The new energy source is the natural gas trapped in rock deposits known as Marcellus Shale. These deposits are plentiful in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and New York—but especially in Pennsylvania—and were first thought to be rather insignificant when noticed roughly 10 years ago. However, recent estimates by geoscientists maintain that the Marcellus deposits are significant, maybe containing as much as 50 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas!

Geological entrepreneurs have ingeniously devised ways of tapping this gas, which takes considerable capital investment. All the supporting industries are prospering as they supply the drilling and extraction. If no new taxes were slapped on the gas production, the operations would still yield much needed tax revenues to the Commonwealth as the new enterprises pay already existing Pennsylvania taxes. At the same time, tens of thousands of new jobs would be provided to the depressed Pennsylvania economy; these would not be short-term government jobs, like census workers. The potential here is for decades of employment related to this industry. Wouldn’t those benefits be enough for Governor Rendell to leave the fledging Marcellus Shale extraction industry alone?

Apparently not. Rendell proposes a 5 percent tax on the value of extracted gas and then an additional $.047 per thousand cubic feet of the gas extracted. The Commonwealth Foundation says that the imposition of the tax will reduce Pennsylvania drilling “by at least 30 percent.” That may be an underestimate, but no one knows the entire effect. What we do know is that Pennsylvania’s existing tax climate is not generally hospitable to new enterprises, so why burden this emerging industry and its job-creation potential with yet another tax?

If Governor Rendell wants to claim a policy and budgetary victory, why doesn’t he proclaim that he will veto any new taxes on Marcellus Shale production that come from the legislature? Why doesn’t he say that he will be satisfied with the additional revenues that are already (and will be) paid by these new productive businesses in Pennsylvania? Why doesn’t he refuse to thwart opportunities for workers to gain tens of thousands of private sector jobs that make them able to support their families and pay ordinary taxes well into the 21st century?

Refusing to agree to further taxation is the path to real and lasting “progress,” not the stifling big-government policies of the New Progressives.

Suppose you were arrested on criminal charges because you were the head of an organization that had produced a film critical of the wife of a former political leader, who was now running for office herself. What country would have such a law? Cuba, Myanmar, China? None of these. Actually, you would be talking about the United States of America.

Fortunately, on January 21, 2010, by a narrow 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court changed that law by rendering its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. What is even more interesting, and astounding, is that President Obama does not like the decision one bit-as was evident in his State of the Union address on Wednesday evening.

The case dealt specifically with a 90-minute documentary produced by an organization called Citizens United. The group, a non-profit advocacy corporation, put together a production called “Hillary: The Movie,” which urged viewers to oppose the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. However, fearing that such programming might be viewed as illegal under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (also known as “McCain/Feingold”), Citizens United asked for a judicial ruling on the matter. The provision that concerned Citizens United was 441b, which prohibited a corporation from communicating to the electorate about a candidate within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election, and under threat of criminal prosecution. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Court’s majority found that McCain/Feingold restrictions on corporate speech were unconstitutional under the First Amendment, which prevents the government from abridging freedom of speech. In deciding as it did, the Court strengthened one of most important liberties that citizens, individual or corporate, can exercise: the right to criticize the existing government, its office holders, or those aspiring to office. The Court minced no words in pointing out what the federal law limiting corporate funding of political documentaries, books, or other communications really meant. Justice Kennedy said candidly: “The law before us is an outright ban backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations-including nonprofit advocacy corporations-either to expressly advocate the election of or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election.”

Kennedy gave examples of actions that would be considered felonious under the law. Sierra Club officers would be felons if they ran an ad in the prohibited timeframe disapproving of a Congressional candidate “who favors logging in national forests.” In like manner, added Kennedy, the National Rifle Association’s officers could end up in jail if that organization published “a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U.S. Senator supports a handgun ban.”

The defenders of such restrictions argued that the restrictions on corporately financed speech were necessary to prevent well-financed corporations and unions from replacing a true democracy of the people. Corporate money would dominate and “distort” the political process.

The Court rejected that argument in a flurry of cogent rebuttals both in the majority opinion and the concurrences. As Justice Scalia pointed out in concurring, the First Amendment “is written in terms of ‘speech’ not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals … to incorporated associations of individuals.”

The Court discovered a glaring contradiction in the exemption of “media corporations” from 441b. If “electioneering communications” close to the time of the primary or election were disseminated by media corporations like CBS or the New York Times, those news stories or broadcasts would not put CBS or Times executives in violation. So, in effect, as the Court correctly discerned, 441b allowed the established print and electronic media corporations to hawk their views with impunity right up to election day due to an exemption in the law, while business and labor entities were silenced by the threat of prosecution if they did the same. Therein is the key to the political left’s unhappiness with the Court’s holding.

The disapproval of this decision comes from the liberal side of the political spectrum, including by President Obama. The reason? Section 441b, in effect, sheltered the political speech of news outlets-part of the liberal-leaning U.S. media-while other corporate points of view, potentially more moderate or conservative, were criminalized by the legislation. Now, the threat of prosecution under 441b for these formerly marginalized corporations is gone, swept away by the Roberts’ Court. In essence, the right to pre-election political speech for all persons, corporate and otherwise, has been reestablished.

