New Jersey Gov. Christie: Skip Raises to Avoid Teacher Layoffs
Teacher layoffs create more public sympathy for increasing education funding than wage freezes. However, school districts could freeze wages and have employees contribute to health benefits rather than...
View ArticleGreen Dot Acts Responsibly to Close Under-performing Charter School
Green Dot has taken heavy criticism for its plan to close an under-performing and under-enrolled charter school next year. Yet, shouldn't school districts act like Green Dot and actively manage schools...
View ArticleA Growing Concern: Bank Taxers Without Borders
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last month that he will propose a "global bank tax" at the G20 meeting in June. It is still unclear what kind of tax this will be, but in any event we can...
View ArticleNexGen Air Traffic Contol, Will we Ever Move Forward?
Interesting that this article appeared in NextGov describing the FAA hearings. “Federal Aviation Administration officials faced tough questions from lawmakers on Thursday when they asked for a steep...
View ArticleBrownâ??s Bank Tax Would Lead to Further Moral Hazard
In his Financial Times column, the British economist John Kay, warns against the “global bank tax” recently announced by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. If this tax is passed as some kind of...
View ArticleDon't Buy It
A few weeks before Congress passed a law that orders every American to buy health insurance, the Virginia legislature passed a law that says "no resident of this Commonwealth…shall be required to...
View ArticleCalifornia Needs Quality-Based Teacher Layoffs
In the Los Angeles Times, Timothy Daly and Arun Ramanathan make the case for quality-based layoffs:Unfortunately, the only tool that California schools can use to make these decisions is a calendar....
View ArticleFederal Education Spending Increased 72 Percent; National Reading Scores...
As Education Week reports on the nation's report card in reading released today:Reading scores stayed flat for 4th graders and rose only slightly for 8th graders on the most recent National Assessment...
View ArticleOklahoma Universal Preschool Fail: 2009 NAEP Reading Edition
Oklahoma has the highest quality universal preschool system in the nation. Yet, the NAEP State Profile of Oklahoma shows once again that the state's huge investment in universal preschool is not...
View ArticleThe Mandate and Mug Clause
What does it say about your cause that nearly every policy idea you cook up is based in some form or another on coercing the American people?When House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers...
View ArticleNancy Pelosi: Jobs Junkie
Nancy Pelosi has a one-track mind.Even as her moment of triumph neared this weekend, one could sense that she was a woman who remained unsatisfied. Sure, Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.)—The Most Powerful Woman...
View ArticleRepeal the Davis-Bacon Act
For nearly 80 years, contractors working on federally funded construction projects have been forced to pay their workers artificially inflated wages that rip off American taxpayers while lining the...
View ArticleFree Riders Make Efficient Transit Management Impossible
Not long ago, I proposed that Washington, D.C. Metro consider variable pricing as a way to both manage transit usage during peak periods and raise revenues based on marginal cost pricing. Recently,...
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National Home Inventory Situation Getting Worse
You know, I think we might be missing the point with these sales numbers. Yesterday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their February sales numbers showing another drop. Sales of...
View ArticleFlorida's School Choice and Accountability Lead to More Gains on 2009 NAEP
While universal preschool did not help Oklahoma kids read better; school choice and accountability seem to be working for Florida.As Mathew Ladner reports at Jay P. Greene's blog:The NAEP released...
View ArticleU.S. DOT Moves Further Away from Evidence Based Public Policy With Statement...
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is apparently abandoning all pretense to evidence-based public policy based on his recent initiative to put bicycling and walking on the same...
View ArticleBank of America to Reduce Mortgage Balances in Messy Housing Struggle
The negative equity problem in America is very real and central to the nation's housing ills. Not only is it drowning hundreds of thousands of homeowners whose housing values are sinking deeper and...
View ArticleThe Entitlement Rip-Off
Bernie Madoff took money from people who thought he'd invested it, gave some to others who thought it was a partial return on their earlier investments, and kept much for himself. That's called a Ponzi...
View ArticleJamie Oliver's Ministry of Food Control
By at least one measure England’s Jamie Oliver is the most popular chef in the world. Such an accomplishment is no small feat for a dyslexic 34-year-old son of publicans nor for someone who dropped out...
View ArticleWhy Higher Future Inflation Rates Are a Bad Idea
During the last two decades the monetary policy regimes of most industrial countries have been based on the idea of “inflation targeting,” including the U.S. (though the target here is implicit rather...
View ArticleACORN's Original Sin
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, will shut its doors as a national operation next week. A wellspring of activism for four decades, the left-wing group...
View ArticleHow to Oppose ObamaCare
President Barack Obama came into office promising hope and change. But he might get more change than he hoped for. By foisting ObamaCare on a deeply unwilling country he might have set the stage for...
View ArticleAsia Rising
Wendell Cox has issued his most recent global study of population growth in urban areas, and the results are important, even sobering, for those trying to understand world economic and political...
View ArticleNon-Violent Resistance to ObamaCare
ObamaCare this week was signed, sealed and delivered to the American people. The question is what now? Should Americans simply sit back and accept its panoply of Big Government provisions like the...
