Obama Undercuts Case for HSR and Rail Transit
President Obama has ordered the auto industry to make cars that average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This is after his 2009 order directing the industry to make cars that average 34.5 miles per gallon by 2016. As a free-market advocate, I should be outraged that Obama is ordering private enterprise around like a […]
Digital Learning Grows, Local Union Sent Packing: School Reform News Utah Two-fer
What is it about our neighbors to the west? A couple months ago I brought your attention to Utah’s new law providing accountability to the use of teachers union release time. But there’s more going on in the Beehive State that has captured our attention here. Within the past month my Education Policy Center friend […]
Obamacare threatens solvency of Colorado health plans
The notion that politicians can control health costs is a conceit of the ruling class. Health costs will only decline when patients, not politicians, directly control more of our health spending. This cannot happen until President Obama’s health law is repealed. In the meantime, CO should reject politicized control of insurance premiums.
Bolt, Megabus Taking Passengers from Amtrak
More than a third of Bolt and Megabus riders in the Boston-to-Washington corridor say they would have taken an Amtrak train if the “new model” of bus service were not available. (The new model relies on curbside stops instead of stations, mainly non-stop service between cities instead of multiple stops between major cities, internet ticket […]
Another Colorado “Edu-Trial” Opens Today: Defending Dougco Choice from Injunction
Colorado’s second big”edu-trial” of the week started on August 2, with a Denver District Court judge set to consider a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Douglas County Choice Scholarship program. There’s still plenty of good reason to wonder what took so long to try and disrupt families’ lives with the threat of an injunction if it was so urgent for the ACLU & Company. Stick with us for the most comprehensive coverage of the groundbreaking local choice program.
Debt ceiling: Budget Deal Doesn’t Cut Spending
“Rs & Ds have come together on a ‘historic’ budget deal that … [the] Washington Post’s lead story calls the cuts ‘sharp’ and ‘severe.’ However, the budget deal doesn’t cut federal spending at all. The ‘cuts’ in the deal are only cuts from the CBO ‘baseline,’ which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending.” – Chris Edwards, Cato
Paradox or Not?
Every family, every company, every nation must decide how much to spend today and how much to save/invest for the future. The decisions they make reflect their internal discount rate, which is the rate (expressed as an annual percent) that they discount future benefits and costs. In the case of the recent debt deal, Democrats […]
Is There a Moral Case for ObamaCare?
Can ObamaCare be moral when it arbitrarily subsidizes some ways of buying insurance more than others, forces less wealthy people to subsidize insurance for more wealthy people, and “Takes from people who use tanning salons and people who need crutches and wheelchairs and pacemakers and gives to … well …. who knows?”
Debt deal shows once more that Congress can’t do the job
The latest debt deal illustrates Congress’s utter inability to deal with the mess it has gotten itself into. As more and more Americans realize this, pressure will build for an interstate “convention for proposing amendments” to solve the problem. (The Constitution authorizes the state legislatures to force an interstate convention for this purpose.) Here’s where […]
Lobato Case Round 2 Starts Today: Of Adequacy, Taxes, Graphs and Rational Bases
Senior policy analyst Ben DeGrow shares with the Colorado Springs Gazette his comments on the court overseeing school finance and tax policy, as the five-week district court hearing in the Lobato school funding case gets underway.
America 2050: Forget about the Forgotten Mode
Half truths, innuendo, and pseudo-science form the basis of a recent response to the Antiplanner’s recent paper, Intercity Buses: The Forgotten Mode. The basic thesis of the response is that intercity buses have a role to play in a “balanced transportation system,” but they are “no replacement for high-speed rail.” Of course, the Antiplanner never […]
