stategovernments
This week's featured article is "A Baby Dies in Virginia" by Eric Boehm. This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward. Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses The post <I>The Best of Reason Magazine</I>: A Baby Dies in Virginia appeared first on Reason.com.
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. Since I'm on vacation this week, I'm afraid readers will have to suffice with a slightly more abbreviated—but hopefully still valuable—newsletter looking at why it's so hard to build a new city in California. California Forever—Delayed or Doing Fine? This past Monday, California Forever announced it would not ask Solano County voters to approve zoning changes it needs to proceed with its planned 17,500-acre, 400,000-person community this year, as it had initially planned. Instead, the development company would work with the county gove...
Reason
The drinks world has been rocked by dramatic media stories about barren patches of California countryside, abandoned vineyards, and scores of wineries closing their doors. Photos show tens of thousands of vineyard acres being bulldozed and then pulverized into wood chips by large industrialized grinders across the Golden State. This "Grape Apocalypse" (Grape-pocalypse?) is being framed as the sad but inevitable result of declining consumer interest in wine. That's true, but it's not the full picture. Unsurprisingly, the wine industry has been hit by inflation. However, the market has also been...
Reason
In 2021, Manistee County, Michigan, took the title on Chelsea Koetter's family home, which she shared with her two sons, in response to a small debt she owed on her 2018 property taxes. It was April Fools' Day. The "gotcha" never came. Her situation instead only grew more absurd. Four months after seizing her home, the government auctioned it off for $106,500. Then it kept the profit. All told, Koetter owed the government $3,863.40, which included her initial tax debt, as well as penalties, interest, and fees. She does not contest she was obligated to pay that. At issue is whether or not the c...
Reason
Newly released state revenue data shows that Massachusetts taxpayers played a major role in funding a mid-budget Hollywood movie about climate change. The dark comedy Don't Look Up premiered on Netflix in December 2021. In the film, a team of scientists discovers that an asteroid will soon hit the Earth and destroy all human life, but they find that nobody wants to heed their warnings. A blunt allegorical tale, the movie tries to do for climate change what Dr. Strangelove did for nuclear war. The film grossed less than $800,000 worldwide against a budget estimated between $75 million and $110 ...
Reason
Utah is known for many things—beautiful mountains, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mitt Romney—but it truly distinguishes itself when it comes to notoriously ridiculous alcohol laws. While the state's so-called "Zion Curtain" has widely been considered one of the dumbest booze rules in America, it turns out there is no limit on inane drinks laws in the Beehive State. In fact, state regulators have recently upped their bureaucratic ante by cracking down on bartenders who use a "straw test" to sample cocktails before serving. As one might notice when visiting a cocktail bar, the...
Reason
"Sacramento County drivers are likely unaware that, as they travel on county streets and highways, their vehicles are being tracked by an intricate network of stationary and mobile cameras." That was the conclusion of a report released last week by the Sacramento County Grand Jury, a 19-member panel billed as "the independent watchdog over public entities" within the California county. Worse yet, Sacramento authorities are not only collecting drivers' information but sharing it with law enforcement agencies in other states—including states that criminalize abortion—all without a warrant. The C...
Reason
Many South Florida residents remember with grief a day in the early '00s when the government came for their citrus trees. "They didn't ask politely, 'Can we please come in and take your trees?' No, they said, we're taking the trees," one Orange County resident recalled. Armed with chainsaws and woodchippers, contractors hired by the Florida Department of Agriculture were tasked with destroying any citrus trees—healthy grapefruit, lime, lemon, orange, or tangerine trees—that were within 1,900 feet of a citrus tree infected with canker. Among the casualties of the canker war were my grandmother'...
Reason
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/18/mary-morrissey-vermont-state-rep-pouring-water-colleagues-bag/74141722007/ The post Brickbat: All Wet appeared first on Reason.com.
Reason
As population and economic downturns hit many parts of the American heartland, some policy analysts and elected officials have begun to throw their support behind place-based visas that would bring high-skilled immigrants to those areas facing decline or stagnation. The idea got another nod this weekend. The U.S. Conference of Mayors—a nonpartisan organization of mayors and other elected officials who represent cities with populations of 30,000 or more—called on federal lawmakers to establish a "heartland visa" that would bring high-skilled immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs to communities...
Reason
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