"Americans in search of economic freedom and oportunity are flocking to Florida, Tennessee and Texas, and at least part of the attraction is that these three states, along with six others (Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming and New Hampshire), don't levy an income tax.

"Other states may soon follow.

"'There are 10 states that are in the process of moving their personal income tax to zero,' President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist said on the John Solomon Reports podcast."

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"Of all the reforms in House rules secured by the conservative rabblerousers last week, arguably the most momentous was the promise that Republicans will not pass any debt ceiling increase until substantial budget process reforms and spending cuts are secured.

The need for such a rule would seem self-evident. The debt has risen by some $4 trillion in just two years. Government borrowing last year hit 13 figures, or $1.4 trillion. Absent budget reforms, we could easily see a decade ahead with another $10 trillion added to the debt. And don't forget, every one-percentage point rise in interest rates by the Fed raises the debt by well more than a trillion dollars over the next decade."

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"A recession is coming in 2023, concluded more than two-thirds of the economists at big financial institutions recently surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Inflation is also likely to remain high. Measuring year-over-year inflation by the U.S. government's 1980s methodology put it at 15.23 percent in November 2022 instead of the government's claimed 7.11 percent, according to economist John Williams.

"Many commentators, including me, were wrong when we previously claimed our grandkids will be paying off America's massively unaffordable welfare state. We are all paying for it right now and are likely to be for much of our lives in inflation and other economic devastation.

"Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman's maxim that 'inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon' -- meaning, inflation is always caused by government overspending -- predicts continued inflation for at least the next five years, if not longer.

"That's because government entities are continuing to engage in seriously inflationary actions. They're doing this partly because of ideology, partly to buy votes, and partly because they prefer eating away Americans' savings to paying off the unprecedented government debt that politicians have accumulated in the last 70 years enriching their friends and buying off voters."

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"President Joe Biden wants to ban your gas stove. He intends to do it stealthily by preventing you from buying a new one so that when your current stove conks out you have no choice but to replace it with an electric stove.

"His Consumer Product Safety Commission is pouncing on a new study by four researchers, two of whom are linked to activist groups that militate against carbon fuels. The report blames gas stoves for 13% of childhood asthma cases.

"One should be skeptical of that number, which should be confirmed by scientists who don't have a conflict of interest, real or perceived. If the finding is important, it must be reproducible.

"But even if the finding is reproduced, the case for government action is weak. Many of us choose to cook with gas because we prefer it, and the choice should be ours, not Uncle Joe's."

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"When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Nov. 18 that he had named a special prosecutor to investigate former President Donald Trump's handling of classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago compound, the government harbored a fresh secret: The current president, Joe Biden, had a similar problem.

"Just two weeks earlier, Biden's lawyers disclosed to government lawyers on Nov. 2 -- just six days before the midterm elections -- that they had found sensitive government documents with classified markings inside an office that Biden used at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington after he left office as Barack Obama's vice president.

"The public was kept in the dark about the startling discovery until Monday, when the White House confirmed it was cooperating with an investigation launched by the Justice Department at the request of the same National Archives that has tussled with Trump over the last year.

"The belated disclosure turned the political tables on Biden, who sharply criticized Trump for his document debacle last fall, while also raising troubling new questions that will need to be answered by a U.S. Attorney in Illinois and Congress."

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"A line from legendary manager Casey Stengel fits the moment: 'Can't anybody here play this game?' He was talking about his hapless 1962 New York Mets, but the damning question can be fairly directed to both political parties and Washington itself.

"In one of the most worrisome signs of our era, the federal government has never been larger, richer and wielded more power over the lives of citizens. The size, debt and reach are astounding when compared to just a generation ago.

"Yet that bejeweled behemoth is failing miserably at many of its most basic duties. Public safety, border security, stable prices and quality public education are in decline, leaving many Americans angry about their government and cynical about the people who run it. ...

