Commentary
Business & Economics
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
Commentary
The Fight for Health Freedom Loses a Champion: Jack Calfee, RIP
When I got into health policy in 2000, my first projects focused on government intervention in prescription drugs: Patent law, the regulatory bureaucracy, restrictions on free speech (Direct-to-Consumer advertising, detailing physicians, et cetera). Jack Calfee was the giant in this field: His thorough, accurate, and diligent research demolished any legitimate ...
Commentary
Obamacare Will Destroy Utah’s Health Exchange
None of this is surprising. What is surprising is that many people continue to believe that the Utah Health Exchange, launched in 2009 to increase small businesses’ health-insurance choices, can morph into some kind of foundation upon which a consumer-driven Obamacare can be built. Like many conservative health-policy analysts, I ...
Business & Economics
Californians need to suffer more
People increasingly want answers for how California can solve its fiscal problems, but I rarely have good news to offer. Last week, I wrote about three Assembly Republicans who attended a “no more cuts” rally sponsored by the Service Employees International Union – those always-agitated, purple-shirted, bullhorn-toting activists who are ...
Commentary
Don’t start a state health exchange
Last December, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli struck a significant blow against the federal government’s attempted takeover of our access to medical care. Virginians should be pleased, but the state needs to follow through or Cuccinelli’s effort will be wasted. Federal Judge Henry Hudson accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the so-called ...
Commentary
Car-tastrophe: How federal policy can help, not hinder, the greening of the automobile
San Francisco—Many policies aiming to “green” the American car culture may do just the opposite, according to a new study from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free market think tank. Car-tastrophe: How federal policy can help, not hinder, the greening of the automobile, by Amy Kaleita, Ph.D., PRI ...
Commentary
A crummy Canadian import
A federal judge recently ruled President Obama’s health care law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court no doubt will have to settle the matter, but several of the reform package’s worst offenses have taken root already. A new “medicine cabinet tax” prevents 40 million Americans from using their Health Savings Accounts ...
Commentary
Repealing Obamacare: State Governors Respond to Judge Vinson’s Ruling
Soon after the new Congress convened last month, one of the first actions by the House of Representatives was a vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (un)popularly known as Obamacare. The repeal action passed with a significant majority in the House and came to a vote ...
Commentary
Responsible Resistance to Obamacare: Has Mitch Daniels Shown the Way?
My friend Tevi Troy cheers Daniels’s approach, noting that if the president had considered bipartisan reform he might have avoided the hostile backlash that Obamacare has created. But he didn’t. Surely it can’t be Governor Daniels’s responsibility to show the president how to find the way to real health-care reform, ...
Business & Economics
Union rally exposes Republicans’ weak links
After Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address pushing for the Legislature to place a series of tax-extension measures on the ballot, Republicans countered by emphasizing their continuing opposition to higher taxes. For instance, Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert, the Assembly minority leader’s top lieutenant, said, “I stand ...
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
The Fight for Health Freedom Loses a Champion: Jack Calfee, RIP
When I got into health policy in 2000, my first projects focused on government intervention in prescription drugs: Patent law, the regulatory bureaucracy, restrictions on free speech (Direct-to-Consumer advertising, detailing physicians, et cetera). Jack Calfee was the giant in this field: His thorough, accurate, and diligent research demolished any legitimate ...
Obamacare Will Destroy Utah’s Health Exchange
None of this is surprising. What is surprising is that many people continue to believe that the Utah Health Exchange, launched in 2009 to increase small businesses’ health-insurance choices, can morph into some kind of foundation upon which a consumer-driven Obamacare can be built. Like many conservative health-policy analysts, I ...
Californians need to suffer more
People increasingly want answers for how California can solve its fiscal problems, but I rarely have good news to offer. Last week, I wrote about three Assembly Republicans who attended a “no more cuts” rally sponsored by the Service Employees International Union – those always-agitated, purple-shirted, bullhorn-toting activists who are ...
Don’t start a state health exchange
Last December, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli struck a significant blow against the federal government’s attempted takeover of our access to medical care. Virginians should be pleased, but the state needs to follow through or Cuccinelli’s effort will be wasted. Federal Judge Henry Hudson accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the so-called ...
Car-tastrophe: How federal policy can help, not hinder, the greening of the automobile
San Francisco—Many policies aiming to “green” the American car culture may do just the opposite, according to a new study from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free market think tank. Car-tastrophe: How federal policy can help, not hinder, the greening of the automobile, by Amy Kaleita, Ph.D., PRI ...
A crummy Canadian import
A federal judge recently ruled President Obama’s health care law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court no doubt will have to settle the matter, but several of the reform package’s worst offenses have taken root already. A new “medicine cabinet tax” prevents 40 million Americans from using their Health Savings Accounts ...
Repealing Obamacare: State Governors Respond to Judge Vinson’s Ruling
Soon after the new Congress convened last month, one of the first actions by the House of Representatives was a vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (un)popularly known as Obamacare. The repeal action passed with a significant majority in the House and came to a vote ...
Responsible Resistance to Obamacare: Has Mitch Daniels Shown the Way?
My friend Tevi Troy cheers Daniels’s approach, noting that if the president had considered bipartisan reform he might have avoided the hostile backlash that Obamacare has created. But he didn’t. Surely it can’t be Governor Daniels’s responsibility to show the president how to find the way to real health-care reform, ...
Union rally exposes Republicans’ weak links
After Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address pushing for the Legislature to place a series of tax-extension measures on the ballot, Republicans countered by emphasizing their continuing opposition to higher taxes. For instance, Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert, the Assembly minority leader’s top lieutenant, said, “I stand ...
