Commentary
Business & Economics
Impact – December 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – December 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions. Read PDF
Commentary
Is it about time to pull the plug on windpower? Can taxpayers afford another ethanol boondoggle?
Home Energy Savings, December 31, 2008 Yahoo Answers, December 31, 2008 Resolved Question: Is it about time to pull the plug on windpower? Can taxpayers afford another ethanol boondoggle? “According to a recent report by the National Renewable Technology Laboratory (DOE), wind energy could account for 20 percent of the ...
Commentary
Daschle leads Obama charge for government-run health care
Get ready for a few years of breast-pounding about greedy pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and doctors. The campaign will culminate (we can expect) in some half-assed health care scheme cobbled together by bureaucrats that will hide its costs in taxes, discourage innovation and ultimately run up against the same laws ...
Business & Economics
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
Business & Economics
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Commentary
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Commentary
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
Business & Economics
Why many Michiganians stay as others flee
Perhaps you can find a time in your life when conditions have been more difficult in Michigan, but I have been unable to do so. The state unemployment rate is approaching double digits. The Big Three automakers continue to announce cutbacks as they try to scale back their business model ...
California
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Commentary
Wishy-Washy Wrangling over Water Works
Before the end of 2008, the Delta Vision Committee will send Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, “one of the most ambitious infrastructure and habitat restoration projects ever proposed in America,” according to news reports. The plan will restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a prime source of drinking water ...
Impact – December 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – December 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions. Read PDF
Is it about time to pull the plug on windpower? Can taxpayers afford another ethanol boondoggle?
Home Energy Savings, December 31, 2008 Yahoo Answers, December 31, 2008 Resolved Question: Is it about time to pull the plug on windpower? Can taxpayers afford another ethanol boondoggle? “According to a recent report by the National Renewable Technology Laboratory (DOE), wind energy could account for 20 percent of the ...
Daschle leads Obama charge for government-run health care
Get ready for a few years of breast-pounding about greedy pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and doctors. The campaign will culminate (we can expect) in some half-assed health care scheme cobbled together by bureaucrats that will hide its costs in taxes, discourage innovation and ultimately run up against the same laws ...
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
Why many Michiganians stay as others flee
Perhaps you can find a time in your life when conditions have been more difficult in Michigan, but I have been unable to do so. The state unemployment rate is approaching double digits. The Big Three automakers continue to announce cutbacks as they try to scale back their business model ...
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Wishy-Washy Wrangling over Water Works
Before the end of 2008, the Delta Vision Committee will send Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, “one of the most ambitious infrastructure and habitat restoration projects ever proposed in America,” according to news reports. The plan will restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a prime source of drinking water ...
