Regulation

Alcohol Taxation Graphics

Restoring the Separation of Powers in North Carolina

The North Carolina State Constitution unequivocally declares, “The legislative, executive, and supreme judicial powers shall be forever separate and distinct from each other.” Despite that declaration, North Carolinians are increasingly…

New-Normaling: How They Try to Get You to Accept Bad Policy Outcomes

Preface: The political class has drifted far from Lincoln’s vision of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” — something that those words and the solemn…

NCUC’s Initial Carbon Plan Raises Questions

Last Friday, the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) issued a press release announcing it completed the initial Carbon Plan, which they were mandated to do per House Bill 951, a…

Would a Minimum Wage Increase Help North Carolinians?

Some argue that minimum wage increases would create more wealth for those with the greatest need in North Carolina Although some would receive a pay raise, it would come at…

Three Things Zoning Does in North Carolina

North Carolina’s urban counties are growing quickly, as is demand for new housing. Zoning restrictions regulate property markets and artificially restrict the supply of new housing in our cities where…

Licensing for low-income occupations has gotten more expensive and restrictive in North Carolina

The Institute for Justice (IJ) has released an update of its stellar “License to Work” report, which examines the burdens of occupational licensing regulations across the country. It’s the first…

Blaming the Unvaccinated for Vaccine Side Effects?

A newly published journal article available from the U.S. National Institute of Health’s PubMed Central (PMC) repository offers — to put it mildly — a novel reason for the averred…

Biden Takes George III’s Imperial Approach to Regulation

Along with being one of the greatest documents for human liberty ever created, the Declaration of Independence provided an extensive list of how King George III had abused and usurped…

Saluting the Sensible

There was a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the proper societal response to Covid-19. Governments’ reactions to it didn’t help, as I discussed in previous posts. They were dictatorial and marked by shocking,…

Were Covid Dissenters Just Lucky?

My previous post discussed a critical omission from Emily Oster’s wish for a Covid “amnesty”: there’s no repentance, not even an apology. Oster wrote that those who got it right “had…

If You Want a Covid “Amnesty,” Then Repent of Totalitarianism

My latest piece for the American Institute for Economic Research discusses a critical shortcoming in Emily Oster’s October 31 essay in The Atlantic calling for a “pandemic amnesty.” Covid bullies…