Back in 2009, I wrote a commentary about how a record number of Americans were moving from one part of the country to another part of the county. In general, they were moving Northeast and Midwest to the South and West. But I argued then that it wasn’t just because Americans wanted a change in climate. If you dug into the data, you would find that Americans were migrating from high tax states to low tax states.

That pattern is even more evident 13 years later if you look at data collected by the Internal Revenue Service. The editors of the Wall Street Journal summarize it and find an even stronger correlation of Americans moving from high tax states to low tax states.

The biggest winners were Florida, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. The biggest losers were New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Obviously, climate may have some influence, but weather doesn’t explain it all. The editors point out that, “California has the best climate in the country. It also has among the highest taxes and cost of living.” They also note that four of the ten states that gained the most income don’t impose a state income tax (Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Nevada).

Finally, they notice that the rates of “migration has accelerated since the cap on the SALT deduction took effect.” SALT is the state and local tax deduction. That deduction was limited to $10,000 in state and local levies due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was passed when Donald Trump was president.

More than a decade ago, I predicted we would see more Americans moving from high tax states to low tax states. That is what is happening.

“If you don’t do what I say, I’ll take your lunch money.” You can imagine a bully saying that to a student in school. But you probably can’t imagine the federal government saying that to public schools. But that may happen.

The Biden administration’s department of Food and Nutrition service (an agency within the USDA) announced that it will strip funding for school lunches if the school does not adopt the administration’s transgender policies. This would require trans students the use of bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers.

As I’ve mentioned in previous commentaries, the Biden administration decided to change the definition in Title IX of the word sex. Federally funded educational institutions are prohibited from discrimination “on the basis of sex.” Without congressional authorization, the Biden bureaucrats now argue that sex means gender and gender identify.

Ian Prior is the Executive Director of Fights for Schools. He says the administration is holding schools hostage with school lunch money that helps feed 30 million students. “I honestly have no idea how providing food to children in schools is somehow connected to transgender policies.”

Of course, the connection doesn’t exist. The administration is merely using both a financial carrot and stick to advance a policy in the schools that would be most likely be rejected by Congress.

As you might expect, a legal and political reaction is coming. For example, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem criticized, “President Biden for holding lunch money for poor Americans hostage in pursuit of his radical agenda.” In a recent tweet, she warned, “If you act on this, Joe, we’ll see you in court, and we will win.”

This is an administration that essentially threatening, “If you don’t do what we say, we will take your lunch money.” It’s time for governors and school districts to push back.

Earlier this week, I talked about gun background checks and provided what I thought were some shocking statistics about the lack of prosecution of potential gun buyers who lied on a government form. Today, I would like to talk about what could be done to improve the system.

But before we get to solutions, I need to explain that whatever laws Congress passes will only be a two percent solution. According to the Department of Justice, less than two percent of all prisoners possessed a firearm purchased from a retail source at the time.

Most people with an evil intent (criminals, terrorists, mass shooters) don’t get their guns at a gun store, because these gun background checks keep them from doing so. That means that many of these recent shootings are the exception.

Politicians routinely say that it is easier to buy a gun than to get a car license. Kevin Williamson says: “If you have not bought a gun from a gun dealer, then you might not appreciate just exactly how law-abiding and how i-dotting and t-crossing you have to be to make the purchase.” He then lists more than a dozen exclusions that would prevent someone from purchasing a gun.

The problem is that some of the process depends on people self-reporting on such issues as illegal drug use. Hunter Biden, for example, almost certainly violated federal law for lying about his drug problem. He was never charged, nor will he ever be charged.

Better reporting is key. The shooter in the Sutherland Springs church attack should have been preventing buying a gun, but the Air Force neglected to report his criminal history. Yes, we can do more to fix the system, but we need to be realistic that it will only be a two percent solution.

Today is Flag Day, and it’s worth taking a moment to document its history. This holiday commemorates the date when the United States approved the design for its first national flag.

When the American Revolution began, the colonists weren’t fighting united under a single flag. Most regiments fought under their own flags. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to create a unified fighting force (the Continental Army) that would fight under the first US flag (the Continental Colors).

The flag they created didn’t last long. It was comprised of 13 red and white alternating stripes and a Union Jack in the corner. It was too similar to that of the British flag. George Washington realized that flying a flag that looked like the British flag was not a good idea. The two years later, the Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States should be 13 stripes, alternate red and white,” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

There are many claims to the first official observance of Flag Day. One took place in Connecticut, another in New York, and another in Philadelphia. The latter claim is often given the most attention because the citizens there worked to get Pennsylvania to be the first state to establish the June 14 Flag Day as a legal holiday. Although Flag Day is a national observance, Pennsylvania is the only state that recognizes it as a legal holiday.

Both Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge issued proclamations asking for June 14 to be observed as the National Flag Day. But it wasn’t until August 1949, that Congress approved the national observance.

I am so glad that today we can honor the US flag and American history.

Members of Congress are talking about passing legislation to expand gun background checks. That’s why I decided to study the issue in more depth. In the process, I found a one statistic that shocked to me.

