Video: How Kohn's Retirement May Give Obama An Opportunity to Shape the...
Here is an interview I did last night on RT talking about what the retirement of Fed Vice-Chair Donald Kohn means for the future of the Federal Reserve, and how Obama may have a chance to shape the...
View ArticleGetting Serious About Pension Reform in Atlanta
Atlanta’s unfunded pension liabilities grew from $321 million in 2001 to $1.5 billion in 2009 and the pensions are just 53 percent funded — well below the 80 percent level considered healthy. As Mayor...
View ArticleWhat Universal Kindergarten Tells Us About Universal Preschool
Elizabeth Cascio's excellent new study "What Happened When Kindergarten Went Universal?" finds few positive outcomes from universal kindergarten.Via the study published at Education Next in a...
View ArticleSprawl Likely to Continue Despite Housing Bust
Lots of planners were almost giddy when the housing market collapsed and gas prices made commuting from far flung ex-urbs too expensive; this would be the day of reckoning for urban sprawl. I address...
View ArticleGoing Into Debt to Finance Highways
Public Works Financing I've been somewhat taken aback by the rapid growth of interest availability-payment mechanisms for large new highway projects. This seems to have become the project finance...
View ArticleNew Jersey's Entire Transportation Appropriation Will Be Needed to Cover Debt
My latest Public Works Financing column looks at how we fund our highways...I've been somewhat taken aback by the rapid growth of interest availability-payment mechanisms for large new highway...
View ArticleFederal Transit Administration Turns Watchdog?
I've been critical of the recent move away from cost-effectiveness as a criterion for transit projects, believing that this step represented a shift toward more political decisionmaking. I may have to...
View ArticleKeep Your Laws Off My Body
"It's a free country."That's a popular saying—and true in many ways. But for a free country, America does ban a lot of things that are perfectly peaceful and consensual. Why is that?Here are some...
View ArticleGuns for All, Privileges or Immunities for None
Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the big laugh line of the hour at Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearings in McDonald v. Chicago. That case’s outcome will decide whether the Second Amendment rights...
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The Wrong Policy at the Wrong Time
Widely used in Europe, the Value-Added Tax (VAT) has always seemed a non-starter in the United States. That may be changing given apparently insurmountable structural deficits and fear that the...
View ArticleBusting the Well-Endowed
In the face of crushing deficits, is Washington finally serious about curbing its profligate ways? The clearest indication that the answer is "no" is the continued existence of the three national...
View ArticleWhat Can Educators Do Besides March in Rallies to Cope with School Budget Cuts?
As the Los Angeles Times reports:Thousands of students, teachers and parents in California and across the country are expected to stage rallies, demonstrations, walkouts and other actions Thursday to...
View ArticleChicago's Pointless Handgun Ban
When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C. had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all...
View ArticleSchool Districts Can Control Spending: Murrietta "Pay Cuts are Better than...
On this "Day of Action" for public education Murrietta Unified in Southern California offers up a positive example of facing the reality of shrinking education budgets. The governing board and top...
View ArticleHigher Education Reality Check: California Rally Edition
On this "Day of Action" for higher education with students marching and sitting and what not, let's consider once again the case of higher education in California.A small positive unintended...
View ArticleRenters Priced Out of Homes In Heavily Planned Montgomery County (MD)
The Washington Post reports on a new study by a tenant advocacy group in Montgomery County, Maryland arguing that renters are being priced out of homes. The problem is likely to get worse as the...
View ArticleRussia's Winter Games of Discontent
Russia's biggest moment in the Olympic spotlight this year was also its most embarrassing: Figure skater Evgeni Plushenko's 'we wuz robbed' act after being awarded the silver medal in Vancouver....
View ArticleProfane, Pointless...and Profound
It may have taken over 30 years, but punk music and fashion, once a grim specter threatening Western civilization (or at least adult eardrums and aesthetic sensibilities) have gone totally...
View ArticleBulldozing Fannie and Freddie
Yesterday, I had an op-ed published in The Washington Times on the reasons why we need to get rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:Taxpayers have already spent more than $111 billion bailing out mortgage...
View ArticleAmid Illinois' Fiscal Woes, Chicago Proves Tax Hikes and Service Cuts Aren't...
A recent Chicago Sun-Times article painted an accurately bleak picture of the fiscal challenges facing Illinois and its local governments. Yet they only suggested two solutions—tax hikes and service...
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