The Public’s Distrust of Government
The good news is that Americans' distrust of government is at its highest level ever. It's good news because it shows the public recognizes how poorly we're being governed. Not much...
About: Ralph R. Reiland
Posts by Ralph R. Reiland
“Occupy Pittsburgh” Encounters
Rapper Kanye West and hip-hop kingpin Russell Simmons added some celebrity glitz to the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York when they stopped by. ...
Public Works: Visible Projects, Hidden Destruction
Today’s crop of central planners and big spending politicians could learn a thing or two about economics from Henry Hazlitt’s classic bestseller, Economics in One Lesson, published in 1946. Common sense...
First Cigarettes, Now Bacon and Eggs
You knew it was coming. First they came for the cigarettes, then Hank Williams Jr. got knocked off Monday Night Football for not being politically correct, and now they’re coming for...
Wrong Medicine for a Sick Economy
“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” repeatedly proclaims President Obama, arguing for his proposed $1.5 trillion tax increase over the next 10 years. “That’s pretty straightforward. It’s...
Obama’s Anti-jobs Jobs Bill
“Pass this bill now,” President Obama is repeatedly demanding, regarding his new American Jobs Act. ...
Economic Incompetence at the Top
On August 31, with job creation grinding to a complete halt, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was asked this question: “Why do you think there have been so many jobs created...
Zero Job Growth & Common-sense Economics
Politicians seem to have little trouble understanding how the basic Law of Demand works when it comes to things they want to discourage, like cigarettes — or when it comes to...
It’s the Spending, Stupid, the Stupid Spending!
President Obama’s constant refrain about the government’s unprecedented levels of red ink points to “millionaires and billionaires” as the problem, not the massive amounts of waste, fraud, and inefficiency in government...
What Obama Needs to Say: I Was Wrong
Only 26 percent of the public approves of President Obama's handling of the economy in the latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 11-14, while a whopping 71 percent said they disapproved. That’s...
Where’s My Mail?
I don’t want to sound like Lansberry, the legendary Pittsburgher who walked around town for decades with a protest sign saying that the government was withholding his mail, but I’m missing...
Killing Jobs via ObamaCare
Now that the politicians have delivered an anti-debt deal that adds an estimated $8 trillion to the current $14.5 trillion federal debt over the next 10 years, President Obama is getting...
An Amy Winehouse Government: Our Spending and Debt Binge
It feels like we’re dealing with an Amy Winehouse form of governing. “These overdoses happen because these guys drink 20 beers and then reach for their heroin,” a friend of mine...
Blueberry Economics
SEA ISLE, N.J. — I should be worrying about how the politicians are killing the nation financially, but that's on the back burner today because the 25th annual Red, White and...
New Jersey as Auschwitz?
SEA ISLE, N.J. — Public-sector employees here now are regularly referring to Gov. Chris Christie as "Adolf Christie." Things got especially ugly when Christie signed legislation that requires each of the...