How Much Does Government Cost You?
Thanks to our friends at the Independent Institute out in Oakland, California, regular folks like us can figure out just how much the government is costing us in direct payments and in lost earnings over our lifetime. From the About Page on the MyGovCost website, The Government Cost Calculator is a unique service from The […]
Highways Safer Than Ever
It’s official: fewer than 34,000 people died in highway accidents in 2009. That is the fewest highway fatalities since 1950 and the lowest fatality rate per billion vehicle miles in automotive history. In 1910, nearly 450 people died for every billion vehicle miles driven. This declined to 150 by 1930, 72 by 1950, under 50 […]
Colorado’s Great Green Deception
Colorado’s Great Green Deception: If HB 1001 Seems too Good to Be True, It’s Because It Is By William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke Last March, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (D) signed HB 1001, a mandate requiring investor- owned utilities to generate 30 percent of their electricity sales from renewable energy sources by 2020. The […]
Private Transit
Many analyses of transit presume that, if government did not subsidize transit, transit wouldn’t exist and everyone who rides it would instead be driving cars. In fact, there are many private transit lines, but they are hard to find partly because the Federal Transit Administration’s National Transit Database only includes lines that are subsidized and […]
High-Speed Fantasy Land
One of the strongest arguments critics raise against California high-speed rail is that it will require huge operating subsidies. Promoters promised that not only would fares cover operating costs, the trains would earn such large operating profits that private investors would be willing to put up around 20 percent of the capital costs if they […]
Colorado Teachers Unions Give 99.8 Percent of Political Funds to Democrats
Right now, it’s the heart of political season. That means some teacher organizations — the Colorado Education Association (CEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — are actively involved in contributing member funds to various campaigns. (Other teacher organizations do not collect or distribute member money for political contributions.) But did you realize just how one-sided the political giving is?
The Case Against Time Magazine
Time used to be a news magazine with (for part of its history) a strong anti-communist slant. Apparently, news doesn’t sell anymore in the Internet age, as Time is now more of an opinion magazine. So when last week’s cover story was titled, “Rethinking Homeownership,” the Antiplanner assumed this would be another smart-growth diatribe against […]
Back on the Road Again
The Antiplanner spent most of this week in Glacier National Park attending the annual convention of the Great Northern Railway Historical Society. This is the 100th anniversary of the creation of Glacier Park, which was strongly promoted by Louis Hill, the son of James J. Hill, the builder of the Great Northern Railway. Under Louis’ […]
Should Buses Use Alternative Fuels?
Fred Jandt’s rethinking rail article on the Mass Transit web site (discussed here on Monday) offhandedly mentioned “what Foothill Transit did this week” with buses. That was a reference to the introduction of some of the first all-electric buses in the U.S. A mere 10-minute recharge of the batteries on these “ecoliners” is supposed to […]
Free-Market Environmentalism Over Failed Government Stewardship
by J. Craig Green, P.E. Free market environmentalists are everywhere these days, but you rarely hear about them in the mainstream press. Conventional wisdom for our entire lifetimes has been that only government protection can minimize or prevent environmental damage. The idea that markets are better at managing natural resources than governments may come as […]
Markets Should Drive Colorado's Energy Industry, Not Social Values
By William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke Xcel Energy is getting a lot of grief over its new “tiered” rate increase–a.k.a., the air-conditioner tax–but the criticism is somewhat misplaced. It’s impossible to assign complete responsibility to Xcel for this ham-handed energy fee, because in reality the state is calling the shots in an effort to […]
The Real Cost of Being Green
by Amy Oliver and William Yeatman Gov. Bill Ritter and green energy advocates are selling Colorado a false bill of goods when it comes to the “New Energy Economy.” They claim the green energy agenda won’t burden consumers, but their interpretation relies on misleading accounting that hides billions of dollars in green energy costs. The […]
