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If Schools Are 'Worse Than We Think,' Let's Get Busy on Repairs
Wall Street Journal - Letters to the Editor
10.30.2007
Your Oct. 24 editorial 'Worse Than You Think," based on a study by the Pacific Research Institute, rightly laments declining California public school performances in math and English, if not outright school failure in even some of the state's "toniest zip codes."
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California’s outdated method of budgeting needs a retooling
San Francisco Examiner Op-Ed
By: Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D, Matthew C. Piccolo
10.29.2007
According to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s new $146 billion state budget will have no operating deficit. But there are serious questions about the reliability of the numbers because California, unlike other states, does not require dynamic revenue analysis, contrary to the wishes of many state Democrats.
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How Much Is That Neighborhood School Costing You?
Catholic Exchange.com Clipping
By: Ken Larson
10.28.2007
Earlier this month I wrote about the value of teaching credentials and whether an instructor in a public or private school was likely to be more effective on the strength of having them. The implication was that parents may be putting too much credence in this symbol and relying too much on others for the education of their children, a task for which they are more qualified than they may be ready to admit.
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Index of Health Ownership: 2007
Sean Hannity blog post
10.27.2007
Now the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-headquartered think tank committed to seeking free-market solutions to major sociological issues, is pointing at an unrecognized villain in America’s health care mess.
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Worse Than You Think
Wall Street Journal Clipping
10.24.2007
Proponents of educational choice tend to focus on the underprivileged, which is understandable given that low-income kids are overrepresented in failing inner-city public schools. But an emphasis on the plight of the poor can leave the impression that middle-class public school students are doing fine.
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America’s Middle Class Nightmare
Campus Report Online Clipping
By: Emmanuel Opati
10.23.2007
It has been reported that middle-class children in suburban schools are not as proficient at their grade levels as most parents think.
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Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice
Heritage Foundation Clipping
By: Dan Lips
10.23.2007
Imagine you just bought a $1.3 million home in Santa Barbara, California. Your beautiful new neighborhood is a short drive to the Pacific Ocean. The local public schools must also be great, right?
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Playing games with school choice
Washington Times Clipping
10.23.2007
A recently leaked draft report from the Government Accountability Office highlighting apparent problems with schools taking part in the District's voucher program is hardly a smoking gun. Rather, it's further evidence of how Democrats are playing politics with our children's education and how further study is needed to accurately assess progress of the voucher system.
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Tax Hikes Will Not Fix California Health Care
Flash Report Op-Ed
By: Diana M. Ernst
10.23.2007
The California legislature is in a special session on health care expected to last until mid-November, summoned by a governor who refuses to appreciate that tax hikes don't equate with health reform.
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RFID Tech Misunderstood in Privacy Debates
Tech News World Clipping
By: S. Scharf The Internal Auditor
10.22.2007
As radio frequency identification (RFID) technology becomes more pervasive and sophisticated, the debate over how it is being used continues.
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Swallow the leader
Pittsburgh Tribune Review Op-Ed
By: Daniel R. Ballon, Ph.D
10.21.2007
A European appeals court has validated a 2004 antitrust ruling, ordering Microsoft Corp. to pay $690 million in fines, the largest ever levied by European Union (EU) regulators.
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Organized Crime in Vegas, Caused by Lead?
NAM Clipping
By: Carter Wood
10.21.2007
Writing in the Las Vegas Business Press, Lawrence McQuillan, co-author of U.S. Tort Liability Index, draws a connection between Las Vegas' culture of corruption and the city and state's litigation-encouraging legal climate:
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Surgery and sightseeing, in one trip
Los Angeles Times Clipping
By: Alana Semuels Staff Writer
10.21.2007
A firsthand experience leads to the creation of a business that arranges overseas medical care for Americans.
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Mob may be a memory, but culture of corruption lives on
Las Vegas Business Press
By: Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D
10.19.2007
Mayor Oscar Goodman’s “Mob Museum,” a $30 million tribute to the mafia’s role in shaping Las Vegas, will certainly be a must see for the city’s tourists. But the mob culture is hardly a thing of the past. The corruption, kickbacks and pay-to-play justice normally associated with organized crime still flourish in Sin City today.