Will the political marketplace now be crowded with new corporate entrants? Probably, but voters will likely do what they do with the claims, assertions, and arguments of commercial vendors. They will weigh them, accept some and reject others, and, in the end, make their determination for or against candidates. That is what the Founders intended when they penned the freedom of speech portion of the First Amendment. And that is what was restored by the Court in its Citizens United decision.

Pfizer, the huge drug company, has announced that it will be leaving a large research complex in New London, Connecticut and moving several hundred jobs to nearby Groton. Such belt-tightening in tough economic times would normally draw little criticism. In this case, however, it should.

Recall that Pfizer played a central role in getting New London to seize the homes of local residents who lived adjacent to the Pfizer site. Pfizer, according to accounts, wanted that mixed residential area, called the Ft. Trumbull section, to be leveled and replaced with an upscale development that would include a five-star luxury hotel, top-tier condos, and private office space for Pfizer’s suppliers, workers, and visitors. Now Pfizer is leaving New London “high and dry.” How did this happen?

A little less than a decade ago, New London and Pfizer wanted to “redevelop” a portion of that old coastal city, spurred on by a large state grant. What they did not predict was the local outcry against this “revitalization” when Ft. Trumbull residents learned that their homes would be taken by the process known as “eminent domain.” Among the residents was the kind but spunky Susette Kelo, who, with the help of an outside legal advocacy organization, the Institute for Justice, and the institute’s lead attorney, Mr. Scott Bullock, took her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It became known as the “Kelo case.”

Kelo’s contention was that when the government takes property by eminent domain, the seizure must be for a “public use.” This is the language of the U.S. Constitution, where it says in the Fifth Amendment that private property shall not be taken except for a public use, and then only with just compensation from the government. New London was offering to pay Ms. Kelo for her property, but her contention was that in taking her property, and giving it to another private party for development-in the way the New London Development Corporation and Pfizer desired-was no longer a public use.

New London officials argued that greater tax revenues would be produced by the revitalization and, therefore, some public good was done by the restructuring of the Fort Trumbull area. Kelo and the Institute for Justice pointed to such a contention as ominous for all homeowners, since local governments could almost always imagine a “higher use” to which individual residential properties could be put.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court found in favor of New London and against Kelo, but the case produced a firestorm of protest across the country, leading over 40 states to more tightly control eminent-domain abuse.

What about Pfizer? Well, a firm that should have been devoted to liberty and private property was in effect complicit with New London in ushering Ms. Kelo and others out of homes they had chosen and purchased. Pfizer even received special tax treatment, paying only one-fifth of the usual property taxes for the first 10 years of occupancy of its research site.

What thanks did New London receive from Pfizer for putting its own citizens out of their homes? That brings us to the latest development: Pfizer is moving the research jobs elsewhere.

The city probably will not “get back” its tax forgiveness. State tax monies from Connecticut used to entice New London to revitalize have been expended. Local businesses that depended upon Pfizer and the development for patronage are now looking at financial decline. What remains is a barren undeveloped site where homeowners once kept their homes with pride.

It is a sad story of local governments drawn into projects by the promise of large state grants. The grant then allowed them to accede to the special demands of large enterprises like Pfizer for tax breaks and special treatment. What is even sadder is that in their rush to redevelop, these same local governments bulldozed the fundamental rights of their own constituents and, then, their “business partner,” Pfizer, cast them aside whenever it chose to do so. Ms. Kelo has a perfect right to say “I told you so.”

Chris Klicka studied law after his Grove City College years at O.W. Coburn School of Law in Oklahoma and was hired in 1985 as the first executive director of an organization that had been formed by another tenacious fighter for educational and religious freedom, Mr. Michael Farris. His new position was with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). The organization charged a reasonable annual fee to parents who were home schooling. The pooled fees were used to provide a legal defense fund for those who located in states in which laws and courts were hostile to the efforts of parents whose only “transgression” was that they had chosen to home-educate their children.

Basically, the compulsory attendance laws in most states were a product of an earlier era in which state legislatures had attempted to prevent children from working in factories and on farms by compelling them to get an education. Unfortunately, the courts and state departments of education had interpreted that requirement to mean that the education had to be provided by a conventional day school, public or private. In the 1970s and 1980s, the traditional school choices offered to parents had become less attractive and some began to look for alternatives. However, the idea of home schooling in the eyes of public school principals, superintendents, social workers and most state court judges was still foreign and frankly somewhat threatening. Their response was to prosecute parents, who dared to provide education another way, under the compulsory attendance laws.

In the early 1980s, Pennsylvania was called by HSLDA one of the “worst states” in the country for home schoolers. Many of the threatened moms and dads in Western Pennsylvania were clients of mine. Consequently, though we had not planned it, Chris Klicka and I had the “pleasure” of working together with Mike Farris on a number of cases here on behalf of HSLDA families, where school districts, through their superintendents, sought to criminally prosecute parents who were home schooling.

