Broadband overbuild using taxpayer dollars has been an ongoing problem across this country. Some providers will obtain a grant or loan from a federal agency to build out broadband in rural communities and then use the funding to either deploy or upgrade equipment where broadband already exists rather than spend taxpayer resources on unserved communities […]
As people eat their leftover Halloween candy, they may want to think about how much they paid for all those treats. Raw sugar in the United States regularly costs double or triple the world average, and this hurts food companies and leads to high prices for consumers at the grocery store. U.S. laws artificially inflate the price […]
Publicly-funded broadband overbuild is an ongoing problem across the country. It is far easier to deploy new services alongside existing infrastructure than to build-out to those who remain in unserved areas. On March 23, 2018, President Trump signed into law H.R. 1625, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which funds the government through September 30, […]
The August 5, 2018, Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by Henry Miller, MD, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, concerning organic food that is worth reading. He is critical of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) lack of oversight of the $47-billion-a-year organic industry. He points out that while the FDA is supposed […]
The federal government will soon dole out around $12 billion in “temporary relief” to farmers adversly affected by President Trump’s tariffs and trade war, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Tuesday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters that amount was “in line” with the estimated impact from retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agriculture exports. […]
The strong economy offers much to celebrate. Regulatory relief and the Trump tax cuts have sent the unemployment rate to historic lows, resulting in a booming business climate, higher wages, and more take home pay. Despite these rosy figures, food stamp use has declined only slightly in the last year; in 2017, it was significantly […]
Despite the election year rhetoric about fiscal discipline and deficits, as well as advancing free-markets and trade, many lawmakers have sided with the influential farm lobby to continue doling out multi-millions of dollars to corporate agribusinesses instead of protecting taxpayers and the small and medium farms that make up rural America. A recent EWG analysis of USDA […]
The recently released Farm Bill contained many of the same wasteful spending items found in past Farm Bills, but also held a few surprises that if not contained with transparency and appropriate oversight could lead to further wasteful spending. Among the new programs found in this year’s Farm Bill is a provision in Title VI, […]
As people eat their leftover Easter candy from last weekend, they may want to think about how much they paid for all those treats. Raw sugar in the United States regularly costs twice or triple the world average, and this hurts food companies and leads to high prices at the grocery store. U.S. laws artificially […]
Today, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies marked-up (read and amended) its fiscal year 2017 appropriations bill.
