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Government Accountability

Go to Harrisburg to do good, and end up doing well…very well

• January 6, 2006

WNEP-TV’s Scott Schaffer’s Lawmaker Retirements Won’t Come Cheap.

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Education

Unions Win: Florida Supreme Court Rules Against School Choice

• January 5, 2006

News release from the Institute for Justice…. Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down School Choice Washington, D.C.-In a major blow to education reform in Florida, the Florida Supreme Court today struck…

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Education

Rocky Mountain High

• Nathan Benefield
• January 5, 2006

Denver enacts the nation’s first merit pay system for teachers in a large district. See this National Center for Policy Analysis summary of Denver’s new system and other pay…

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Government Accountability

Churches funding Pittsburgh

• Nathan Benefield
• January 5, 2006

Several charities, including churches and religious groups, voluntary donated $4.6 million to the city of Pittsburgh, according to the Tribune-Review. Apparently the “separation of church and state” applies only…

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Taxes & Economy

Minimum wage, maximum deception

• January 5, 2006

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review notes why labor unions are the chief proponents of artificially raising labor costs. “Odd what liberal politicians and union-types see as ‘fairness,’ considering wage floors do…

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Taxes & Economy

Rendell’s minimum wage proposal too low?

• January 5, 2006

With professional baseball’s minimum salary increasing by $9,000 to $327,000, aren’t Pennsylvania’s entry-level workers worth at least that much? Where’s your compassion Governor? Set your sites higher!…

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Regulation

More Corporate Welfare

• Nathan Benefield
• January 4, 2006

Here is a good piece by the Allegheny Institute on the $50 million dollars of corporate welfare granted by state and local government to PNC for construction of…

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Regulation

The Looming Financial Crisis — Public Sector Pensions

• January 4, 2006

Whether it is pensions for state workers, teachers or legislators, the financial promises made by politicians have put taxpayers on the hook. How much? Well, don’t ask the people who…

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Public Union Democracy

What’s “Education” got to do with it?

• January 3, 2006

The Wall Street Journal highlights the political agenda (via its $65 MILLION in spending to support political causes) of the National Education Association. This would not be a problem…

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Taxes & Economy

Defending the Indefensible

• January 2, 2006

Gov. Rendell just doesn’t get it that if Pennsylvania is the next state to tax, borrow and spend itself to prosperity, it will also be the FIRST! In this…

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Regulation

Public Pensions: The Coming Financial Crisis in PA

• January 2, 2006

While Pennsylvanians were up in arms over the pay raise, the ongoing public-sector pension scandal and coming financial crisis should make taxpayers even more irate. The promise of defined benefits…

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Taxes & Economy

“inebriation of your own buncombe”

• January 1, 2006

Colin McNickle of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gets it right on the money … no, make that YOUR money. Read ‘Public-purpose’ mountebanks in today’s Trib.

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Citizens of the Year

• January 1, 2006

Editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer…

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Health Care

Free lifetime health care will be costly

• December 29, 2005

The growing tab for taxpayer-funded benefits, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Will the General Assembly override Gov. Rendell’s veto?

• December 29, 2005

With strong bi-partisan support of a meager tax cut in both houses of the General Assembly, enough votes exist to override Gov. Rendell’s veto. Rep. Dave Reed is the first…

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Power Motivates Unions

• December 28, 2005

From the Heartland Institute’s School Reform News… Power Motivates Unions Some wonder why the teacher unions, long so fervently opposed to charter schools, are now aggressively trying to recruit…

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“It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”

• December 28, 2005

Walter Williams on why we should guard against any encroachment on liberty, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Pay-raise suit on to high court

• December 28, 2005

…”the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear Stilp’s arguments that the bill was unconstitutional because it allowed lawmakers to skirt a state constitutional ban on mid-term raises by taking…

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Taxes & Economy

Pro free-markets and pro-business are not the same

• December 27, 2005

George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreaux draws the important distinction between supporting free-markets and supporting businesses. For example, he writes: “Like many economists, I oppose minimum-wage legislation. But this…

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Taxes & Economy

Should we repeal the minimum wage?

• December 27, 2005

Hans F. Sennholz, Professor Emeritus at Grove City College, says “Good intentions, when guided by error and ignorance, may have undesirable consequences. There is no better example than minimum wage…

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Taxes & Economy

Guv can’t find 00.2% in budget fat

• December 26, 2005

AP story: Rendell Vetoes Tax Cuts As any economist worthy of his title would tell Gov. Rendell, using the 5 year total of $1.1 billion is a static (and…

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