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Congress should stay out of Google-DoubleClick
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Op-Ed
By: Daniel R. Ballon, Ph.D
10.19.2007
The Senate Judiciary Committee recently considered arguments for blocking Google's proposed $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising firm DoubleClick. Critics contend that Google will suppress competition and violate privacy, a view that proceeds from ignorance about the nature of Internet businesses.
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Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year Award
Front Page Magazine Interview
By: Jamie Glazov
10.18.2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Steve Hayward, the F.K Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco.
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Uncovering the Over-Insured
National Review Op-Ed
By: John R. Graham
10.18.2007
The conventional wisdom is that the number-one goal of health policy should be “universal” coverage: everybody should have health insurance. Few dare to challenge this trope, for two reasons.
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Ethanol Conspiracy Theories Ignore Fuel's Legitimate Shortcomings
EarthTimes.org Clipping
10.18.2007
Yesterday, Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dineen issued a statement urging Congress to pump billions of subsidies into ethanol. Dineen's rhetoric begs lawmakers to create an artificial market for ethanol, build the extra infrastructure needed for transport, and condemns anyone who speaks about its shortcomings as part of a "coordinated offensive of mistruths".
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Federal Judge Right To Dump CA Emissions Lawsuit
California Republic Op-Ed
By: Amy Kaleita, Ph.D
10.18.2007
Finally, after a series of problematic rulings, the courts offer some sanity on greenhouse gas regulation. In September, a federal district court judge dismissed an emissions lawsuit filed by California’s attorney general against General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Chrysler LLC, Honda, and Nissan.
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Web Drugstore Serves HSA Holders
Health Care News Clipping
By: Dr. Sanjit Bagchi
10.17.2007
In mid-August, the Internet retailer drugstore.com unveiled a new online store designed for holders of Health Savings Accounts.
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Texas Legislates Medical Price Transparency
Health Care News Clipping
By: Erica Schatz
10.17.2007
Texas passed legislation in June that will require health care providers to give consumers statewide greater access to price information for medical services and billing procedures.
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Out-of-Control S-CHIP
National Review Op-Ed
By: Diana M. Ernst
10.17.2007
On Thursday, Congress is expected to vote on whether to vastly expand S-CHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Legislation already passed Congress in September, but fell short of a veto-proof majority. As expected, President Bush vetoed the bill earlier this month. Now Congress will try to muster enough votes to override the veto.
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Charter-school supporters win
Ventura County Star Op-Ed
By: Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D
10.14.2007
When the state played politics with charter laws, parents and teachers fought back — and won. Fed up with special-interest politics masquerading as "local control," hundreds of Los Angeles parents and teachers recently rallied against Sacramento's latest assault on charter schools.
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Continuing property wrongs since Prop 90's defeat
Sacramento Union Op-Ed
By: Steven Greenhut
10.12.2007
Usually, when Americans are fleeced by their government, the fleecing comes in the form of wasteful spending programs. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2005 Kelo decision, upholding the “right” of local governments to take property from their current owners and give it to developers in the name of economic development, was perhaps the most massive fleecing Americans have witnessed in a generation.
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HillaryCare -- The Preview
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
By: Sally C. Pipes
10.12.2007
President Bill Clinton famously declared that the era of big government is over -- after the ill-considered scheme to remake American health care his wife helped to cook up in 1993 helped Republicans retake Congress in 1994. Now Hillary Clinton is back, touting an "American Health Choices Plan."
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Suburban schools not as good as parents think
The Washington D.C. Examiner - PRI in the News
10.12.2007
Well-educated parents often move to expensive suburbs believing that the local public schools are of the same high quality as their new homes. Even though perceived school quality directly affects real estate values, that’s not always the case, according to “Not As Good As You Think,” a new study by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI).
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Location Affects Education
Sacramento Union Op-Ed
By: Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D
10.12.2007
Money Magazine recently released its annual list of best places to live. The 2007 version focuses on smaller cities and towns with a strong sense of community and, of course, good public schools. Several California clues that made the top–100 list also have schools that fail to justify Money Magazine's "A" for education grades.
