This month is when feminists in America have declared an unofficial holiday known as “Equal Pay Day.” They argue that women earn less than men. Therefore, in order to catch up with a man’s pay from 2018, a woman must work until April.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal remind us that the comparison between men’s wages and women’s wages isn’t really accurate when you consider other factors. “Women on average go into lower-paying fields, such as education. Mothers are likelier than fathers to choose flexibility over career advancement.” I have cited similar data in previous commentaries that also illustrates the problem of comparing the aggregate data without taking into account other important factors.

The editors point to a study by economist Mark Perry (American Enterprise Institute) who has suggested that we might want to implement an “Equal Death Day.” The point that he is making is the men tend to take jobs with a much higher fatality rate. Look at the top five most dangerous jobs.

Fishery workers have a highest fatality rate. Most are men. Next are lumberjacks, which are 98 percent male. After that are aircraft pilots, which is a profession that is 94 percent male. Roofers are 99 percent male, and garbage collectors are 88 percent male.

Mark Perry’s point is simple. When you look at the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you discover that men are much more likely to be killed while working.

It is also worth mentioning that sometimes the increased risk does not show up in men’s paychecks. Logging workers, for example, average $42,340 a year. Which isn’t much higher than what preschool and kindergarten teachers make ($40,070).

This is just another illustration about the choices men and women make about their jobs based on lots of factors.

Soon every female track record in Connecticut will be held by a transgendered male. Recently two biologically male students finished first and second in the 55-meter dash. Last year, those same two students finished first and second in the 100-meter state track championships.

This is a picture of the future, not only in the state of Connecticut, but nationwide and even worldwide. A biological male allowed to compete against women in just about any sport usually has a distinct advantage. It’s only a matter of time before one of these transgendered males breaks existing women’s records.

Although it may not be popular to say, there are significant biological differences between men and women. At puberty males get a massive dose of the performance-enhancing hormone known as testosterone. That hormone, coupled with the genetics of male body size, enables them to grow bigger, stronger, and faster. They have more muscle mass, bigger hearts, and greater lung capacity.

This obvious gap between male and female athletic performance is the reason we separate men and women as well as boys and girls in sports. So you might expect (in a sane world) that coaches, athletic directors, and athletic associations would work to enforce the time-honored rules of competitive sports.

But this is no longer a sane world. Women who are revered as professional athletes and Olympic athletes have expressed their concerns only to find they have become targets from transgender advocates. It’s amazing what a little targeted intimidation can do to silence most of the sports community.

What is happening in states like Connecticut are merely a preview of what will eventually happen in your state and your community, unless you speak up. Otherwise more transgendered males will show up on sports teams looking for a competitive advantage.

Democrats in the House of Representatives are moving a bill that would more then double the nationwide minimum wage to $15. It is all part of the campaign to “Fight for $15” that may do more harm than good.

I have documented in previous commentaries there will be winners and losers. The winners are those who receive the bump in pay. The losers will be those who receive a pink slip or aren’t even hired in the first place.

The editors at the Wall Street Journal notice what has been happening in New York City when the minimum wage rose again on December 31. Businesses with 11 or more workers must pay $15 an hour. They wonder if it is mere coincidence that the city’s full-service restaurants have fallen into a jobs recession. Employment in January dropped more than three percent and appears like it dropped a little more in February. The New York City Hospitality Alliance surveyed hundreds of eateries last year and found that nearly half (47%) planned to eliminate jobs in 2019 due to higher labor costs. Three-fourths planned to cut employee hours.

The editors also point to a research paper that raises a question that never occurred to me. The economists found “robust evidence that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16-to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind.” The economists provide some sobering estimates about the possible increased costs due to property crimes.

The current bill in Congress makes no adjustment for the cost of living. So the editors conclude that, “a cashier in New York, Texas (population nine) cannot be paid a dime less than the $15 hour due in New York City.” If passed, this bill could do significant harm.

