Newsom’s Dirty Medicaid Trick Sticks Californians With Pricier Premiums Or A Budget Shortfall
Because Newsom leads from behind, Californians will face either higher health insurance premiums or yet another state budget shortfall.Because Newsom leads from behind, Californians will face either higher health insurance premiums or yet another state budget shortfall.Legalizing Weed Created A Health Disaster That’s Only Going To Get Worse
The damage legalized marijuana has inflicted on today's youth cannot be instantly undone by alterations or label redesigns.Here’s The Good And Bad Of 2026 Midterm Ballot Initiatives
While not an exhaustive list, here's a breakdown how the biggest measures fared on Tuesday night.Would you trust this politician with your wallet?
“My vote won’t make a difference. Why bother?” Because we still can.
I keep thinking about my ancestors. Our family history reaches back to the 1500s in what is now Germany. Eventually, members of that family left everything familiar and traveled to America.
The people on the ballot are applying for a job. If you owned a business, would you hire this person?
I cannot quote their conversations, but I imagine someone finally saying, “Wir müssen nicht so leben.” We don’t have to live this way. Taxes, control, and oppression had made staying unbearable. They had little say in the system governing their lives, so they crossed an ocean and accepted the dangers of a frontier for the chance to work, build, and keep the fruits of their labor. They expected hardship. They wanted a chance.
I cannot imagine looking those people in the eye and saying, “I have a voice in choosing who holds authority over my liberty, safety, and money. I just decided not to use it.” Yet election fatigue tempts us to do exactly that. We get disgusted, tune out, or decide one vote won’t count. I cannot control an election’s outcome, but I am responsible for using the voice I have.
That is stewardship. And part of stewardship means examining the ballot. Government must protect life and property, including infrastructure, national security, and fair commerce. Officials need clear responsibilities, limits on their power, and consequences when they abuse it.
Start with the term “public servant.” How many abuse both words? They serve, all right — themselves. And when the public asks questions, plain English suddenly becomes a foreign language.
Consider two recent examples. At a July Senate hearing, Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. He had the constitutional right to do so, of course. That does not make the spectacle reassuring.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), meanwhile, rejected the allegation as “insane” that her former husband was her brother. But when asked whether she was related to her former husband, she answered, “Not to my knowledge.” A federal court filing also identified her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi” — a designation the filing did not explain and that Omar disputes. What does it mean? The public deserves a straightforward explanation, supported by evidence.
Before defending either official, ask whether you would accept the same conduct from someone you opposed. Public scrutiny comes with public service. Demand answers, including from those on your own side.
Trump may be the first president in our lifetime so public that he scarcely needs a press secretary. Sometimes I wish he would use one more. But that is another column.
Four questions help me evaluate the people asking for my vote.
Have they built anything?
A business, a farm, a household — what have they been responsible for? Have they ever met a payroll? When Friday comes, employees need their checks. A speech about good intentions won’t cover them. Experience alone does not qualify a candidate, but I want evidence that the person understands work, responsibility, and consequences.
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Would they return my wallet?
Intact and without expecting anything in return. Would you trust this person with your property or to help your family in an emergency? Does the candidate’s conduct support the promises? If neither candidate inspires confidence, compare their records. Which one would need less watching?
Do they help people get on their feet?
Are public officials helping people become independent or dependent? A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of 2014-2023 census survey data estimated that 81% of Minnesota households headed by Somali immigrants received cash assistance, food assistance, or Medicaid. That figure alone cannot tell us which recipients work, how long they need help, or whether programs are succeeding.
Those are questions for the officials spending public money. Are families gaining the ability to support themselves? Is independence even the goal? People who cannot provide for themselves because of age, disability, or sickness need help.
But unable and unwilling are different things. Compassion requires us to examine what happens to the people we claim to help. Stewardship requires us to examine those claiming to help them with our money.
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Will they protect life and property?
For me, that begins with unborn life and includes opposing medical gender interventions for children. It also means enforcing consequences against those who harm people or take what belongs to others. Examine candidates’ records on border security, bail, and sanctuary policies. Who was protected? Who paid the price? What did the official do when something went wrong? Apply the standard regardless of race, religion, wealth, connections, or party.
