Voice For Liberty

Tag: Regulation

  • Health care about to get worse

    The market for health insurance should be more like the market for auto insurance: less government regulation.

  • Medical marijuana testimony presented in Kansas House committee

    This week the Kansas House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee held an informational hearing on HB 2610. This bill would legalize the use of medical marijuana for “certain debilitating medical conditions.”

  • Kansas news digest

    News from alternative media around Kansas for March 5, 2010.

  • Chemical safety bill testimony heard

    This week the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs heard testimony on S.2996, titled “Continuing Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Security Act of 2010.” This bill would extend the effective date of current chemical security regulations until 2015.

  • Importance of economic freedom explained in Wichita

    Yesterday Robert Lawson appeared in Wichita to deliver a lecture titled “Economic Freedom and the Wealth and Health of Nations.” The lecture explained how Lawson and his colleagues calculate the annual “Economic Freedom of the World” index, which ranks most of the countries of the world in how the “policies and institutions of countries are…

  • Regulation has not lessened, instead it has harmed us

    Last week’s Wichita Eagle featured an op-ed by Brad Beachy, who is co-chairman of Wichita Democracy for America. Several of the claims made by Beachy deserve examination. In particular, Beachy blames free markets as the cause of our current economic problems: “The Great Recession we’re in now started in late 2007, after several years of…

  • An inept Kansas smoking analogy

    In today’s letter in the Eagle, Claycomb says that although the United States Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, since that right is heavily regulated, government has license to regulate smoking, as smoking isn’t mentioned at all in the Constitution.

  • Why Obama is wrong about net neutrality

    “Net neutrality” sounds like a noble concept, doesn’t it? It’s another example of one political position co-opting language in a way that mislabels the underlying agenda.

  • It’s not the same as pee in the swimming pool

    In a column in the February 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle (“Smoking ban issue not one to negotiate”), columnist Mark McCormick quotes Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of Tobacco Free Wichita, as equating a smoking section in a restaurant with “a urinating section in a swimming pool.” This is a ridiculous comparison. A person can’t tell upon entering…

  • Kansas can’t afford a cigarette tax hike

    The Kansas Health Policy Authority’s recommendation to use a 75-cent cigarette tax increase to pay for health costs should be worrisome — not only to smokers, but also to non-smokers and fiscally responsible legislators as well. The approach may seem appealing at first, but such tax increases are notoriously unpredictable and regressive. Funding a high-profile…

  • Smoking is healthier than fascism

    There’s a Facebook group named Vote NO on Statewide Smoking Ban (Smoking is healthier than fascism). Started by Wichita activist Wendy Aylworth, the description of the group starts with the rallying cry “We must stop this tyranny of the majority!” Yes, we must.

  • The myth of the smoking ban ‘miracle’

    Supporters of comprehensive bans on smoking often point to research findings that heart attacks decrease when smoking bans are implemented. But is this true?