, letting bureaucrats make and interpret the laws.]   5-10-23
  368. Big Govt.  “Wasteful government Doesn’t Have to Keep Growing.”  By Kevin McCarthy.  [The Fiscal Responsibility Act is an important first step in relieving America of its crushing debt.]   5-30-23
  369. Big Govt. “Tesla’s Message to Biden.”  By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.  [A regulatory regime that rewards money-losing vehicles is a loser for America.]   5-31-23
  370. Big Govt.  “A Destructive Trump Indictment.”  [Do prosecutors understand the forces they are unleashing?”]   6-10-23
  371. Big Government.  “How to Arrest the Government.”  By Kimberley A. Strassel.  [Trump’s indictment puts pressure on GOP aspirants to propose sweeping reforms.]   6-16-23
  372. Big Govt.  “Government Buildings Don’t Have to Be Ugly.”  By Myron Magnet.  [The founders favored classical architecture.  Proposed legislation would make it the standard.]   6-27-23
  373. Big Govt.  “A Peacetime Fiscal Blowout.”  [Interest on federal debt has hit 15.5% of all federal revenue.]   8-9-23
  374. Big Govt.  “The Fire in Maui and the Lesson of Greece.”  By Costas Synolakis.  [Athens learned the lessons of a 2018 blaze that killed 104.  In Rhodes last month, only one person died.]   8-14-23
  375. Big Govt.  “How Inflation Fuels Government Growth.”  By Judy Shelton.  [High interest rates hit the private sector hard while leaving Washington free to spend more money.]   8-23-23
  376. Big Govt.  “How the Tories Became Servants of the Welfare State.”  By Joseph C. Sternberg.  [Their unwillingness to cut spending destroyed their image of competence.  The GOP should take note.]   9-8-23
  377. Big Govt.  “A $2 Trillion Deficit for Fiscal 2023.”  [As a budget fight seizes Congress, CBO shows the spending reality.]   9-12-23
  378. Big Govt.  “Libya’s Flood Has Lessons for Us.”  By Wm. A. Galston.  [When civil order and governance break down, the result can be catastrophic.]  9-20-23
  379. Big Govt.  “Shut Down Washington.”  By Daniel Henninger.  [Few government employees go into their capital offices.  Make that permanent.]    9-28-23
  380. Big Govt.  “The Data Prove Government Is Spending Too Much.”   by Grover Norquist and Vance Ginn.  [Federal and state layouts are vastly outpacing the combined rate of inflation and population growth.]  10-4-23
  381. Big Govt.  “Biden Gets European Help for His Big-Government Agenda.”  By Phil Gramm and Jeb Hensarling.  [When Congress and the courts say no, his agencies recruit foreigners to apply pressure here at home.]   10-18-23
  382. Big Govt.  “Biden’s Supplemental War Games.”  By Kimbrley a. Strassel.  [Now that Republicans have a speaker, it’s time to get serious about priorities.]   10-27-23
  383. Big Govt.  “New Jersey Demands that ‘God’s Square Mile’ Open on Sundays.”  By Rachel Chiu.  [the religious community that owns the beach at Ocean Grove is defending a century-old custom.]   11-4-23
  384. Big Govt.  “Why Democrats Should Care About Debt.”  By Ben Ritz.   11-7-23
  385. Big Govt.  “We Can’t Return to a Pre-9/11 Mindset on Foreign Surveillance.”  By Michael B. Mukasey and Jamil N. Jaffer.  [ISA’s Section 702 allows the government to consult lawfully gathered intel on critical threats.]   11-24-23
  386. Big Govt.  “Can Washington Still Do Anything?”  [A border security and Ukraine-Israel aid deal is too important to fail.]   12-4-23
  387. Big Govt.  “Treasury’s Hidden Stash of Covid Cash.”  [It wants to let states use billions of unspent ‘emergency dollars.]   12-4-23
  388. Big Govt.  “The Milken Story Revisited.”  (Bookshelf by Charles Gasparino.)  “Witness to a Prosecution..”  by Richard V. Sandler.  [When you digest the reality of the case the government made against Michael Milken, you find that much of it was nonsense.]   12-18-23
  389. Big govt.  “Government at Work:  Financial Aid Version.”  [It took three years, and the FAFSA form rollout has still been a fiasco.]   1-4-24
  390. Big Govt.  “A Fiscal Commission on the National Det?  Good Luck with that.”  By Jeb Hensarling  and Mike Solon.  [The best way to avert a crisis is to reform entitlement spending.  The next best way is growth.]   1-12-24
  391. Big Govt.  “The Humiliation of Davos Man.”  By Walter Russell Mead.  [He isn’t taking over the world.  He’s pleading with the world to trust him.]   1-16-24
  392. Big. Govt.  “Washington’s Welfare Uniparty.”  By Kimberley A. Strassel.  [Republicans are on board with the child tax credit, a handout dating to 1997.]   2-2-24
  393. Big Govt.  “Down With Special Counsels.”  By Kimberley A. Strassel.  [Efforts to insulate prosecutions from politics always do more harm than good.]   2-16-24
  394. Big Govt.  “When Local Officials Gag Dissenters With Handcuffs.”  By Anya Bidwell and Patrick Jaicomo.  [The Supreme Court will decide if bureaucrats have legal immunity when they order critics arrested.]   3-19-24
  395. Big Govt.  “Six-Month Deficit:  $1.1 Trillion.”  [Interest on the public debt rose 43%, and now exceeds defense outlays.]   4-9-24
  396. Big Govt.  “A Bad Day for Greedy Politicians.”  [The Supreme Court says government can’t use fees to extort owners.]   4-13-24
  397. Big Govt.  “The Fourth Amendment Isn’t in Jeopardy.”   [“…prohibit[ing] the U.S. government from buying digital information that would remain available to the likes of China and Russia.]   4-17-24
  398. Big Govt.  “The Government-Spending Jobs Boom.”  [Most new jobs are in healthcare, government and social assistance.]    5-4-24