Compare what candidates promised with what they have actually done. Invite a neighbor to do the same. The people on the ballot are applying for a job. If you owned a business, would you hire this person? Would you bring this person in as a consultant?
Then vote.
My ancestors came here because they had so little voice in the decisions governing their lives. They accepted enormous risks for an opportunity their descendants now enjoy. I cannot promise them I will always choose wisely. But I will vote.
Because I still can.
The war on plastic is a hidden tax on Americans
The rising cost of diesel is punishing millions of Americans — especially rural households. Every time a farmer fills his combine, a small businessman tops off his box truck, or a family fuels up the pickup, they feel the cost.
Prices have stayed stubbornly elevated compared with the pre-pandemic baseline. Because trucks move roughly 70% of America's freight tonnage, every extra dime at the pump ripples outward to grocery bills, hardware stores, and the operating margins of the mom-and-pop businesses that keep small towns alive.
Plastic is increasingly displacing steel, iron, and other heavy metals that would otherwise add hundreds of pounds per vehicle.
There are many familiar culprits policymakers can and have identified. These range from refinery closures and global supply chain disruptions to international sanctions and domestic regulations.
However, there is a coming legislative and regulatory threat that will raise prices even more for Americans. Proposals such as the Tracking Plastic Act of 2026 — introduced by Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) alongside Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — would place tight reporting restrictions on plastics and make advanced recycling more difficult.
Few voters who will pay for it have any idea what is coming. That threat is the accelerating regulatory war on plastics.
At first glance, plastics and diesel seem unrelated. In reality, they are joined at the molecular hip. Both come out of the same barrel of crude, are refined in the same facilities, and are governed by the same interlocking economics.
Petrochemical feedstocks, such as the natural gas liquids that become polyethylene, are not simply landfill waste. They are co-products whose sale helps keep American refineries economically viable. Shrink that market through bans, caps, or mandates, and America won’t magically get more diesel. Refineries that lose their petrochemical outlet get older and dirtier, and eventually they get shuttered.
There is a second, more direct link that ought to alarm anyone who cares about affordability. According to the American Chemistry Council's 2026 report Plastics and Chemistry in Automobiles, the average vehicle assembled in North America last year contained 428 pounds of plastics. This accounts for nearly 10%of vehicle weight, but around 50% of its total volume. That plastic content has grown 18% in a decade, even as trucks and SUVs have grown larger.
Plastic is increasingly displacing steel, iron, and other heavy metals that would otherwise add hundreds of pounds per vehicle.
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Decreasing vehicle weight is the single most cost-effective way to squeeze more miles out of every gallon of gas or diesel. The same report notes that real-world fuel economy has more than doubled since 1975. This gain has been enabled not only by better engines but by lighter materials. Every pound of plastic that regulators force back into steel is an extra pound the engine has to haul down the interstate.
Multiply that across the 15 million vehicles produced in North America each year and across a national fleet of more than 280 million, and the fuel penalty is enormous. For the diesel pickups, work vans, and tractors that already do the heavy lifting in fuel consumption, the impact is measured in billions of gallons annually. This also translates to billions of dollars extracted straight out of the pockets of hardworking Americans.
The activists driving anti-plastic legislation and regulatory measures ought to think deeply about this. Rather than punishing material that makes modern life lighter, safer, and cheaper, policymakers should shift their focus. Making innovative advanced recycling techniques easier would reduce plastic waste and lower diesel prices, a rare win-win in Washington.
The next time a Beltway coalition insists that phasing out plastics is a costless moral upgrade, policymakers should consider how it will impact the bills of Americans across the nation. Working Americans deserve a break from rising bills.
Boomers want higher taxes to save Social Security — but is there a better way?
Social Security’s funding shortfall has started a serious debate among young workers and their elders, with younger workers frustrated that older Americans are asking them to pay higher taxes to protect the benefits they’ve been counting on.
A new poll highlights the divide — 89% of Americans over 65 support preserving current retirees’ benefits, even if it means raising taxes. Among adults ages 30 to 44, support falls to 57%.
