This morning's newspapers report an ominous development in the ObamaCare litigation, now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court:

The Court posted a seemingly minor but potentially important administrative change that signals it might postpone delivering a final ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare until the middle of 2016! 

Specifically, the high Court increased the time it will devote to hearing oral arguments on whether the health care mandate is a tax for purposes of something called the Tax Anti-Injunction Act (26 U.S.C. § 7421(a)).

Since environmental issues are becoming increasingly salient in the political arena, the subject of alternative energy subsidies warrants some attention. Currently, Congress is deciding whether or not to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a 20-year subsidy which is responsible for most of the growth in the wind sector. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has exerted considerable political pressure on legislators, both state and federal, in order to garner support for the extension of this subsidy.

Democracy and Power 101:  Government is power

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

-James Madison,
Speech in the Virginia State Convention of 1829-1830

Democracy and Power 103:  Government money

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
– Voltaire (1764)

Money taxed and spent by politicians comes from the labor and ingenuity of millions of workers.  Politicians spend other peoples’ money.

After receiving a $145 billion bailout in May 2010, Greece is now seeking a second larger bailout from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Here we go again. Of course, throwing even more money at the European welfare state won’t solve its problems.  The Greek government created their own problems by rapidly expanding the welfare state over the past couple decades. A second U.S. taxpayer-financed bailout of Greece will only make the debt situation worse in the long-run.