State Budget
Commentary
Winning diagnosis
There is good and bad with Alabama’s health, health care and health delivery systems. We do have a number of health disparities and challenges. Alabama has the nation’s highest rate of stroke, second-highest rate of obesity and the third-highest rate of infant mortality. However, a recent study concludes that Alabama ...
Business & Economics
Sacramento sellout
Only two weeks after lawmakers in Sacramento passed a budget, the state is already in the red. As Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature debate more spending cuts and accounting tricks, another solution may be right in front of them: more laws. In California, government owns the laws and forces people ...
Business & Economics
Northeast policies oppress enterprise
THE RESULTS ARE IN, and for residents of America’s Northeast, the news is not good. With the notable exception of New Hampshire, the nine states of the Northeast continue to be the worst places for economic freedom. According to the 2008 U.S. Economic Freedom Index from the Pacific Research Institute, ...
Business & Economics
Sacramento Sell-Out: Even the Laws Have a Price
Only two weeks after lawmakers in Sacramento passed a budget, the state is already in the red. As Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature debate more spending cuts and accounting tricks, another solution may be right in front of them: more laws. In California, government owns the laws and forces people ...
Business & Economics
A Strike Against Labor
If one were looking to make a statement about fiscal prudence in the $3.3 billion budget for the University of California system, wiping out a single $5.4 million research program probably wouldn’t be how you’d do it. Which suggests that, despite his remarks to the contrary, there was probably another ...
Commentary
Patients need control to fix state’s health care system
To help fix Rhode Island’s budget mess, Gov. Don Carcieri has proposed an overhaul of the state Medicaid program. Such a move is certainly welcome. But Carcieri’s Medicaid overhaul won’t be able to cut costs unless policymakers relax their regulatory stranglehold on private insurance and address the state’s miserable medical ...
Commentary
A Healthcare Fix for the Green Mountain State
As Vermont grapples with a projected $32-million budget shortfall, Gov. James Douglas and state lawmakers have been forced to consider cuts in several government health programs. Such cuts are critical, given that Vermont spends more per capita on health care than almost any other state. But yet another round of ...
Business & Economics
My View: State budget mess: We can learn from Canada
California’s new budget deal is a short-term fix that leaves the Golden State without a long-term solution to its financial woes. More often than not, lessons from our neighbors to the north concern what not to do. However, in the case of budgets, there is much to gain by replicating ...
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 ...
Winning diagnosis
There is good and bad with Alabama’s health, health care and health delivery systems. We do have a number of health disparities and challenges. Alabama has the nation’s highest rate of stroke, second-highest rate of obesity and the third-highest rate of infant mortality. However, a recent study concludes that Alabama ...
Sacramento sellout
Only two weeks after lawmakers in Sacramento passed a budget, the state is already in the red. As Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature debate more spending cuts and accounting tricks, another solution may be right in front of them: more laws. In California, government owns the laws and forces people ...
Northeast policies oppress enterprise
THE RESULTS ARE IN, and for residents of America’s Northeast, the news is not good. With the notable exception of New Hampshire, the nine states of the Northeast continue to be the worst places for economic freedom. According to the 2008 U.S. Economic Freedom Index from the Pacific Research Institute, ...
Sacramento Sell-Out: Even the Laws Have a Price
Only two weeks after lawmakers in Sacramento passed a budget, the state is already in the red. As Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature debate more spending cuts and accounting tricks, another solution may be right in front of them: more laws. In California, government owns the laws and forces people ...
A Strike Against Labor
If one were looking to make a statement about fiscal prudence in the $3.3 billion budget for the University of California system, wiping out a single $5.4 million research program probably wouldn’t be how you’d do it. Which suggests that, despite his remarks to the contrary, there was probably another ...
Patients need control to fix state’s health care system
To help fix Rhode Island’s budget mess, Gov. Don Carcieri has proposed an overhaul of the state Medicaid program. Such a move is certainly welcome. But Carcieri’s Medicaid overhaul won’t be able to cut costs unless policymakers relax their regulatory stranglehold on private insurance and address the state’s miserable medical ...
A Healthcare Fix for the Green Mountain State
As Vermont grapples with a projected $32-million budget shortfall, Gov. James Douglas and state lawmakers have been forced to consider cuts in several government health programs. Such cuts are critical, given that Vermont spends more per capita on health care than almost any other state. But yet another round of ...
My View: State budget mess: We can learn from Canada
California’s new budget deal is a short-term fix that leaves the Golden State without a long-term solution to its financial woes. More often than not, lessons from our neighbors to the north concern what not to do. However, in the case of budgets, there is much to gain by replicating ...
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 ...
