The Wisconsin assembly agreed at 6:00 a.m. this morning to end debate on Governor Scott Walker’s (R) budget repair bill and to finally move to a decision on the proposed collective bargaining reforms. The situation in the Senate, however, remains unresolved and for over a week now Walker has been putting the fire under the feet of missing Democrats in an attempt to get the lawmakers to return to the capitol. If Walker’s collective bargaining proposal is enacted, teachers in Wisconsin will now be permitted to keep their teaching jobs …
The Heritage Foundation has posted a new working paper that considers whether public workers in California are overpaid compared to their private sector counterparts. The paper’s findings are summarized today in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, coauthored by myself and AEI’s Andrew Biggs. We argue that previous public-private comparisons at the state level have undercounted important fringe benefits. While existing studies claim that pay is roughly comparable between the sectors, we find that California workers could be overpaid by as much as 30 percent. The working paper has all the …
After days of lost class time for Wisconsin students, teachers have returned to school. Yet Governor Scott Walker (R) is still faced with the demands of teachers unions who are pushing against reforms that would restructure teacher pension and benefit plans and reform unions’ collective bargaining power. While unions announced over the weekend that they would concede the pension and health benefits piece of the proposal, they continue to demand that their collective bargaining authority remain intact. Some may see this as a good start, yet such action only manifests …
Over the past week the nation witnessed the spectacle of Wisconsin and Indiana Democrat lawmakers fleeing across state-lines into Illinois, Bonnie and Clyde-style, though in this case in hopes that their absence would stave off having to make tough decisions. Back home, their votes were needed to rescue their states from dire fiscal problems, and that is the case in states across the rest of the Midwest and the rest of the nation. Budget deficits are bulging and competition for scarce financial resources is growing more alarming. This Prohibition-era retro …
As Muammar al-Qaddafi clings to power by ordering his troops to shoot on their Libyan compatriots, across the globe in the Caribbean one of his last remaining global buddies is doing his best to keep the lid on his own victims. Fidel Castro, presiding over the wreckage of what was once the thriving island of Cuba, stepped up repression today, the first anniversary of the hunger-strike death of a dissident leader, lest others take to the streets. Castro’s political police are imprisoning Cuban dissidents to prevent them from marking the …
This week the media’s attention is finally focused on oil prices. After two years of continually rising consumer gas prices in America, the oil futures market has captivated the Mideast storyline. And attention is much needed. December 2010 saw the highest gas prices for the month of December in our nation’s history. This month, we’re setting similar records with the national average of $3.14/gallon–fifty cents higher than it was a year ago. If this trend continues, the summer of 2011 will hit consumers much harder than in the summer of …
President Obama and his Justice Department have decided to leave the legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act to others—and, as embarrassing as this decision in the midst of intense litigation may be to the Administration – it is probably a good thing for the institution. This is no time leave marriage to the mercy of the kind of half-hearted defense Eric Holder’s Justice Department was offering it. Marriage is the cornerstone in an archway of values that form the constitution of the family and the foundation of civil …
The world continues to watch the unfolding drama of popular revolt in Libya. In recent days we have seen a murderous Muammar Qadhafi vowing to fight “until the last drop of blood,” foreign mercenaries entering Libya to kill civilians, former members of Qadhafi’s government ready to prove his direct involvement in the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103, and even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—certainly no friend of freedom—calling the Libyan slaughter of opponents “unimaginable.” Where in the middle of Libya’s turmoil does one find the leaders of the people’s struggle …
Uncle Sam is spending you into the poorhouse. Taxes, inflation, unemployment, interest rates – all could skyrocket if Washington keeps spending trillions of dollars it doesn’t have. Unless we begin to cut spending now (a lot of spending) these four horsemen of debt will ride roughshod over families and businesses already struggling to get by. Fortunately, we still have a chance to kick the spending addiction and keep the American Dream alive. What Can’t Go on Forever, Won’t Between 2007 and today, total federal spending rose by almost 36%. Meanwhile, …
Shutting down the Internet did precious little good for Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. It is not likely to do Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi much good either. In fact, it appeared to intensify the determination of the Arab protesters, who found themselves cut off from the world. Yet on Friday, that was exactly what the Qadhafi regime did, followed by an intermission on Saturday. This is based on information from Arbor Networks, which collected data from 30 Internet providers around the world. The fact is that Internet access is now sufficiently widespread …
