Florida receives a lot of undeserved grief. As a native Floridian, I’m proud to be from the Sunshine State. I’m proud of my beloved Tampa Bay teams who shocked the world this year. I’m even proud of all those viral “Florida man” news stories because they’re the product of Florida having strong government transparency laws.
Despite lawmakers’ intentions, many Hawaiian youth are not using e-cigarettes because of flavors. According to the 2017 Hawai’i Youth Tobacco Survey (HYTS), in 2017, 39.4 percent of Hawaiian high school students reported having ever used an e-cigarette or vapor product and 20.9 percent reported having used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days.[xxiv] When asked for reasons why to use e-cigarettes, 26.4 percent of high school students responded “flavors, such as mint, candy, fruit or chocolate.” Conversely, 38 percent cited “other” and 12.7 percent responded that they used vapor products because “they are less harmful than other forms of tobacco, such as cigarettes.” In regards to where youth purchased their vapor products, among e-cigarette users only 7.8 percent reported purchasing an e-cigarette on the internet. Alternatively, 10.8 percent of high school students reported purchasing e-cigarettes at a “vape shop or store that sells only e-cigarettes,” and whopping 60 percent reported purchasing vapor products from friends.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced a net gain of $318 million, after recording 14 years of quarterly and annual net losses exceeding $80 billion. The partial reversal in financial fortunes reflects Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy’s cost-cutting operational changes, in addition to a holiday season with historically high mail volume. Despite the temporarily improved fiscal situation, the USPS still has more than $160 billion worth of unfunded liabilities and is expected to spend more than $6 billion on a new fleet of vehicles over the next ten years.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced a net gain of $318 million, after recording 14 years of quarterly and annual net losses exceeding $80 billion. The partial reversal in financial fortunes reflects Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy’s cost-cutting operational changes, in addition to a holiday season with historically high mail volume. Despite the temporarily improved fiscal situation, the USPS still has more than $160 billion worth of unfunded liabilities and is expected to spend more than $6 billion on a new fleet of vehicles over the next ten years.
E-cigarettes and vaping devices have emerged as especially powerful THR tools, helping nearly three million U.S. adults quit smoking from 2007 to 2015. Indeed, an estimated 10.8 million American adults were using electronic cigarettes and vapor products in 2016. Of the 10.8 million, only 15 percent, or 1.6 million adults, were never-smokers, indicating that e-cigarettes are overwhelmingly used by current and/or former smokers.
A just-released study shows how the private sector is deploying 5G and why the federal government should continue to facilitate 5G growth.
If there’s any lesson to be learned from American history, it’s that politicians will use times of crisis to implement sweeping policy changes. Sadly, these sweeping reforms are often pretexts to increase government power and end up harming the economy and the nation. President Woodrow Wilson used World War I as a pretext to implement unprecedented government controls on our economy. In the midst of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt ushered in the New Deal, fundamentally shifting the scope of the federal government to this very day.
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is greatly concerned about Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) recent antitrust reform bill that would greatly expand the government’s antitrust enforcement power and authorize a $300 million increase to the annual budgets of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforce antitrust laws.
It's just a few days into the Biden administration, and the president has already rejoined the Paris climate accord and mended fences with the taxpayer-funded World Health Organization (WHO). These moves are part of a larger strategy to reengage with International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and continue subsidizing global bureaucracies such as the United Nations (UN). Once again, these bloated, unaccountable organizations will receive full U.S. taxpayer funding despite an abysmal track record at promoting peace and helping the environment.
As lawmakers attempt to address youth use of age- restricted products, including electronic cigarettes and vapor products, some policymakers are seeking numerous proposals including flavor bans, imposing additional excise taxes and prohibiting adult access to certain sales. Although addressing youth use is laudable, policymakers should refrain from policies that would restrict adult access to tobacco harm reduction products, as well as implementing policies that further subvert adult choices, such as is the case with the proposal to ban flavors in tobacco and vapor products.
