Commentary
Business & Economics
Dodgy days for business
The national unemployment rate remains stubbornly high – 9.5 percent in June – and the private sector simply isn’t willing yet to make a genuine effort to create jobs. Some contend that to stimulate the economy, the government should spend and borrow more. This argument ignores a central reason for ...
Commentary
States Are Right to Shun ObamaCare’s High-Risk Pools
States Are Right to Shun ObamaCare’s High-Risk Pools By John R. Graham, director of Health Care Studies One of ObamaCare’s first major cash flows was scheduled to start on July 1: $5 billion to bail out states’ so-called “high-risk pools” until January 1, 2014. A full 22 states want nothing ...
Commentary
Think tank calls for FDA to forgo approval of drugs cleared by European regulator
The free-market Pacific Research Institute argues in a new report that American patients would benefit if the Food and Drug Administration didn’t have a monopoly on regulations. Instead, the think tank argues that “allowing American patients to access medicines that have already been approved in Europe would increase regulatory competition, ...
Climate Change
Environmental lessons from the late Stephen Schneider
Stephen H. Schneider, hailed as the “Carl Sagan of climate science,” and who served on the international panel that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has passed away at 65. He should be remembered as much more than a global warming alarmist. In fact, he was once a ...
Commentary
Student DNA tests could go wild
SACRAMENTO – The University of California, Berkeley, has inadvertently stepped into a brewing ethical debate over genetic testing and medical privacy after it asked the incoming freshman class to submit to the campus cotton swabs with DNA samples from their saliva. The unusual experiment is part of Berkeley’s annual “On ...
Business & Economics
Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government?
Vol. 16 No. 28 July 21, 2010 Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government? By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—Those who believe California state government is too large, and that we ought to make it smaller, are guilty of “conventional bigotry aimed at state employees.” So writes state employee ...
Business & Economics
Steven Greenhut on Public Employee Paychecks, Perks, and Plunder
Steven Greenhut, Editor in Chief of CalWatchdog.com and author of the new book, Plunder! How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation sat down with Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker to discuss the widening gap between public and private sector employment.
Commentary
Less bang for education bucks
California’s public education establishment continually argues that the state ranks near the bottom in funding K-12 education. A just-released study by the U.S. Census Bureau pokes a giant hole in these claims. Those trying to portray California as miserly when it comes to education funding often cite figures put out ...
Commentary
National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade
Adopting the final draft of proposed national education standards in English language arts (ELA) would result in a significant weakening of the intellectual demands placed on Massachusetts and California students in language and literature, according to a review published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and Pioneer Institute. In Part ...
California
Pensions are S.F.’s other golden gate
SACRAMENTO – I’d been starting to wonder about whether there are any true progressives left in California, until I heard about Jeff Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender. Many people describe themselves as progressive, mind you, but few seem to embody the core principles of a movement that is supposed to ...
Dodgy days for business
The national unemployment rate remains stubbornly high – 9.5 percent in June – and the private sector simply isn’t willing yet to make a genuine effort to create jobs. Some contend that to stimulate the economy, the government should spend and borrow more. This argument ignores a central reason for ...
States Are Right to Shun ObamaCare’s High-Risk Pools
States Are Right to Shun ObamaCare’s High-Risk Pools By John R. Graham, director of Health Care Studies One of ObamaCare’s first major cash flows was scheduled to start on July 1: $5 billion to bail out states’ so-called “high-risk pools” until January 1, 2014. A full 22 states want nothing ...
Think tank calls for FDA to forgo approval of drugs cleared by European regulator
The free-market Pacific Research Institute argues in a new report that American patients would benefit if the Food and Drug Administration didn’t have a monopoly on regulations. Instead, the think tank argues that “allowing American patients to access medicines that have already been approved in Europe would increase regulatory competition, ...
Environmental lessons from the late Stephen Schneider
Stephen H. Schneider, hailed as the “Carl Sagan of climate science,” and who served on the international panel that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has passed away at 65. He should be remembered as much more than a global warming alarmist. In fact, he was once a ...
Student DNA tests could go wild
SACRAMENTO – The University of California, Berkeley, has inadvertently stepped into a brewing ethical debate over genetic testing and medical privacy after it asked the incoming freshman class to submit to the campus cotton swabs with DNA samples from their saliva. The unusual experiment is part of Berkeley’s annual “On ...
Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government?
Vol. 16 No. 28 July 21, 2010 Is it “bigotry” to shrink state government? By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—Those who believe California state government is too large, and that we ought to make it smaller, are guilty of “conventional bigotry aimed at state employees.” So writes state employee ...
Steven Greenhut on Public Employee Paychecks, Perks, and Plunder
Steven Greenhut, Editor in Chief of CalWatchdog.com and author of the new book, Plunder! How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation sat down with Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker to discuss the widening gap between public and private sector employment.
Less bang for education bucks
California’s public education establishment continually argues that the state ranks near the bottom in funding K-12 education. A just-released study by the U.S. Census Bureau pokes a giant hole in these claims. Those trying to portray California as miserly when it comes to education funding often cite figures put out ...
National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade
Adopting the final draft of proposed national education standards in English language arts (ELA) would result in a significant weakening of the intellectual demands placed on Massachusetts and California students in language and literature, according to a review published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and Pioneer Institute. In Part ...
Pensions are S.F.’s other golden gate
SACRAMENTO – I’d been starting to wonder about whether there are any true progressives left in California, until I heard about Jeff Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender. Many people describe themselves as progressive, mind you, but few seem to embody the core principles of a movement that is supposed to ...