Kevin Williamson cited an audit of the Government Accountability Office of the effectiveness of gun background checks that are performed by a licensed firearms dealer. A potential gun purchaser must fill out Form 4473 honestly and accurately. If you lie on the form, it is a felony that can lead to as much as ten years in prison. Nevertheless, a significant number of people do lie on the form.

In the year the government office audited these forms, there were 112,000 attempts by prohibited persons to buy a firearm that were stopped by the background check system. That is 112,000 federal gun crimes in which the perpetrator signed the form and thereby provided all the evidence needed to convict him. This included convicted felons (36%), people subject to protective orders (30%), and others convicted of domestic violence (16%). These are the types of people who should not have a gun.

The audit shows that about 30 percent of those people who fail a gun background check are arrested on another criminal charges within five years. But here is the shocking statistic. Out of the 12,700 cases that were taken up for investigation, there were only twelve prosecutions. That’s right, twelve prosecutions out of more than 12,000. Put another way, that is one prosecution out of 10,000. As bad as that looks, it is even worse since the federal government only conducts gun background checks for 29 states and the District of Columbia.

Here’s one suggestion. Let’s enforce the gun laws we already have on the books.

We find it difficult to clearly see inflation increasing in our world because of what could be called “the money illusion.” Steve Forbes and his co-authors talk about this in their new book on inflation.

We tend to misinterpret inflation’s distorted prices by believing that they reflect “real world” values. We like to believe the value of our house is increasing each year when often the value is increasing merely because the dollar is decreasing.

The dollar may be sliding on currency markets, but it doesn’t feel like that is what is taking place. In daily life, a dollar bill is still worth four quarters, or ten dimes, or twenty nickels. Nothing seems different until we start making comparisons.

One way we do see inflation is with shrinking products. A shrinking dollar often results in shrinking the size of products. You notice the size of a candy bar is less than you remember. The potato chip bag seems smaller. This phenomenon of “shrinkflation” is an attempt by producers to keep prices similar by reducing the size of the product.

But eventually, companies reach a limit to what they can do. The discount chain Dollar Tree discovered they could no longer sell products for just a dollar. For a while they were able to cope with inflation by using less expensive packaging. They tried to keep prices down by buying certain products in larger quantities. But you can only resist inflationary pressures for so long. The company had to raise prices.

We should be grateful that we don’t live in countries with hyperinflation, like Argentina, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. But we need to ask political candidates this year what they propose we do to prevent us from becoming like one of those countries.

Although prices have been going up for years and have been increasing even faster this last year, the reason for most of this price inflation is due to a declining dollar. The US was on a gold standard until 1971. The value of the dollar has been eroding each year.

A new book by Steve Forbes and others on inflation provides some ways to measure our declining dollar. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the dollar’s purchasing power has decreased by 86 percent since 1970. That estimate is based merely on the official cost-of-living measure taken from the consumer price index.

Another way to measure the dollar’s decline is to compare it to the price of gold. In 1970, it took $35 to buy an ounce of gold. Today the price is more than $1,800. That is a 98 percent drop in value.

Oil would be another measure. In 1970 oil cost a bit more than $3 a barrel, and oil companies were profitable. They remind us that last year when oil cost $75 a barrel, oil companies could barely get by.

One last example of the declining dollar is the cost of food at McDonalds. Back in 1970, a 12-ounce can of Coke cost a dime. A Big Mac cost just 65 cents. Fifty years later, the price of the burger has increased eightfold to around $4.95.

Why the cost increase? The products haven’t really changed. The real reason for the cost increase is a shrinking dollar.

These dollar figures are a reminder that the dollar declining nearly every year. The inflation rate may have only been a few percent each year and is up to more than eight percent this year. But every year prices rise because the dollar is declining.

A reoccurring topic on my radio program is what is called “stakeholder capitalism.” The phrase was promoted by the founder of the World Economic Forum and is used by many business leaders as well as by progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Former Senator Phil Gramm argues in a recent op-ed that “stakeholder capitalism is a war on the Enlightenment.” Proponents argue thar big businesses get more than they deserve. But he reminds us that nearly three-fourths (72%) of the value of publicly traded companies in America is owned by pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs, charitable organizations, and insurance companies funding life insurance policies and annuities. The beneficiaries of most of these are average American workers and retirees.

“The mantra that private wealth must serve the public interest has been boosted by one of capitalism’s great innovations, the index fund.” But what investors gained in efficiency with index funds, they have lost in terms of voting power. This latest trend in investing mandates that businesses and corporations must work toward social goals which have been defined as ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance.

This new agenda affects both politics and prosperity. Stakeholders demand businesses and corporations serve interests never enacted by Congress into law. These demands also can affect the profits and bottom line of these companies. And I also noticed that Tesla was removed from the S&P 500 ESG Index when it used to have the fourth largest weighting in the index. Could it be that it was dropped because of recent comments and actions by the Tesla founder?

Stakeholder capitalism may sound like a good idea until you get in the details.