A Glimpse at Redefining Public Education
It’s always fun to discover a great new education blog on a Friday. I’m talking about the blog “redefinED: the new definition of public education” by Florida reformers John Kirtley and Doug Tuthill (H/T Eduwonk). A series of their recent entries report and provide analysis from Jeb Bush’s very recent Excellence in Action conference in […]
Primer for Forthcoming PUC Decision on Boulder’s Smart Grid City
As the Denver Post’s Mark Jaffe noted, sometime soon the PUC is expected to make a major ruling on Boulder’s Smart Grid City (“SCG”), a pilot project for so-called “smart grid” technologies that has been much maligned for costing Xcel three times what the utility had initially estimated. Specifically, the PUC will rule on a […]
Response to Senator Tim Wirth's Denver Post Column on Colorado's "Clean Energy Economy"
On Tuesday November 30, former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth wrote an op-ed for the Denver Post on Colorado’s “Clean Energy Economy.” The article, titled, “Leading the way to a sustainable energy future,” is mostly wrong. To wit, he suggested that the 2010 Clean Air Clean Jobs Act (CACJA), legislation that effectively requires fuel switching from […]
CHSRA Chair: “Our Engineers Are Incompetent”
The California High-Speed Rail Authority approved the Train to Nowhere, a plan to build the first leg of the high-speed rail line from a small town to no town. I suppose you have to start somewhere, but given the likelihood that the state won’t get any more federal funds, this seems like an exercise in […]
Federal Stimulus Brilliance: Don’t Let Special Ed Funds Follow Student Needs
I’m super busy working on a new Lego project today, so forgive me for keeping this one short. But I wanted to bring your attention to an investigative piece by Greg Campbell at the online Colorado news service Face The State. The story? “Stimulus funds lavished on special ed – even where the need is […]
Gold-Plated High-Speed Rail
Recently, someone asked the Antiplanner why Amtrak’s high-speed rail plan is so expensive. They were referring to a proposal published in late October to increase speeds in Amtrak’s Boston-to-Washington corridor to 220 mph. The plan calls for spending $117 billion in the 427-mile corridor, for an average cost of nearly $275 million per mile. That’s […]
The Citizens' Budget: K-12 Funding Podcast
Policy analyst Ben DeGrow discusses K-12 education spending in Colorado and how taking a closer look might unlock some permanent savings in our state budget. A part of the Citizens Budget project.
Accountable care organizations threaten competition, quality care, & low prices
No advocate of liberty should be surprised by the following from the New York Times. Reporting on “accountable care organizations” established by ObamaCare (HR 3590): Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve — by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives […]
Fast Train to Nowhere
The federal government’s most recent $900 million grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority came with a string attached: most of the money had to be spent, not in Los Angeles or San Francisco where most potential rail patrons are located, but in the central valley. Handed out just before the election, the grant was […]