By the end of the 1980s, the climate changed due, in no small measure, to the perseverance and tenacity of Chris Klicka and HSLDA. Today, the acceptance of home schooling is well established nationwide. That is a tribute to the personal courage and legal acumen of that dark-haired constitutional student—Chris Klicka—who saw an injustice and sought, by the grace of God, to right it.

All this, I add, he accomplished while fighting an individual battle with Multiple Sclerosis. In these last years that disease sapped his physical strength and challenged his endurance. Nevertheless, his indomitable spirit, which was clearly Christ working through him, made him a warrior for freedom to the end. His gentle demeanor, disarming smile, and courageous heart were combined in a winsome way with his unyielding stance for scriptural principles. He died with the gratifying knowledge that parents across the land could instruct their children without fearing the heavy hand of state intervention. Now he rests peacefully in the bosom of the Lord he served so well.

Under EFCA, if passed, there would no longer be a secret ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Let’s leave aside the obvious, such as how this legislation would invite abuse, peer pressure, and intimidation of employees who were not convinced of the desirability of a union. Let’s ignore the real possibility for forgery and fraud. Here is the irony: although such legislation may actually seem to help union organizing efforts, it may, in fact, backfire badly. Why?

First, employees are accustomed to representative democracy as a fair way to determine issues. Many will be unsupportive of a process that does not allow employees to exercise their own judgment privately about issues as close to them as their own employment. Taking away the secret ballot election conducted by an independent agency of the government will seem to many to be simply unjust.

Secondly, if EFCA passes, employers will get “hard-ball” advice from their own labor attorneys and consultants. (Incidentally, these warnings are already appearing.) Employers are being told that if this legislation becomes law, they must consider year-round, continuous campaigns focusing on the ills of unionization. These consultants will wisely warn the employer to begin regular talks to non-union employees about the high costs of strikes as well as the rigidity of union work rules that make unionized businesses less efficient. Employers will point to high production costs, which will often produce a decline in demand for the products the workers produce. These advisors will strongly suggest that employers talk about the industries of America’s Northeast—automobile and steel—whose uncompromising unions have made these firms uncompetitive, nationally and internationally, and have led to their demise or serious decline.

Employers will inform employees of facts such as only 7.5 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized today; thus, the relatively high level of U.S. wages cannot be the result of unionization. Moreover it will be essential to present information about the misuse by unions of members’ dues to support political candidates whose views do not always coincide with those of the members.

That is what employers will be counseled to do, and they will respond with comprehensive, hard-hitting, year-round campaigns designed to nip unionization efforts in the bud. In other words, EFCA will cause employers to be proactive instead of reactive. Employers will not want to learn that organizing efforts have been afoot only once presented with the 50 percent plus of authorization cards. By that point, there will be no time to counter the union’s claims.

So, EFCA, besides being a “full-employment” guarantee for union-management consultants, may well produce the unexpected consequence of mobilizing perpetual employer anti-union campaigns resulting in fewer union elections being won by unions.

There is no argument about that. Sasha and Malia will attend Sidwell Friends School — private, religious, and pricey — on average around $28,000 per year. In Chicago, they attended the University of Chicago Lab school, private also.

The more important question is: Will the parents of the approximately 2,000 D.C. kids who have been recipients since 2004 of congressionally provided voucher grants under the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) continue to have a choice of schools like the Obamas? If Obama, the Democrats, and Eleanor Holmes Norton (Delegate to Congress from D.C.), have their way, the answer will be “no.”

Why? President Obama, Holmes, and the Democrats are allowing public school ideology to override the best interest of the OSP kids. They are so beholden to the D.C. public school monopoly that they will not allow the voucher program to continue once its extension has expired. This program provides possibly the only escape hatch for those trapped in failing D.C. public schools.

Contrast for a moment Sidwell with the D.C. public schools. Sidwell will teach Sasha and Malia well and effectively. Their educational progress is assured. On the other hand, test results from the D.C. public schools are among the worst in the country. Less than half of elementary and less than 40 percent of secondary students are proficient in math and reading. Delegate Norton claims this is due to under-funding of the public schools, but the evidence is to the contrary. Andrew Coulson, educational writer and analyst, calculates that when all sources of revenue for the D.C. schools are considered, the yearly per pupil cost is a whopping $24,600. The OSP program, if it were continued, would provide a mere $7,500 per student toward private or charter choices. Which program is actually “under-funded?”

When it comes to Sasha and Malia, the Obamas understand the critical importance of a good, rigorous education because such educations changed their own lives. Yet, when it comes to giving that opportunity to other youngsters in the District of Columbia, most of whom are African American, and whose parents count them as precious as the Obamas count their daughters, the president and his party will likely withdraw aid. For those 2,000 boys and girls in the OSP, the “education train” may be their only ticket out of poverty and dependency and they may not get a chance to ride it.

It is a bitter irony that these deserving students may be consigned to substandard instruction by the very president who promised to be the agent of change and the friend of the poor.

There is one hope. Perhaps, one of Barack Obama’s daughters will make friends during the remaining school year with one of the OSP students attending Sidwell. After hearing that low-income youngster’s story relayed by Sasha or Malia, could President Obama be moved to continue the program? Stranger things have happened.