News Archives - Page 213 of 356

The Taxation President

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-31T11:46:07-05:00January 31st, 2014|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published on January 30, 2014 on the American Spectator website.

The President started last year forcing through sweeping tax increases. The top marginal income tax rate rose by nearly 20%, to punish the most successful for the anti-social acts of working too hard and producing too much. The capital gains tax rate was increased by nearly 60%, as was the tax on corporate dividends. America’s top marginal corporate income tax rate remains the highest among all developed world economies, close to 40% on average, given state corporate tax rates as well.

But […]

OK to Feel Sorry

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-29T11:16:56-05:00January 29th, 2014|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published January 22, 2014 on Townhall.com.

At one time in our nation’s history, blacks feeling sorry for whites was verboten. That was portrayed in Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a novel published in 1960 — and later made into a movie — about Depression-era racial relations in the Deep South. The novel’s character Tom Robinson, a black man, portrayed in the movie by Brock Peters, is on trial, falsely accused of raping a white woman. The prosecuting attorney, while grilling […]

After Five Years of Obamanomics, a Record 100 Million Americans Not Working

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-29T10:47:41-05:00January 29th, 2014|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published on January 24, 2014 on the Forbes website.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report for December counted 74,000 jobs created last month. That was less than half the 200,000 new jobs expected.

Nevertheless, the BLS reported those 74,000 new jobs as reducing at least what it calls the U3 unemployment rate by three tenths of a percentage point, from 7.0% to 6.7%. That was because 347,000 workers fled the work force altogether last month, and so were no longer counted as unemployed.

Those 347,000 workers leaving the workforce […]

ACRU Supports Hobby Lobby Against ObamaCare Contraceptive Mandate

By ACRU Staff|2020-04-23T21:52:39-04:00January 28th, 2014|

“Individuals have Free Exercise rights with respect to their for-profit businesses.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 28, 2014) – The Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate unconstitutionally violates the religious freedom of a Christian family that owns a chain of craft stores and a chain of Christian bookstores, the American Civil Rights Union argues in a brief submitted today to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Written by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara, the brief in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Mardel Stores Inc., David Green, et al. notes that the Green family’s refusal to offer insurance coverage of abortifacients to […]

When Wendy Warred with a Woman

By ACRU Staff|2020-04-23T21:52:39-04:00January 27th, 2014|

ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Jan LaRue wrote this column appearing January 25, 2014 on The American Thinker website.

One can learn a lot about State Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, from her battles.

Davis has been battling to restore her tarnished image as a result of nonstop media attention after a column by Wayne Slater in the Dallas Morning News on Jan. 20. The mostly kid-gloves piece revealed some lies and material omissions in Davis’s “I am woman, hear me roar” resume.

For one, Davis downplayed embellishing and lying on her […]

Obama Should Stop Taking Credit: Health Savings Accounts Are Driving Down Costs

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-21T12:00:00-05:00January 21st, 2014|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published on January 21, 2014 on the Forbes website.

In his economic address at the Washington Navy Yard on September 16, President Obama bragged that “Health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years,” and attributed that to his Affordable Care Act, “which has helped to keep down the rise in health care costs to their lowest level in 50 years,” he claimed. He reiterated that in his press conference on November 14. His chief economist Jason Furman echoed that line in arguing that Obamacare is slowing health inflation in […]

Income Inequality

By ACRU Staff|2023-03-10T08:04:39-05:00January 15th, 2014|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published January 15, 2014 on Townhall.com.

Democrats plan to demagogue income inequality and the wealth gap for political gain in this year’s elections. Most of what’s said about income inequality is stupid or, at best, ill-informed. Much to their disgrace, economists focusing on measures of income inequality bring little light to the issue. Let’s look at it.

Income is a result of something. As such, results alone cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice. Take a simple example to make the point. Suppose Tom, […]

Why Economic Growth is Exponentially More Important Than Income Inequality

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-15T12:50:06-05:00January 15th, 2014|

This column by ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara was published January 14, 2014 on Forbes.com.

In 1900, we had no airplanes, no computers, no cellphones, no internet. We had only rudimentary versions of cars, trucks, telephones, even cameras.

But in the last century, 1900 to 2000, as Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon report in their under appreciated work, It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years, real per capita GDP in the U.S. grew by nearly 7 times, meaning the American standard of living grew by that much as well. The authors explain,

Supreme Court to Decide if Abortion Buffer Zones Violate Pro-Life Free Speech

By ACRU Staff|2020-04-23T21:52:39-04:00January 15th, 2014|

This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published January 14, 2014 on The Washington Times website.

Members of American Civil Liberties Union like to bill themselves as the ultimate protectors of the First Amendment, defending hard-core pornography as “free speech” and even the possession of child pornography. Go ahead, ask them. They only oppose the “production” of that demonic product.

Even the ACLU has its limits beyond the usual commonly cited exceptions of crying “fire” falsely in a crowded theater or making threats of violence.

The ACLU has long been comfortable with the ultimate violence committed inside the […]

Politics and Minimum Wage

By ACRU Staff|2014-01-09T18:54:21-05:00January 9th, 2014|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published January 8, 2014 on Townhall.com.

There’s little debate among academic economists about the effect of minimum wages. University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. He reports that 85 percent of the studies “find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers.” A 1976 American Economic Association survey found that 90 percent of its members agreed that increasing the minimum wage raises unemployment among young and unskilled workers. A 1990 survey reported in the American Economic Review (1992) found […]