Today is Tax Day. But a more important date is Tax Freedom Day. That is the date when your tax burden is lifted. It is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the amount of all income earned in each year. Put another way, it is when you are no longer working for the government but are now working for yourself and your family.

This year Tax Freedom Day occurs at the end of this week. And remember this is an average. Citizens in states like Louisiana already have had their Tax Freedom Day. Citizens in New York have to wait until the middle of May for their Tax Freedom Day. Let me also add that Americans will pay more in taxes than they will spend on food, clothing, and housing combined.

But before you declare freedom from government, I need to tell you about another date. It is called Cost of Government Day. This is the date on which the average American has paid his share of the financial burden imposed by the spending and regulation that occurs on the federal, state, and local levels. This date occurs a few days after the 4th of July. This date is a little less precise since it is difficult to calculate all the costs of government regulations.

Even so, the Cost of Government Day really puts things in perspective. It takes a little more than half of the year to finally get government off your back so that you can begin to earn a living for you and your family.

Both of these dates help us realize what is happening around us. There is a cost, but often we don’t see it. Our taxes are withheld from each paycheck, so we often don’t think about what we are paying. And since the cost of most regulations is hidden, we don’t see those costs either. But imagine if we had to pay all our taxes today in one lump sum. You can bet there would be an outcry.

Dennis Prager has a phrase that he has been using for some time. He says, “The left ruins everything.” That is the title of a recent Prager U video by him. It surfaced in a recent commentary by him with the title, “How the left keeps me religious.”

I really questioned his phrase the first few times I heard him say it. Perhaps it was the realization that every generalization has exceptions. But Dennis Prager is a thoughtful person, so I didn’t reject his idea immediately.

It is important to understand that Prager makes a distinction between liberalism and the left. Liberals and conservatives value truth. The left does not. And in his recent commentary he acknowledges that “liberals have done some good,” but he then adds “everything the left has touched it has ruined.”

The most obvious example, he says, is the university. Harvard professor Steven Pinker, a liberal and an atheist, says the left has rendered the university a “laughingstock.” If you have been reading my commentaries for any length of time, you have heard me cite many examples. Dennis Prager accuses the university of teaching “gullible young students lies, immoral ideas, and foolish doctrines.” He goes on for about six paragraphs with awful examples of what is taught on campus today.

One example from his video that is briefly mentioned in his commentary is what the left has done to the arts. “The God-centered West produced Bach and Michelangelo.” By contrast, the left “had produced mostly junk.” He says, “there is nothing higher to aspire to” because the focus so often is merely to shock, not inspire. In fact, there is a large amount of so-called “art” that is nothing more than “scatological art.”

The Bible and a belief in God were important in the formation of Western culture and in the creation of America. Rejection of those ideas has given us a leftist perspective that seems to trying to ruin everything.

The millennial generation has a much more positive view of socialism than the previous generation. One survey found that a majority (51%) those aged 18 to 29 had positive feelings about socialism compared to capitalism (41%). There are a number of reasons for their perspective.

First, their teachers and textbooks teach about the evils of capitalism. And if that is not enough, the popular media reinforce those ideas. Think of all the movies and TV programs where a capitalist is evil or the greedy corporation is hurting everyone in society.

Second, young people want equality. The naïve view of socialism seems to provide fairness, equality, and a level playing field. Millennials who feel that life is unfair, gravitate to socialism because it seems to provide help to those hurt in a free market society.

Third, they haven’t done the math. It is easy to argue for free college tuition when you aren’t paying for it. It is easy to let the government pay for everything until you realize you are the government. One article that appeared in the Washington Post had this headline, “Millennials like socialism—until they get jobs.”

Here are two suggestions about how to get the younger generation to rethink their ideas about socialism. First, millennials don’t like other people telling them what to do. In a socialist economy, the leaders are constantly telling you and the economy what to do. Second, a small group of bureaucrats are making most of those economic decisions. Ask them if they have every tried to get anything done with a committee. Now expand that to the millions of economic decisions that committee of bureaucrats need to make.