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Giuliani Rolls Out Health Care Plan
Heartland Institute - PRI in the News
By: James P. Gelfand
10.9.2007
Former New York City mayor and current presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani made headlines at a mid-August campaign stop in Columbia, South Carolina by warning of the dangers of "socialized medicine" and mentioning Democrat candidates are advocating a "nanny state" and may raise taxes by as much as 30 percent.
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Union Staffing Demands Dim Market for Solar Panels
Los Angeles Business Journal Op-Ed
By: Kevin Dayton
10.8.2007
New technology and generous government incentives have given Californians unprecedented opportunity to tap solar power for electricity. Unfortunately, one special interest group, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, seeks to block solar policies and projects.
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Hard times descend on super-lawyer land
Washington DC Examiner Clipping
By: Mark Tapscott
10.5.2007
William Lerach was riding high more than a decade ago when Rep. Christopher Cox accused him of practicing “legalized piracy on the high seas of the new economy.”
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Tax increases a poor diagnosis for health
San Francisco Business Times - Health Care Op-Ed
By: Diana M. Ernst
10.5.2007
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special session to achieve "consensus" on health reform really comes down to one issue: How much more will we be taxed to fund government control over our health care? The session should consider ideas better than the ones now on the table.
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Giuliani Ties Romney to 'HillaryCare'
ABC News
By: Teddy Davis
10.4.2007
To enhance his aura as the GOP's national front-runner, Rudy Giuliani makes a point of ignoring his Republican rivals and concentrating his attacks on Democrats.
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Costly homes with failing schools
San Francisco Examiner - PRI in the News
10.3.2007
The title of the Pacific Research Institute’s new book about California middle-class schools encapsulates its entire message — “Not as Good as You Think.”
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Faces You Never See -- The Hidden Costs of Litigation
PRI in the News
By: John G. Browning
10.3.2007
We are all familiar with some of the obvious costs of living in a litigious society. We pay higher insurance premiums and higher prices for certain products and services because of the legal costs that a company has had to incur, or believes it might incur, to bring those goods and services to the market.
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Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up?
Human Events - PRI in the News
By: Gregg Jackson
10.2.2007
Former Governor Romney goes to great lengths in a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Where Hillary Care Goes Wrong," (WSJ op/ed, p. A-13, Sept 20,2007) to dispel the notion that the healthcare plan he signed into law (Romney Care) as he was leaving office in 2006 is essentially similar to Hillary Clinton's recently unveiled "universal" healthcare plan.
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Want Incentives for Public Schools? Try School Choice
Education Op-Ed
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
10.1.2007
Dan Weintraub, the perceptive columnist for the Sacramento Bee, shows a knack for piercing the excuses put forward by education special interests. He recently argued that public schools need incentives to implement high-performing school models. While Weintraub didn't specify the incentive, the obvious candidate would be greater school-choice options, especially vouchers.
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Justice for the Internet
Tech Central Station - Technology Op-Ed
By: K. Lloyd Billingsley
10.1.2007
Most Internet users don't know or care what "net neutrality" means or what it would do. They can now refer to the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice, which on September 6 submitted a filing on net neutrality with the FCC.
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Governor: Don't Close the Door On Ideas
California Republic - Health Care Op-Ed
By: Diana M. Ernst
10.1.2007
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special session to achieve “consensus” on health reform really comes down to one issue: how much more will we be taxed to fund government control over our health care? The session should consider ideas better than the ones currently on the table.
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Report Tempers RFID Fears
PRI in the News
By: Steven Titch
10.1.2007
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has gained widespread use, and attempts to regulate or ban such devices are premature, says a new report from the Pacific Research Institute.
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Muni Wireless Withers in San Francisco
PRI in the News
By: Sharon J. Watson
10.1.2007
EarthLink Inc. may be fast losing interest in building San Francisco's municipal wireless network, analysts say, after the company in August asked the city's Board of Supervisors for more time to respond to requested changes in a contract that's been on the table for almost two years.
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