Commentary
Business & Economics
As Bell shows, public pay is the public’s business
During National Sunshine Week, the public continues to be outraged by the lavish salaries taken by former city officials in Bell. Fortunately, the city can teach important lessons on how to improve California’s transparency laws. The Bell scandal came to light using the 1968 California Public Records Act (CPRA), which ...
Commentary
Mitch Daniels’ Medicaid Reforms: The Perfect Vs. The Good
Because Governor Daniels has been shaky on this front (as I’ve already described), Cannon’s arguments against the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) and against Governor Daniels’s accepting federal Obamacare grants have blurred together into an almost ad hominem criticism of Daniels. Turner, on the other hand, not only supports HIP but ...
Commentary
One Way Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Connector Beats Utah’s Health Exchange
Soon after I started writing critically about the Utah Health Exchange, I received e-mails and phone calls from a businessperson with a financial interest in the success of that enterprise, scolding me for using information was out of date. The new Utah Health Exchange, re-launched in 2011, is going gangbusters, ...
Business & Economics
Jerry Brown’s Good Deed Gets Punished
Forced to choose between funding public schools and subsidizing ritzy golf courses, many California officials prefer the latter. That’s become painfully clear in the past few weeks as Golden State politicians have fiercely opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shave $1.7 billion from the state’s budget deficit by shuttering California’s ...
Business & Economics
Governor exposes his hypocrisy by denying Californians a vote
Republican efforts to trade a tax vote for a fiscal reform vote are going nowhere fast, as Gov. Jerry Brown continues to prove that he is the best $30 million investment that the state’s public employee unions ever could have made. That’s the amount of independent expenditures the unions spent ...
Commentary
We suffer unhealthy budgets, thanks to Obamacare
Republicans and Democrats are currently jockeying for position in the fight over this year’s federal budget. The two sides seem miles apart on spending cuts and other priorities. But this year’s budget battle is only the beginning. Thanks to the new health care law, next year’s budget debate is shaping ...
Commentary
Should Government Control Big Pharma’s Social-Media Marketing?
Note that the Naderites focus only on drugmakers: They express no concern whatsoever about anti-pharmaceutical zealots who go online to critize modern therapies, or adventurous trial lawyers who troll the Internet to recruit patients to join class action lawsuits against drugmakers. Read the entire article here.
Commentary
Obama 2012 budget boosts federal spending on failed education programs
Despite his newfound cost-cutting rhetoric, President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget significantly increases federal education spending. His supporters defend the expansions as consistent with the vision of America’s founders. The historical evidence, however, refutes this argument. If enacted, the Obama administration’s $77.4 billion education spending proposal would represent a 57 percent ...
Business & Economics
California’s three-step recovery
As conflicts rage across the Midwest between state governments intent on solving their budget crises and public-sector unions trying to protect the status quo, there has been a worrisome calmness in Sacramento. This is a sure sign that California leaders are refusing to make hard decisions, in a state whose ...
Commentary
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
As Bell shows, public pay is the public’s business
During National Sunshine Week, the public continues to be outraged by the lavish salaries taken by former city officials in Bell. Fortunately, the city can teach important lessons on how to improve California’s transparency laws. The Bell scandal came to light using the 1968 California Public Records Act (CPRA), which ...
Mitch Daniels’ Medicaid Reforms: The Perfect Vs. The Good
Because Governor Daniels has been shaky on this front (as I’ve already described), Cannon’s arguments against the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) and against Governor Daniels’s accepting federal Obamacare grants have blurred together into an almost ad hominem criticism of Daniels. Turner, on the other hand, not only supports HIP but ...
One Way Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Connector Beats Utah’s Health Exchange
Soon after I started writing critically about the Utah Health Exchange, I received e-mails and phone calls from a businessperson with a financial interest in the success of that enterprise, scolding me for using information was out of date. The new Utah Health Exchange, re-launched in 2011, is going gangbusters, ...
Jerry Brown’s Good Deed Gets Punished
Forced to choose between funding public schools and subsidizing ritzy golf courses, many California officials prefer the latter. That’s become painfully clear in the past few weeks as Golden State politicians have fiercely opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shave $1.7 billion from the state’s budget deficit by shuttering California’s ...
Governor exposes his hypocrisy by denying Californians a vote
Republican efforts to trade a tax vote for a fiscal reform vote are going nowhere fast, as Gov. Jerry Brown continues to prove that he is the best $30 million investment that the state’s public employee unions ever could have made. That’s the amount of independent expenditures the unions spent ...
We suffer unhealthy budgets, thanks to Obamacare
Republicans and Democrats are currently jockeying for position in the fight over this year’s federal budget. The two sides seem miles apart on spending cuts and other priorities. But this year’s budget battle is only the beginning. Thanks to the new health care law, next year’s budget debate is shaping ...
Should Government Control Big Pharma’s Social-Media Marketing?
Note that the Naderites focus only on drugmakers: They express no concern whatsoever about anti-pharmaceutical zealots who go online to critize modern therapies, or adventurous trial lawyers who troll the Internet to recruit patients to join class action lawsuits against drugmakers. Read the entire article here.
Obama 2012 budget boosts federal spending on failed education programs
Despite his newfound cost-cutting rhetoric, President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget significantly increases federal education spending. His supporters defend the expansions as consistent with the vision of America’s founders. The historical evidence, however, refutes this argument. If enacted, the Obama administration’s $77.4 billion education spending proposal would represent a 57 percent ...
California’s three-step recovery
As conflicts rage across the Midwest between state governments intent on solving their budget crises and public-sector unions trying to protect the status quo, there has been a worrisome calmness in Sacramento. This is a sure sign that California leaders are refusing to make hard decisions, in a state whose ...
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