History, logic, and personal experience illustrate why socialism doesn’t work and is harmful to people in general and the society at large.

Nearly half (46%) of American adults report sometimes or always feeling lonely. That same study by Cigna also found that nearly the same percentage (47%) reported feelings of being left out. That is why many say loneliness is at “epidemic levels.”

Twenty-five years ago (1994) I wrote a book (Signs of Warning, Signs of Hope) making a number of predictions for the future. Chapter eight set forth the case for a coming crisis of loneliness. Years earlier Philip Slater wrote about The Pursuit of Loneliness. The US Census Bureau documented the increasing number of adults living alone. Dan Kiley talked about living together loneliness in one of his books. Roberta Hestenes coined the term “crowded loneliness.” The trend was there for anyone to see if they began reading some of the sociological literature.

Of course, lots of people have written about the crisis of loneliness since then. Robert Putnam wrote about it in his famous book, Bowling Alone. He argues that people need to be connected in order for our society to function effectively. Putnam concludes, “Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.” In his book, Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal, Senator Ben Sasse laments that our traditional tribes and social connectedness are in collapse.

All of this comes at a cost. Julianne Holt-Lunstad has published research showing that people with weaker social ties had a 50 percent increased likelihood of dying earlier than those with stronger ones. Being disconnected, she says, it comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

The loneliness epidemic has arrived. Pastors and churches need to address this dangerous trend.

Here’s an important question. Will the courts determine the future of Obamacare? You might be excused for thinking that the Supreme Court already decided that question. But there is another case that may also affect the Affordable Care Act.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bill because of four liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts argued that the mandate in the bill was a tax. And since the federal government has the power to tax, the Affordable Care Act was constitutional.

Let’s now fast forward to the Republican-controlled Congress when it considered the tax reform legislation, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. They didn’t eliminate the mandate, but they did zero out the penalty.

That’s when several states through their attorneys general filed suit claiming that the elimination of the tax penalty essentially invalidated Obamacare. Their argument was that removing the individual mandate caused the entire bill to collapse on itself. Back in December, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with their argument and struck down both the mandate and the entire law. The case is now making its way through the courts and may eventually end up back at the Supreme Court.

It is certainly possible that the case won’t get that far. Many legal experts believe it was a huge legal leap for Judge O’Connor to invalidate the entire law. In an unexpected move, the Justice Department has sided with the federal judge.

It is worth mentioning that all of this will be taking place during an election year. Since the Republicans could not agree on a replacement plan when they were in power, that’s why Democrats are already making a big issue out of health care during this election cycle. I would highly recommend that some members of Congress start talking about what a replacement might actually look like.

The former Attorney General Eric Holder started a conversation the other day on MSNBC when he was asked about President Trump’s slogan, “Make America great again.” Holder responded with this question: “Exactly when did you think America was great?” The implication was the America has never been great in the past.

Vice President Mike Pence decided to respond to the question by Eric Holder with four iconic pictures on Twitter. They were pictures of Washington crossing the Delaware River, Americans raising the American flag over Iwo Jima, Buzz Aldrin posing with the American flag on the moon, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his famous speech in Washington.

You might think that would have ended the discussion. Actually, it started another one about American history from a leftist perspective. Consider one of the many twitter responses.

When Washington crossed the Delaware, there was slavery. When the flag was raised at Iwo Jima, Japanese Americans were in internment camps. When King marched on Washington, Black people could not vote. When we landed on the moon, millions were dying in Vietnam.

Perhaps this one response can help you see the leftist perspective on American history. No matter what good is done in the country, it is never enough. All of those statements are true, but does that invalidate the sacrifice and innovation that made some of iconic pictures so meaningful to so many Americans?

One more point is worthy of mention. Few want to mention the political affiliation of those who were behind such evil. It was Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt that put Japanese Americans in internment camps. It was Southern Democrats who kept African-Americans from voting. And it was Democrat Lyndon Johnson who expanded the Vietnam War.

The Vice President tried to provide us with a history lesson, and instead gave us an insight in the mindset of the left in America.