Commentary
Business & Economics
The Wisconsinonsense Award
The Oscars may be over but the prize has yet to go out for the lamest statement regarding the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and government-employee unions. The competition is fierce, with filmmaker Michael Moore a leading contender. Mr. Moore sees the government-union protesters as representing “the working people ...
K. Lloyd Billingsley
March 22, 2011
Commentary
Pro & Con: Is first year of health care reform law living up to promised claims?
In pressing his case for the overhaul, the president made several lofty promises and assured Americans it would expand access to health care while improving quality and reducing costs. Throughout the past year, Obamacares efforts to expand coverage have fallen flat even as it has raised the cost ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 21, 2011
Commentary
Piping Up: Do Waivers Make Way For A Single-Payer Health Care System?
The Senate is currently considering a new measure that would allow states to opt out of ObamaCare three years earlier than originally planned. It’s attracted support from an unlikely source: President Obama. Why would the president endorse an effort that would seemingly undermine his signature law? Because the provision would ...
Sally C. Pipes
March 21, 2011
Business & Economics
Carl’s Jr. chewed up by California
California has changed dramatically since 1941, when Carl and Margaret Karcher scraped together about 325 bucks to start a hot dog cart in Los Angeles – a precursor to a drive-through restaurant they opened in Anaheim and which grew into the Carl’s Jr. fast-food empire. The Karchers were household names ...
Steven Greenhut
March 18, 2011
Commentary
Nathan Deal Makes the Right Deal for Georgia
Governor Deal has undoubtedly realized that any collaboration with the Obamacrats merely allows Obamacare’s roots to grow deeper into the soil. Now instead of wasting time on a Health Benefits Exchange, Georgia’s legislators can spend their time considering more effective health reforms, a task which they appear to be taking ...
John R. Graham
March 17, 2011
Business & Economics
As Bell shows, public pay is the public’s business
During National Sunshine Week, the public continues to be outraged by the lavish salaries taken by former city officials in Bell. Fortunately, the city can teach important lessons on how to improve California’s transparency laws. The Bell scandal came to light using the 1968 California Public Records Act (CPRA), which ...
Lawrence J. McQuillan
March 17, 2011
Commentary
Mitch Daniels’ Medicaid Reforms: The Perfect Vs. The Good
Because Governor Daniels has been shaky on this front (as I’ve already described), Cannon’s arguments against the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) and against Governor Daniels’s accepting federal Obamacare grants have blurred together into an almost ad hominem criticism of Daniels. Turner, on the other hand, not only supports HIP but ...
John R. Graham
March 15, 2011
Commentary
One Way Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Connector Beats Utah’s Health Exchange
Soon after I started writing critically about the Utah Health Exchange, I received e-mails and phone calls from a businessperson with a financial interest in the success of that enterprise, scolding me for using information was out of date. The new Utah Health Exchange, re-launched in 2011, is going gangbusters, ...
John R. Graham
March 11, 2011
Business & Economics
Jerry Brown’s Good Deed Gets Punished
Forced to choose between funding public schools and subsidizing ritzy golf courses, many California officials prefer the latter. That’s become painfully clear in the past few weeks as Golden State politicians have fiercely opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shave $1.7 billion from the state’s budget deficit by shuttering California’s ...
Steven Greenhut
March 11, 2011
Business & Economics
Governor exposes his hypocrisy by denying Californians a vote
Republican efforts to trade a tax vote for a fiscal reform vote are going nowhere fast, as Gov. Jerry Brown continues to prove that he is the best $30 million investment that the state’s public employee unions ever could have made. That’s the amount of independent expenditures the unions spent ...
Steven Greenhut
March 10, 2011
The Wisconsinonsense Award
The Oscars may be over but the prize has yet to go out for the lamest statement regarding the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and government-employee unions. The competition is fierce, with filmmaker Michael Moore a leading contender. Mr. Moore sees the government-union protesters as representing “the working people ...
Pro & Con: Is first year of health care reform law living up to promised claims?
In pressing his case for the overhaul, the president made several lofty promises and assured Americans it would expand access to health care while improving quality and reducing costs. Throughout the past year, Obamacares efforts to expand coverage have fallen flat even as it has raised the cost ...
Piping Up: Do Waivers Make Way For A Single-Payer Health Care System?
The Senate is currently considering a new measure that would allow states to opt out of ObamaCare three years earlier than originally planned. It’s attracted support from an unlikely source: President Obama. Why would the president endorse an effort that would seemingly undermine his signature law? Because the provision would ...
Carl’s Jr. chewed up by California
California has changed dramatically since 1941, when Carl and Margaret Karcher scraped together about 325 bucks to start a hot dog cart in Los Angeles – a precursor to a drive-through restaurant they opened in Anaheim and which grew into the Carl’s Jr. fast-food empire. The Karchers were household names ...
Nathan Deal Makes the Right Deal for Georgia
Governor Deal has undoubtedly realized that any collaboration with the Obamacrats merely allows Obamacare’s roots to grow deeper into the soil. Now instead of wasting time on a Health Benefits Exchange, Georgia’s legislators can spend their time considering more effective health reforms, a task which they appear to be taking ...
As Bell shows, public pay is the public’s business
During National Sunshine Week, the public continues to be outraged by the lavish salaries taken by former city officials in Bell. Fortunately, the city can teach important lessons on how to improve California’s transparency laws. The Bell scandal came to light using the 1968 California Public Records Act (CPRA), which ...
Mitch Daniels’ Medicaid Reforms: The Perfect Vs. The Good
Because Governor Daniels has been shaky on this front (as I’ve already described), Cannon’s arguments against the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) and against Governor Daniels’s accepting federal Obamacare grants have blurred together into an almost ad hominem criticism of Daniels. Turner, on the other hand, not only supports HIP but ...
One Way Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Connector Beats Utah’s Health Exchange
Soon after I started writing critically about the Utah Health Exchange, I received e-mails and phone calls from a businessperson with a financial interest in the success of that enterprise, scolding me for using information was out of date. The new Utah Health Exchange, re-launched in 2011, is going gangbusters, ...
Jerry Brown’s Good Deed Gets Punished
Forced to choose between funding public schools and subsidizing ritzy golf courses, many California officials prefer the latter. That’s become painfully clear in the past few weeks as Golden State politicians have fiercely opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shave $1.7 billion from the state’s budget deficit by shuttering California’s ...
Governor exposes his hypocrisy by denying Californians a vote
Republican efforts to trade a tax vote for a fiscal reform vote are going nowhere fast, as Gov. Jerry Brown continues to prove that he is the best $30 million investment that the state’s public employee unions ever could have made. That’s the amount of independent expenditures the unions spent ...