 

 

Issue Headlines

Big Govt. (News) “Officials Masked Severity of Hack.” Wall Street Journal, 6-25-15 p. A1. [“…The Obama Administration for more than a week avoided disclosing the severity of an intrusion into federal computers…has frustrated lawmakers as they probe …one of the biggest-ever thefts of government records. …suspect China……whether up to 18 million unique Social Security numbers were stolen…]

5-2-16 Big Govt Drudgereport.com

LONG, LONG LINES OF SUMMER: TSA BECOMES UNBEARABLE…

Big Govt. TSA Airport lines. Drudgereport.com 5-13-16

NIGHTMARE AT CHICAGO MIDWAY… SECURITY LINE OF HELL… SHOCK VIDEO SHOWS TOTAL TSA BREAKDOWN… 3,000 bags lost in one day at Phoenix airport… GOV’T TELLS TRAVELERS TO CHILL OUT…

Big Govt. TSA Airport lines. Drudgereport.com 5-16-16

UPDATE: 4,000 Travelers Miss Flights After Long, Long, Long, Long TSA Lines… 

Longer than eye can see!  Agents stood around, cracked jokes… 

Stranded at O’Hare…

 And sleeping on cots… 

ANOTHER Nightmare in Atlanta…

Lines snake through airport…

‘Oh my God’… 

Complaints surge… 

FEDS BLAME FLYERS…

Big Govt. Drudgereport.com 5-15-16 

HOMELAND: Long Airport Screening Wait Times Not a ‘National Crisis’…

Security line snakes all around terminal building…

BigGovt. Drudgereport.com 5-24-16                                     >>> 

TSA boots head of security amid furor over long, Long, LONG lines… 

Campaign Consideration

Talking Points

Related Topics Big Govt. “The Chile ‘Miracle” Goes in Reverse.” By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. [Investment and growth are falling, and now the government targets private schools.] 11-3-14

5-4-16  Venezuela should be rich. Instead it’s becoming a failed state.

By Matt O’Brien  May 4 at 8:22 AM (Washington Post.com)  “…This is an entirely man-made catastrophe. Venezuela, by all rights, should be rich. As we just said, it has more oil than the United States or Saudi Arabia or anyone else for that matter. But despite that, economic mismanagement on a world-historical scale has barely left it with enough money to even, well, pay for printing money anymore. That’s right: Venezuela is almost too poor to afford inflation. Which is just another way of saying that the government is all but bankrupt.

How did Venezuela get here? Well, by spending more than it had and not having as much as it should…”