"Just two in 10 Americans believe the federal government does what it should, a low point in a decades-long decline. When the question was first asked in 1958, nearly 75% said they trusted the feds to do the right thing all or most of the time."

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"The Biden administration is touting its decision to drain America's emergency oil reserves to historically low levels -- and sell millions of barrels to China and other foreign entities -- as one of its 'top accomplishments in 2022.'

"President Joe Biden's Energy Department in a Dec. 23 press release included its release of '190 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve' as second on its list of top 2022 accomplishments. The department said the reserve sales protected 'global energy security' -- a far cry from its reasoning behind the sales in April, when the department said a release of 30 million reserve barrels would aid domestic consumers by addressing 'the pain Americans are feeling at the pump.'

"The rhetorical shift comes after Biden faced bipartisan criticism for selling millions of reserve barrels to foreign entities, including the Chinese government. In April, Biden sold roughly one million barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation, which is wholly owned by the Chinese government. One month later, with domestic gas prices at record highs, more than five million U.S. reserve barrels were sent overseas to Europe and Asia, a move that Reuters said inhibited Biden's ability to 'lower record pump prices' through the sales. As a result of those releases, the United States -- which consumes roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day -- holds just 372 million barrels, its lowest level since 1983. ...

"While Biden has been quick to drain America's oil reserves, the Democrat campaigned in 2020 against domestic oil and gas production, promising to 'end fossil fuel.' Biden during his first month in office went on to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and implement a moratorium on new gas leases on federal land."

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"For a president who supposedly likes building infrastructure, President Joe Biden has a funny way of showing it. In a New Year's Eve news dump, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new Clean Water Act regulations that will make it more expensive for people to build roads, bridges, and homes.

"At issue is the definition of the term 'waters of the United States,' which for decades meant interstate waters that were 'navigable in fact,' such as a river, canal, or lake. But in a blatant power grab, the EPA expanded that definition to include not only 'intrastate lakes, rivers, streams' but also all 'mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, or natural ponds.'

"If there is a puddle somewhere, Biden wants authority over it. Under his administration's new definition, if your property has a dirt road that occasionally gets muddy after a hard rain, it was now part of the 'waters of the United States.' Under the Clean Water Act, this meant that if you wanted to pave the road, put a building on it, or run a power line over, you would need to get not only state and local permits but also a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"Getting a permit to build even adjacent to 'waters of the United States' takes an average of 788 days and $271,596 in costs. Almost $2 billion is spent on federal water permits each year by people trying to improve infrastructure and housing stock. No wonder infrastructure and housing are so expensive."

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"Colorado Gov. Jared Polis plans to send migrants to major cities including New York, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday, warning that the nation's largest city is already struggling to deal an influx of people sent from Texas and other Republican-led states.

"However, the Democratic governor told POLITICO shortly afterward that the state has been helping asylum seekers reach their final destinations -- including New York City -- for weeks. The only change has been a recent winter storm and ensuing travel catastrophe that created a backlog of migrants wanting to leave Denver, which is now being cleared. ...

"Like many major cities around the country, Denver has been struggling to provide services for a surge of people who have fled their home countries in Central and South America, crossed the southern border and sought asylum in the United States. Over the past month, more than 3,500 migrants have arrived in Denver, according to the city, and each night around 1,800 asylum seekers have sought shelter in the city."

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"This year is going to be tougher on the global economy than the one we have left behind, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva has warned.

"'Why? Because the three big economies, US, EU, China, are all slowing down simultaneously,' she said in an interview that aired on CBS Sunday.

"'We expect one third of the world economy to be in recession,' she said, adding that even for countries that are not in recession: 'It would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.'

"While the US may end up avoiding a recession, the situation looks more bleak in Europe, which has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine, she said. 'Half of the European Union will be in recession,' Georgieva added.

"The IMF currently projects global growth to be at 2.7% this year, slowing from 3.2% in 2022."

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