Make State Programs Compete for Funds
California often leads the nation, and the current fiscal crisis is no exception. With its repeated use of borrowing and fiscal sleights of hand, the Golden State has become a poster boy for...
View ArticleThis Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land
My colleague Len Gilroy has an excellent article in today's Washington Times arguing for devolving the U.S. Forest Service's responsibilities to the state level. Len notes, among other things:Still,...
View ArticleFive Myths of Green Energy
The Manhattan Institute's Robert Bryce had an excellent article in the Washington Poston five myths of green energy (although I think there are many more). He takes on solar and wind power, foreign oil...
View ArticleThe Dodd Bill this Week: Creating Inefficiencies, Codifying Bailouts,...
The Dodd bill for reforming Wall Street rules is on tap this week—the first question will be how long will the GOP hold out in keeping the bill off the floor for debate. We've talked about several the...
View ArticleThe Wide Net of â??Material Supportâ??
The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Irish Republican Army, two of history’s most notorious terrorist groups, have never appeared on the State Department’s List of Designated Foreign Terrorist...
View ArticleWatching the Detectives
George Orwell famously said, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." He may still be right. But in today’s age of smart phones, Flip cams, and iPod...
View ArticleComing Up Short
Released two years after the historic failure of investment bank Bear Stearns, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, the new book by financial journalist extraordinaire Michael Lewis, doesn’t...
View ArticleThis Land is Your Land; This Land is My Land
Washington Times The federal government owns nearly 30 percent of all the land in the country. In the West, those numbers soar even higher. The federal government controls more than 84 percent of the...
View ArticleOut of the Mire of New York's 34th Street
The New York Times is promoting a discussion on Mayor Bloomberg's plan to close parts of 34th street to car traffic and make it a pedstrian mall as part of its on-line "Room for Debate" series. It's an...
View ArticleSNL Mocks Government Workers
Saturday Night Live aired a great skit this weekend called "Public Employee of the Year" that is just one shot after another at the ridiculousness that goes down in the public worker sector. Not only...
View ArticleGM's Phony Bailout Payback
GM CEO Ed Whitacre announced in a Wall Street Journal column last Wednesday that his company has paid back its government bailout loan "in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule." He is even...
View ArticlePeak Everything?
When you really need something, it's natural to worry about running out of it. Peak oil has been a global preoccupation since the 1970s, and the warnings get louder with each passing year....
View ArticleRacism and the Tea Party Movement
Ever since the "Tea Parties" gained national attention, the debate has raged on whether they are a grass-roots protest movement in the proud tradition of American dissent, or a hysterical mob driven by...
View ArticleThe Revenge of the Brands
No Logo: 10th Anniversary Edition, by Naomi Klein, Picador, 544 pages, $16Reading old works of journalism is like looking at old photographs, serving as a useful reminder that politics has its own...
View ArticleReport: Poorest States Rank Highest in Broadband Competition
Low-income states have a much higher degree of facilities-based competition than wealthier ones, according to a new report from ID Insight, a consulting firm that provides authentication, verification...
View ArticleBig Brown Bailout as Congress Helps Union Takeover FedX
The Teamsters got a big boost from Congress when the house slipped language into the bill that gave unions a big boost in organizing UPS rival Fedex. As the Wall Stret Journal reports:If you can't beat...
View ArticleNew at Reason: Coming Up Short
I have a new article at Reason.com, reviewing Michael Lewis' recent Wall Street meltdown book, The Big Short:Released two years after the historic failure of investment bank Bear Stearns, The Big...
View ArticleBreaking Down Obama's Debt Commission
Yesterday was the first meeting of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bi-partisan panel designed to come up with ideas for fixing America's debt and deficit woes. Oh, and...
View ArticleFree Speech for Us
From reading New York Times editorials, I gather that the First Amendment protects celebrities who curse on TV and pit bull enthusiasts who sell dogfighting videos. Yet somehow it does not protect...
View ArticleMeddlers At the Gate
No. Legislators never would employ crude and simplistic sloganeering like those rowdy anti-gummint protesters.Just ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who this week offered up this eloquent gem: "A...
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