California
Commentary
The Rantings of a P.T.A. Mom
Sandra Tsing Loh, a writer and a performer, is the author most recently of “Mother on Fire,” a comic memoir of her struggle to find a school in Los Angeles for her child to attend. (Full biography.) As usual, Bruce Fuller and Lance Izumi , my fellow Education Watch contributors, ...
Commentary
Prop 13 and the education-funding blame game
North County Times (Escondido, CA), August 31, 2008 Sacramento Union, September 17, 2008 Under today’s complicated system: schools with poor results rewarded more than those with good results Earlier this summer California marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13, the historic ballot measure to limit property taxes. ...
Commentary
New York Times’ Funny Math on Massachusetts Health Care
Only in government-run health care, or in the editorial offices of the New York Times, would it be considered a “success” to spend over $3 to solve a $1 problem. Dazzled by the lure of so-called “universal” health care, the NY Times editorial board enthuses that two thirds of the ...
Commentary
‘RomneyCare’ should keep Mitt off McCain ticket
Scripps News Service, August 26, 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 26, 2008 Socialized Medicine Blog (Australia), September 2, 2008 Just as most folks maintain a healthy distance from those with contagious diseases, John McCain would be wise to keep Willard Mitt Romney at arm’s length. Choosing him for vice president would ...
Business & Economics
High-Tech Lessons for Sacto from SF
Sacramento Union, August 21, 2008 For nine days last month, San Francisco’s state-of-the-art new computer network was held hostage by a convicted felon. Even a team of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest engineers working around the clock could not crack his code. Finally, in a secret midnight meeting at the ...
California
A New Lesson for California School Superintendent
When middle-class parents in California opened their newspapers recently and read that the leviathan Los Angeles Unified School District had overpaid their employees by $53 million, many likely took comfort in the belief that at least the school districts in their own cozy suburban neighborhoods were well managed. These parents, ...
California
Why Governor Schwarzenegger’s – and Organized Medicine’s – War on Choice in Health Insurance Will Backfire
Ever since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ABX1 1 stumbled just short of the finish line last January, he and his Democratic allies in the legislature have been looking to move bits and pieces of the failed health reform plan forward. Amazingly, one that he favors is sponsored by the legislator who ...
Business & Economics
How Water, Oil, and Government Mix in California
On August 6, the California Coastal Commission approved a desalination plant at Carlsbad in San Diego County, a region with severe water needs in normal times and hard hit by the current drought. The $300-million for-profit venture by the Poseidon Resources Corporation aims to produce as much as 50 million ...
Business & Economics
Neo-Prohibitionism, Alcohol Taxes, and Central Planning in California
The last time I had a critical look at the neo-prohibitionists, it was via a pamphlet opposing a tobacco tax hike in California. Now, the Marin Institute has completed a “landmark” study suggesting that we need to hike alcohol taxes in the Golden State. And landmark it certainly is: the ...
California
Unbalanced Billing in California Hospitals: the Sacramento Bee Weighs In
The Sacramento Bee, our, our fair capital’s daily newspaper, has editorialized on the issue of “balance billing”, whereby ER doctors and hospitals which are not in a patient’s health plan’s network, send high-priced (and unexpected) bills to patients. Interestingly, although the editorial leans against the health plans, it approves of ...
The Rantings of a P.T.A. Mom
Sandra Tsing Loh, a writer and a performer, is the author most recently of “Mother on Fire,” a comic memoir of her struggle to find a school in Los Angeles for her child to attend. (Full biography.) As usual, Bruce Fuller and Lance Izumi , my fellow Education Watch contributors, ...
Prop 13 and the education-funding blame game
North County Times (Escondido, CA), August 31, 2008 Sacramento Union, September 17, 2008 Under today’s complicated system: schools with poor results rewarded more than those with good results Earlier this summer California marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13, the historic ballot measure to limit property taxes. ...
New York Times’ Funny Math on Massachusetts Health Care
Only in government-run health care, or in the editorial offices of the New York Times, would it be considered a “success” to spend over $3 to solve a $1 problem. Dazzled by the lure of so-called “universal” health care, the NY Times editorial board enthuses that two thirds of the ...
‘RomneyCare’ should keep Mitt off McCain ticket
Scripps News Service, August 26, 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 26, 2008 Socialized Medicine Blog (Australia), September 2, 2008 Just as most folks maintain a healthy distance from those with contagious diseases, John McCain would be wise to keep Willard Mitt Romney at arm’s length. Choosing him for vice president would ...
High-Tech Lessons for Sacto from SF
Sacramento Union, August 21, 2008 For nine days last month, San Francisco’s state-of-the-art new computer network was held hostage by a convicted felon. Even a team of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest engineers working around the clock could not crack his code. Finally, in a secret midnight meeting at the ...
A New Lesson for California School Superintendent
When middle-class parents in California opened their newspapers recently and read that the leviathan Los Angeles Unified School District had overpaid their employees by $53 million, many likely took comfort in the belief that at least the school districts in their own cozy suburban neighborhoods were well managed. These parents, ...
Why Governor Schwarzenegger’s – and Organized Medicine’s – War on Choice in Health Insurance Will Backfire
Ever since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ABX1 1 stumbled just short of the finish line last January, he and his Democratic allies in the legislature have been looking to move bits and pieces of the failed health reform plan forward. Amazingly, one that he favors is sponsored by the legislator who ...
How Water, Oil, and Government Mix in California
On August 6, the California Coastal Commission approved a desalination plant at Carlsbad in San Diego County, a region with severe water needs in normal times and hard hit by the current drought. The $300-million for-profit venture by the Poseidon Resources Corporation aims to produce as much as 50 million ...
Neo-Prohibitionism, Alcohol Taxes, and Central Planning in California
The last time I had a critical look at the neo-prohibitionists, it was via a pamphlet opposing a tobacco tax hike in California. Now, the Marin Institute has completed a “landmark” study suggesting that we need to hike alcohol taxes in the Golden State. And landmark it certainly is: the ...
Unbalanced Billing in California Hospitals: the Sacramento Bee Weighs In
The Sacramento Bee, our, our fair capital’s daily newspaper, has editorialized on the issue of “balance billing”, whereby ER doctors and hospitals which are not in a patient’s health plan’s network, send high-priced (and unexpected) bills to patients. Interestingly, although the editorial leans against the health plans, it approves of ...
