Tomorrow, thousands of Americans across the country will organize on Tax Day to protest the tax, borrow, spend and bailout policies of Washington. Whether large or small, these demonstrations will all have one message in common: Enough! Over the past three months, Americans have seen an already out-of-control government spend their borrowed dollars as if a trillion dollars is a drop in the bucket. After the bailouts that put the White House at the head of a number of major corporations; after a stimulus bill that the Congressional Budget Office …
Put yourself in the shoes of LaTasha Bennett. A single mother living in Washington, D.C., Ms. Bennett is able to send her child to a private school thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Hoping to enroll her daughter in the same private school, Ms. Bennett applied for and recently received a voucher from the Washington Scholarship Fund. But last week, Ms. Bennett and hundreds of other D.C. parents received a form letter from the U.S. Department of Education informing them that their children wouldn’t be receiving a scholarship. The …
The New York Times today both informs and misleads on China’s role in the American economy. The Times headline warns, “China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds.” That may well be true, but it isn’t supported in the story that follows. The story actually cites slower growth in the PRC’s holdings of foreign currency, including dollars. China’s reserves fell $33 billion in January, before rebounding strongly in March. That’s an interesting development but it doesn’t bear directly on the U.S. As an illustration, the PRC’s holdings of Treasuries climbed …
Last week the Columbia University chapter of the newly formed Benjamin Rush Society –a group of medical students and doctors who believe in the freedom to practice medicine without government interference and the freedom for patients to access the health care of their own choosing–hosted a debate on the federal government’s role in health care. An audience of almost 200 people consisting of mostly Columbia medical students and faculty attended the event. Two debaters argued that universal health care should be the responsibility of the federal government and two argued …
Former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore heard much criticism from skeptics of his apocalyptic global warming predictions when he purchased a multi-million condo in San Francisco. After all, if one believes sea-level rises will swallow the coast, the last place to purchase a home would be a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, right? But if all goes as planned, it will be the federal government and businesses that pay for ‘victims’ of global warming. In draft legislation introduced by Chairman Henry Waxman (D–CA) of the House Energy …
Last night, thanks to the efforts of dozens of Navy SEALs, Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden is not news to our analysts. Jena Baker McNeill wrote back in November: These modern pirates are not unlike their swash-buckling predecessors. Much like searching for treasure, their primary goals are economic. Piracy is easy money–pirates take over a ship, seize a few hostages and millions of dollars in cargo, and wait for the shipping company to eventually pony up the money. …
Dead on op-ed from Robert Samuelson today: President Obama has made no secret of his vision for America’s 21st-century economy. We will lead the world in “green” technologies to stop global warming. Advancing medical breakthroughs will improve our well-being, control health spending and enable us to expand insurance coverage. These investments in energy and health care, as well as education, will revive the economy and create millions of well-paying new jobs for middle-class Americans. It’s a dazzling rhetorical vista that excites the young and fits the country’s mood, which blames …
The Tax Foundation released its “2009 Survey of U.S. Attitudes on Taxes, Government Spending and Wealth Distribution” yesterday. Some interesting findings include: 56 percent of respondents think taxes are too high; Only 14 percent are willing to pay more than $10,000 a year in total taxes for the government services they receive from all level of governments—federal, state and local; 34 percent prefer decreased government services and lower taxes, 36 percent want services and taxes to stay the same, only 10 percent want more services and higher taxes; 44 percent …
Bankruptcy law is rich with colorful vernacular: cram-down, strip-down, haircut, matrix, etc. But until a few weeks ago, nobody had ever heard of a “surgical” bankruptcy, the Obama Administration’s preferred term for a very big business, like General Motors, whizzing through bankruptcy in just a few weeks flat, rather than the normal year or year-and-a-half for a speedy case. Whatever it means, most bankruptcy attorneys agreed that it couldn’t be done. After all, if a single party–creditor, unions, dealers–objected to anything at all, it could take months to reach a …
What do Bridgeport, Connecticut Mayor Bill Finch and South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford have in common? Both are Democrats and both are now supporting school vouchers. In March, State Senator Ford, an African-American Democrat, joined conservative legislators in sponsoring a sweeping private school choice plan for kids in the Palmetto State. Confronting the criticism that he was hurting public education, Sen. Ford spoke in clear terms: “You’re d–n right I’m hurting public education, because public education is hurting our kids…All of us have been defending the system. It’s time …
