John Stossel

Want a soda? You’ll pay more for one in Philadelphia, because local politicians decided to tax it five years ago. They’re “protecting” people, they said. The tax would “reduce obesity” and “lower diabetes rates.” But their main goal was to bring in more money, which they said would “fund early childhood education” and “help a lot of families.” I reported on this five years ago, right after the…

Colorado has a popular Democratic governor, Jared Polis. He’s a rare Democrat who says, “I’m for more freedom and lower taxes.” But is he really? At least he’s willing to come to Stossel TV to debate. Refreshingly, Polis supports charter schools. He even founded two. Unfortunately, his state’s school choice program only applies to government schools. Florida, Arizona, Utah, Indiana, West…

We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus.” “It’s a manufactured consensus,” says climate scientist Judith Curry in my new video. She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune.” She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change. Media loved her when she published a study that…

There is actually a Democratic governor who cares about economic freedom! He’s Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. He’s the subject of my new video. Before Polis got into the ugly field of government, he did useful work. He was an entrepreneur. He started an online flower company, modernized his parents’ greeting card company, and founded charter schools, an internet access company, Spanish-speaking…

The Southern Poverty Law Center just released a report claiming there are 1,225 hate and anti-government groups in America. These groups cause “fear and pain (in) Black, brown, and LGBTQ communities.”  The SPLC lists such groups on its “hate map.”  I once believed the center. Well-meaning people still do. Apple once gave them $1 million. But what donors don’t know is that today, the SPLC…

This week, while we celebrate the work of America's founders, I honor a living freedom fighter: billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai. When Communist China crushed freedom in Hong Kong, Lai could have gone anywhere in the world and lived a life of luxury. But he chose to stay in Hong Kong and go to jail. A new documentary, “The Hong Konger,” tells his story. Lai grew up in poverty in China.

For my new video, I asked people on the street, “If you could spend $30 billion trying to solve the world’s problems, how would you spend it?” “Build houses ... address homelessness,” said a few. “Spend on health care,” “redistribution.” The most common answer was “fight climate change.” Really? Climate change is the world’s most important problem? “It’s not surprising if you live in the rich…

Politicians claim their bills bring us good things. Free health care! Child care! A cellphone for all! But government isn’t Santa Claus. Government is force. Most every law takes away a little of our money or freedom or both. The Heritage Foundation ranks economic freedom across the globe. The United States once ranked No. 4 in the world, but we’ve been in decline. This year, as my new video…

People hate Chris Rufo. “Your agenda to turn our campus into a space of extremist indoctrination is harming our enrollment!” shouts a student at Florida’s New College. “You are the problem!” “I’m not the problem,” Rufo tells me in my newest video. “I’m actually the solution.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made Rufo a trustee of a state college. Rufo quickly moved to end what he considers leftist…

“Greed of the fossil fuel industry” is “destroying our planet,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders. Young people agree. Their solution? Socialism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says socialism creates “an environment that provides for all people, not just the privileged few.” “Nonsense,” says Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network in my new video. Palmer, unlike Ocasio-Cortez and most of us, spent lots of time…

Social Security is toast. So is Medicare. Too many of us old people live longer, so there are not enough working people to support us. Soon both Social Security and Medicare will be broke. Our politicians don’t have the guts to do anything about it. Or even talk about it. It’s easy to see why. Recently, France’s president, trying to keep his country’s pension system from going broke, raised…

President Joe Biden and the media are excited about something new: a Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. It’s a currency like Bitcoin, except controlled by the federal government. Not everyone is a fan. “Sometimes government does things that may appear to be benevolent but really are kind of like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in my new video. “This is a wolf…

There’s a socialist wave in Latin America. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil recently elected leftists. These politicians at least distance themselves from thugs like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but all propose socialism-lite policies giving government more control over more people. Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media…

Some schools are ditching traditional grading. Instead, they use “labor-based grading,” an idea promoted by Arizona State University professor Asao Inoue. Labor-based grading means basing grades more on effort than the quality of work. In addition, Inoue lectured a conference of rhetoric professors “stop saying that we have to teach this dominant English. ... If you use a single standard to…