Abolish foreign aid, all of it

  As most everyone knows, the federal government is now in debt to the tune of more than $22 trillion. Since federal officials are now spending, on an annual basis, around a trillion dollars more than what they are bringing in with taxes, that is going to raise the federal debt by a trillion dollars every year. We are reminded of this phenomenon by the periodic debate on whether Congress should raise the debt ceiling, an implicit acknowledgment that too much federal debt is not a good thing, especially since the feds will ultimately tax the American people to pay back what they have borrowed to fund their welfare-warfare state.

  On the welfare-state side, the big-ticket items are Social Security and Medicare, the two crown jewels of the American welfare state. Abolishing them would go a long way toward resolving the fiscal problem.

When Americans get their tax refunds, they go to the dentist

  Megan, who currently lives in Pittsburgh, was hospitalized in September for pneumonia. It was just a one-day stay, and she had health insurance, but even so, the bills piled up, eventually totaling $6,500.

  The only thing that made paying them realistic, she said, was that she received a $4,200 tax refund this year.

  “I would have put off my medical payments [without the refund],” she told me via email. “Between rent and day to day expenses, I don’t have the income to pay both. … Even with insurance, the numbers seemed insurmountable until I got my refund. If it wasn’t for that I would have had to reapply for payment plans with the risk of being sent to collections.”

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Who will take Doug Jones out next year?

  It is a foregone conclusion that a Republican will take out our anomaly, liberal Democratic senator, Doug Jones, next year. The question is which Republican will be the nominee and capture the seat.

  The early favorite is U.S. Congressman Bradley Byrne. There is an old adage that often holds true: the early bird gets the worm.

  Byrne made the commitment to run over a year ago, and he has been dedicated to the race and is running full speed ahead. He is raising good money and crisscrossing the state in a very organized manner. Byrne ran a good race for governor in 2010, so he knows what he is doing. He has served coastal Alabama in the Alabama Senate and now for six years in Congress. If he is the only major candidate from the Mobile/Baldwin area in the primary, he will get a good “Friends and Neighbors” vote in his 1st Congressional District. Republican primaries begin and end in vote-rich Baldwin County now.

Five reasons why strengthening the EITC and CTC is the kind of tax reform America needs

  As Americans filed their taxes this season—a process filled with confusion for many and startlingly small refunds for some—Democrats in Congress offered a sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s unpopular tax law in the form of two ambitious tax plans that actually work for working families. While Trump’s 2017 tax law rewrote the tax code to further enrich millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations, congressional Democrats’ proposals—the American Family Act (AFA) and the Working Families Tax Relief Act (WFTRA)—would double down on two of the tax code’s most effective income boosters for working and middle-class families: the earned income tax credit (EITC) and the child tax credit (CTC).

Does sportsmanship matter?

  Editor's note: This article first appeared in the Capital City Free Press on November 14, 2009.

  To lots of athletes, coaches, and fans, sportsmanship is an outdated concept. Like the Miss Congeniality Award in beauty contests, many think it’s for runners-up and losers.

  The barbarians believe rules are made to be broken, that it’s wise and proper to do whatever you can get away with.

Getting out of jury duty

  Last week, I dyed my hair orange - not red, not the subtle hue of a delicate tiger lily bloom, but bright, shiny traffic cone orange. This is actually not an unusual occurrence. I've dyed my hair various less-than-conservative shades on the color wheel, and invariably I have received contrasting responses that have ranged from "Hey, cool!" to genuine concern from those who believe that I am yet another victim of the devil's crack rock.

  This kind of stuff has never bothered me, though. I have come to realize that there are certain individuals who can't handle discrepancies in what they consider to be "normal." I have also come to realize that I am and always will be one of those discrepancies. In fact, I celebrate it, and occasionally I even use it to my advantage.

First Amendment includes separation of church and state

  The phrase “separation of church and state,” once a widely shared article of civic faith in the United States, has become a flashpoint for culture-war debates over the role of religion in American public life.

  On one extreme are those who insist that “separation of church and state” isn’t in the First Amendment. On the other extreme are those who interpret “separation” to mean eliminating religion from the public square entirely.

  The truth falls somewhere in between. The drafters of the Bill of Rights didn’t use the words “separation of church and state” in the First Amendment. But by prohibiting the federal government from passing any law “respecting an establishment of religion” — what is now called the establishment clause — the Framers clearly and unambiguously separated the institutions of government and religion on the federal level.

The intimidating power of integrity

  A teacher once wrote me to, telling me that a parent with a great deal of clout at her school asked her to change attendance records to make her child’s record look better. The teacher said she thought long and hard about the request but eventually refused, knowing it would make the parent angry.

  I commended her moral courage. I wish it didn’t take courage to do the right thing, especially in such a clear case as this, but in the real world, people with power often retaliate when they don’t get what they want. This can make our lives difficult.

Gitmo confirms our ancestors’ concerns

  What the Pentagon and the CIA have done with their prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba reflects the concern of our American ancestors who demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights immediately after the Constitution brought into existence the federal government.

  Recall that when the Constitutional Convention met, it was with the purpose of simply amending the Articles of Confederation, the governmental system under which the United States had been operating for 13 years.

The Trump administration is making it harder for workers to hold big corporations accountable

  The government wants to make it much harder for workers to hold employers accountable for wage theft, hours violations, and union-busting by complicating the answer to a simple question: Who do you work for?

  Historically, if two entities oversee aspects of someone’s work experience — such as wages, hours, and policies — either separately or together, they could be considered “joint employers,” which means they are both liable for labor violations. While this standard isn’t used very often, it can be a powerful tool for holding large corporations accountable.