“There’s a new poll about Social Security,” BlazeTV host Ron Simmons explains on “Relatable.” “U.S. Boomers, which I’m included, support tax hikes on young workers to keep current Social Security checks.”
“I can imagine that’s controversial because I know that when I was your age, if you’re younger listening to this, I would have been against increasing my taxes to take care of people that had already paid in,” he continues.
“But, you know, now that I’m a Boomer, let me tell you the way I look at it,” he adds.
“When I first started, you could get full benefits at age 65. Then they came along and changed it,” Simmons says.
“They increased the retirement age. And increasing the retirement age means that people my age and younger would pay more in for a longer period of time before we were able to get benefits,” he explains.
Simmons, who qualifies to get full benefits in the next couple of years, has paid up to $360,000 in Social Security.
“If that would have been invested at 5% interest, that would have been a value of about $900,000. So, my account, if it was like in a 401(k), would probably be sitting there with about $900,000 in it,” he explains.
“If I went out and bought an annuity, meaning an annuity is something that pays me every month until the day I die, then that annuity would be about $5,000 a month. Now, that’s less than what I’m going to get from Social Security based on the estimates that I’ve found on the website,” he continues.
“The problem is, that money wasn’t invested like it should be. What happens is, we all put money in Social Security, and then the government takes that money and does other things with it, and they leave an IOU that essentially is not earning us any interest,” he adds.
What Simmons believes should be done is give people the ability to “direct the investment of the amount that you put in there.”
“If it was invested in a balanced portfolio, a mixture of stocks and bonds, that’s going to grow at 8 or 9% a year,” he explains.
“And over your career, that’s going to create a huge account that, again, you could draw on, or they could even just buy you an annuity and pay you a certain amount every month,” he continues.
“That’s the issue,” he adds.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
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It’s Not Billionaires Robbing The Middle Class, It’s Welfare Recipients
By 2023, government transfer payments to the lowest income quintile totaled roughly 70 percent of their average cash income.Nick Freitas: Social Security is a ‘Ponzi scheme’ — and America is running out of time
Millions of Americans have spent their working lives paying into Social Security, counting on the government to deliver the retirement benefits they were promised — and that promise isn’t being kept.
BlazeTV host Nick Freitas argues that it’s because Social Security operates less like a traditional retirement account than a system that uses today’s workers’ contributions to pay today’s retirees, leaving future generations to shoulder an increasingly difficult burden.
“There’s been a lot of … Boomers that have said, ‘Well, of course, we, you know, younger people should pay more taxes in order to make sure Social Security is solvent,’” Freitas says.
“Social Security,” Freitas says, “essentially operates like a Ponzi scheme.”
“Now, when I say this, people get mad at me. But I want you to understand why these are the things which are actually going to throw us into a massive fiscal and monetary crisis, because when people paid in, it is perfectly reasonable for somebody that was forced to pay into Social Security their entire life to want to be able to pull from Social Security because they were promised it,” he explains.
“The problem is you were promised a bad program,” he says, “because in a typical retirement program, the money goes into a productive industry. It accrues interest while things are being built and being produced that are actually making the economy better.”
“They act like it’s just another retirement program, but in reality, all the money you put into Social Security was already spent,” he continues.
“It wasn’t sitting somewhere accruing interest. It wasn’t funding productive projects that actually yielded profit. It wasn’t doing any of that. It wasn't doing any of the things a private retirement fund would do for you. It was just paying the people that were already collecting Social Security,” he adds.
This is why he equates it to a “Ponzi scheme.”
“Because now the critical part is we don’t have enough people working. When Social Security was first put into existence, there was something like 45 workers for every one person drawing Social Security,” he explains, noting that “it’s about to be three to one.”
And in addition, Freitas points out that “the left brings in a bunch of people that don’t pay taxes or actually go on to other welfare benefits.”
“Now they’re a net drain on the economy,” he adds.
“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.
Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.