View ArticleStates' Rights Versus Obamacare
The passage of comprehensive health care reform has many implications, but few are likely to fully appreciate the most fundamental impact of all: How the bill undermines the core principle of American...
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Florida to Expand Tax Credit School Choice Program
Close to six thousand people marched together at the Florida State Capitol to hear from legislators and the Governor about the value of the Florida Scholarship Tax Credit program. During the rally,...
View ArticleBritain Must Get Its Fiscal House in Order
A group of leading economists, including one former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, recently signed a letter, warning of the need...
View ArticleCA Will Vote on Legalizing Marijuana
State election officials announced Wednesday that an initiative to legalize marijuana will be on the November ballot, triggering what will likely be an expensive, divisive and much-watched campaign to...
View ArticleState Lawmakers Reining In Runaway Pensions for State Workers
In Illinois "Future government employees throughout Illinois would have to work longer to get full retirement benefits, and the size of those pensions would be limited. . ." according to a Chicago...
View ArticleHealthcare Bill's Impact on GDP
Well, the stories of how health care "reform" is going to slowly chip away at economic growth in America are only going to get more extensive and details from here on out, but here is one of the first...
View ArticlePrivate Transit Service Steps Up in Silicon Valley
One of the most common arguments for subsidizing public transit is that the private sector won't (or can't) provide the service. Yet, black market taxis--"gypsy" cabs--are common in large and small...
View ArticleObama: Just Pass Something on Wall Street Reform
Last week the battle in the Senate over financial services reform took an unexpected twist. The GOP decided to let the Dodd bill pass through the banking committee without a fight and duke out the war...
View ArticleIn the Drug War, Drugs Are Winning
When someone next door is coping with trouble, the neighborly thing to do is help. Mexico has a growing problem with extreme violence. And many people in California have a good idea of how to...
View ArticleLittle Grrrls Lost
When will President Obama create a Manhattan Project for girl groups? The stimulative power of girl groups has been clear throughout economic history. France and Italy, which in the early 1960s were...
View ArticleProgress and Challenges in Mississippi
Last week Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour signed House Bill 1456, which would require anyone conducting autopsies in the state to be certified in forensic pathology by the American Board of Pathology....
View ArticleMasters of Distraction
The mob is furious. And while it hollers about "killing" bills, Republicans stoke the fury by calling on citizens to "target" races in "battleground" states.Get it? "Target." The violent intentions are...
View ArticleLighting the Global Debt Fuse
In a recent commentary I discussed the pending sovereign debt crisis gripping several countries around the world. Unprecedented peace time fiscal stimulus have given rise to rapidly accumulating...
View ArticleUnions Versus School Reform: Race to the Top Edition
Today the Obama Administration announced Delaware and Tennessee as the two winners of round one of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTTT) competitive education grant program. The Obama Administration...
View ArticleShould the Federal Government Subsidize Biking?
Recently, a reader of my previous blog post on the U.S. Department of Transportation's decision to put biking and walking on a "level playing field" noted that really DOT's decision was an effort to...
View ArticleCollege Kids are Foodies on Food Stamps
The college board reports that college students actually pay less out-of-pocket college tuition these days because of generous government subsidies.Although average published tuition and fees increased...
View ArticleToo Much Fun
There’s something about the metallic pink shimmer of Watermelon Four Loko that immediately sends a scissoring pain to your temple. As for its bouquet, imagine a Jolly Rancher hard candy drowned in a...
View ArticleGreat Recession Takes Its Toll on South Bay Expressway
The South Bay Expressway filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (reorganization) last week after falling traffic forced its hand to manage its debt more effectively. The SBE is one of two roads allowed to be...
View ArticleAn Act of Hubris
While nobody knows what effects the health care reform bill passed by Congress will have on health care in America, the battle around this legislation is very likely to have disastrous effects on the...
View ArticleRidding the Earth of Nukes, One Treaty at a Time
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama pledged to seek “the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Obama has now made a small but significant step toward keeping...
View ArticlePrivatization of Printing Services Jammed in Washington State
Following up on this post last month, the Washington state legislature seems to be dropping the ball entirely on the privatization of state printing services. You'd think that in a time of fiscal...
View ArticleAustin Tollroad Expands Based on Strong Demand
The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority has begun construction on a 5 mile extension of 183A, seven years ahead of schedule, thanks to its ability to use toll revenues to finance transportation...
View ArticleHousing Prices Going Nowhere Fast
Housing recovery news continues to be, well, "blahg" probably best describes it:U.S. home prices were mostly flat from a year earlier in January, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home-price...
View ArticleCorrection: Democracy Doesn't Create Jobs...Free People Do
Washington Post op-ed columnist Harold Meyerson takes America to task for allowing its democratic form of government to continue in a dysfunctional way. It's an interesting take on Democracy, but I...
View ArticleThe Disappearing Blood Stain
John Thompson spent 18 years in a Louisiana prison, 14 of them in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot death row cell. According to a federal appeals court, "There were multiple mentally deranged prisoners...
View ArticleIt's Not You, Mittâ??It's Me
Mitt Romney not only possesses an air of real-world know-how but also has mucho smarts. I've been a reluctant apologist for him for years now.And for those of you who believe he's out of touch with the...
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