The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday that the federal government’s deficit for the first nine months of its 2012 fiscal year exceeded $900 billion and that the country is on target for another $1 trillion annual deficit for the fourth year in a row. And this was despite the fact that revenues for the same period actually increased by five percent.

The Robin Hood Tax, properly called the Tobin Tax, is being resurrected by two Democrats to raise money under the guise of helping to stimulate the economy.

Two California cities, San Jose and San Diego, the tenth- and eighth-largest cities in the country respectively, just voted overwhelmingly in favor of ballot measures to rein in union pensions.

Dr. Richard Pan’s bill, AB 2019, to require a doctor to "sign off" on parents' decisions not to inoculate their children will wind up enforcing that inoculation. During a public hearing, Dawn Richardson, Director of Advocacy for the National Vaccination Information Center (NVIC), showed up to explain why she and her organization opposed the bill.

After conferring with the city’s business administrator, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mayor Chris Doherty announced on Wednesday, June 27, that all 398 city employees would be getting minimum wage, starting with their next paycheck. Doherty said the city doesn’t have the money to pay everyone their full salary: "I’m trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have. I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard…I just don’t have enough money, and I can’t print it in the basement."

Telecommunications giant Verizon filed a brief that the FCC is overreaching, again, in its quest to regulate the Internet.

With Ron Paul’s bill H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, headed for a floor vote in the House in the next two weeks (and likely success at passage with 263 sponsors), he and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are now focusing on the Internet. 

His Campaign for Liberty (C4L), started in 2008 with some four million dollars of campaign funds from his unsuccessful run for the White House that year, has issued its manifesto to continue the fight: “The Technology Revolution: A Campaign for Liberty Manifesto.”

In anticipation that the Supreme Court might rule in favor of ObamaCare, Avik Roy wrote in Forbes magazine that Health Savings Plans (HSAs) would be negatively impacted and possibly forced out of existence.

HSAs were first allowed under law as part of President George W. Bush’s prescription drug program passed in 2003. At the time it seemed a common sense answer to a sticky problem: over usage of health insurance benefits and the consequent rising costs to pay for that over usage.

Looking behind the numbers Thursday's ADP report reveals an economy that is flat-lined, heading into recession.

When June’s numbers are compared to January’s, ADP’s total nonfarm private jobs growth has increased from 110 million to 110.9 million, a gain of 77-100ths of one percent, or about 142,000 new jobs each month. A closer look reveals that most of those jobs were in the highly volatile service sector, in small businesses, usually fast-food or similar businesses, known for their high turnover. In fact, the goods-producing sector gained just one half of one percent employment since January, translating into less than 16,000 job gains each month. These numbers are hardly a “hopeful sign,” but more reflective of an economy that has flat lined.

On Tuesday evening, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was asked about repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare, if Republicans take back control of the Senate in November. Said McConnell: "Repeal of ObamaCare will be the first item up in the Senate if I am Majority Leader. ... Our goal will be to get it off the books. In my view, it is the single worst piece of legislation that has been passed in modern times."