November 17, 2010 Cities Face a Deepening Fiscal Crisis By Steven Malanga The steep fiscal crisis that many states face includes staggering retirement costs for their workers, estimated at some $3 trillion in unfunded future promises. The size of those liabilities has already shaken up some municipal bond investors, and the inadequate, sometimes misleading way […]
CITIES FACE A DEEPENING FISCAL CRISIS Read More »
November 17, 2010 Dr. Donald Berwick has his coming out party today in Washington. After President Obama snuck him into office during a recess appointment as the head of the second largest health insurance company in the world- CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) without so much as a single hearing, Senators finally have
MEET THE ‘NEW’ DONALD BERWICK Read More »
California Suggests Suicide; Texas Asks: Can I Lend You a Knife? Nov. 15 2010 – By JOEL KOTKIN Image via Wikipedia In the future, historians may likely mark the 2010 midterm elections as the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one. In one stunning stroke, amid a national conservative tide,
CALIFORNIA SUGGESTS SUICIDE; TEXAS ASKS: CAN I LEND YOU A KNIFE? Read More »
November 17, 2010 Lame Ducks Take on Food Safety By Jillian Bandes 11/17/2010 A bill up for consideration in the Senate today would update food safety regulations for the first time since the 1930s. It would also be a massive expansion of government bureaucracy and a deadly threat to small businesses. In theory, the bill
FOOD SAFETY/FARM BILL IN QUESTION Read More »
NOVEMBER 16, 2010 Some born again reformers were once the company’s defenders. A major task for the next Congress will be rewriting the laws governing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and House Republicans have now won a seat at that table. Which makes it all the more important that their seat not be occupied by
THE FANNIE MAE REPUBLICANS Read More »
NOVEMBER 15, 2010 Fresh Attack on Fed Move GOP Economists, Lawmakers Call for Abandoning $600 Billion Bond Purchase By PETER WALLSTEN And SUDEEP REDDY WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve’s latest attempt to boost the U.S. economy is coming under fire from Republican economists and politicians, threatening to yank the central bank deeper into partisan politics. A group
$600 BILLION BOND PURCHASE CRITICIZED BY GOP ECONOMISTS Read More »
November 5, 2010 Book asks: New Deal or Raw Deal? By Thomas Sowell, Syndicated Columnist The Picayune Item PICAYUNE — Guess who said the following: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” Was it Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Karl Rove? Not even
NEW DEAL OR RAW DEAL? Read More »
NOVEMBER 12, 2010 Sen. Jim DeMint is offering Republicans a chance to prove they meant what they said on spending. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Senate Republicans ran to midterm victory last week hitting every single high note. One week in, they risk ruining the aria with some off-key grunge. What issue could prove so important
THE GOP’S EARMARK NO-BRAINER Read More »
NOVEMBER 12, 2010, 4:09 P.M. ET For now: Extend the Bush tax cuts, repeal ObamaCare, support free trade. After 2012: Enact a flat tax, stabilize prices, balance the budget, give politicians incentive pay. By ARTHUR LAFFER Since its cyclical zenith in December 2007, U.S. economic production has been on its worst trajectory since the Great
A GROWTH AGENDA FOR THE NEW CONGRESS – ART LAFFER Read More »
NOVEMBER 12, 2010 ObamaCare’s pre-existing condition program is a bust. Democrats think they know how to run the insurance industry better than the insurance industry, and they’re getting the chance to prove it under ObamaCare. Consider the early returns on its plan to insure Americans denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. To judge by President Obama’s
THE 8,011-PERSON CRISIS Read More »