Democrats can't erase the price shock of the Biden years
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) says Republicans have "done nothing to make life more affordable for the American people" and instead have "made life more expensive." That’s a remarkable accusation from a party that presided over a historic jump in consumer prices and continues to defend policies that add to the bills families pay.
With the November midterms approaching, Democrats want voters to blame Donald Trump for the cost of groceries, rent, power, and gasoline. They should first account for the prices Americans inherited when Trump returned to office — and for the costs imposed by Democrat-led states.
Americans did not forget what groceries and rent cost four years ago. Democrats should not expect them to forget who held power when those prices took off.
Start with inflation. The Federal Reserve aims for 2% annual inflation over time. Even when inflation slows, prices generally keep rising. A smaller annual increase does not reverse the larger increases that came before it.
According to the consumer price index, overall prices climbed about 21% during Joe Biden's presidency. They rose roughly another 5% between January 2025 and August 2026, the latest available monthly data. Inflation has not stopped: The August report put the 12-month rate at 3.4%. But the distinction between the rate of inflation and the price level explains why families still feel the squeeze from the Biden years.
Household essentials tell the story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded increases of more than 20% in grocery prices and residential rents during Biden's term. Electricity costs rose by roughly 30%. Slower subsequent increases leave those earlier jumps in place.
At the pump, the weekly national average hit $5.01 a gallon in June 2022, during Biden's term. It peaked at $4.50 so far in Trump's second term, amid disruptions to oil supplies due to the Iran war. Nominal term averages have run $3.46 under Biden and $3.43 so far under Trump, according to federal energy data.
Still, the household costs Democrats now denounce were already elevated when Biden left office. The party cannot credibly campaign as though American families began paying those bills in January 2025.
State policy makes the contradiction sharper. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter immigration enforcement, estimated in 2023 that illegal immigration imposed a net fiscal cost of $150.7 billion a year on federal, state and local taxpayers. The report raises a question Democrat officials cannot dismiss: Who pays for education, health care, and other public services as migration increases?
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Housing supplies another pressure point. A September 2026 Brookings study estimated that the post-pandemic immigration surge raised rents in receiving metropolitan areas by 1.4% to 1.6%. Policymakers who expand immigration without making room for more housing should expect renters to notice.
Electricity offers an even clearer test of state choices. An analysis publicized by the American Energy Alliance found that rates rose 32.4% from 2014 to 2024 in states that backed the Democrat presidential nominee in 2020 and 2024, compared with 18.5% in Republican-voting states. States with mandatory renewable portfolio standards also saw larger increases than those without them. Voters should ask what those mandates cost.
When House lawmakers passed legislation requiring state utility regulators to consider shielding ratepayers from new data-center infrastructure costs, Senate Democrats blocked its advance. Families watching their power bills climb deserved a better result.
Taxes provide another point of comparison. Visual Capitalist's analysis estimated that a New Jersey resident would pay about $1.36 million in federal, state, and local taxes over a lifetime, equal to 48.2% of estimated earnings. Eight of the 10 highest-tax states in that ranking had Democrat governing trifectas in 2026. The concentration is striking.
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New Jersey, my home state, levies the nation's highest top corporate income tax rate, 11.5%. Burlington has announced plans to shift its headquarters to Philadelphia, and Samsung has announced a headquarters move to Texas. ExxonMobil moved its legal domicile to Texas. Lawmakers should consider what those departures say about the state's tax and regulatory climate.
The state's employment figures offer another warning. New Jersey's initial estimate of 25,600 jobs lost in July was subsequently revised to 21,900. Officials have reason to examine the burdens they put on employers.
Americans have also seen welcome gains. The Census Bureau reported that real median household income reached a record $87,460 in 2025, up 2.6% from 2024, while the official poverty rate fell to 10.2%. Median income for black households rose 4.8%.
Democrats are free to make their case that Republican policies have made life more expensive. Voters should require them to answer for their own record: the price surge under Biden, the tax burdens in Democrat-led states, the cost of energy mandates, and the fiscal consequences of immigration policy.
Americans did not forget what groceries and rent cost four years ago. Democrats should not expect them to forget who held power when those prices took off.
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