Taking the politics out of government, an ex-Clintonista recently said, is like taking the math out of physics. I agree with the spirit, if not with the context of the quotation, which bashed George W. But I note it to add that taking money out of politics is equally pointless.
There is an old rule in politics that you can't successfully beat a plan with no plan. That doesn't mean opponents of reforming Social Security aren't trying, however.
It was with sad acceptance I noted Beijing's choice as the host city for the 2008 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee put its blinders on and bought the fiction that sports is apolitical.
Social Security made sense in 1935. In 2001 it's dangerously outdated.
The house and senate are getting ready to hash out differences in their versions of the patients' bill of rights. Frankly, most of this legislation is going to wind up being costly and unnecessary, as work by the NCPA and others has shown, but if I have to live with one version, give me the one from the house, as research by the Employment Policy Foundation proves.
One of the more repellent spectacles of the last couple of weeks was Fidel Castro's unveiling of the Elian Gonzales Museum. It's a fabrication dedicated to twisting the history of the cuban kid's sojourn in the U.S. into a triumph of communist doctrine.
Elections are messy, and they always have been.
Congressman Sam Farr, the California democrat, says that "taking money out of politics" is the goal of his party. That may sound good as a quick campaign slogan, but its not only unconstitutional, its also a really bad idea.
What makes students learn more? It's been taken for granted for years that spending more money could fix the problem. So the American Legislative Exchange Council looked at expenditures and test scores from 1976 to 2000.
According to the naysayers, allowing workers to contribute to personal retirement accounts would likely leave many retirees in the poor house. This could not be further from the truth. Need proof? Just look at the experience of three counties in Texas that have been under a private system for more than two decades
I came across what seemed an arcane study in an off-beat publication, economic intuition. It had to do with explorations to the arctic in the 19th century, but its message is worth noting in the early 21st.
New York is making it illegal for people to use car phones in the state. Is this an invasion of personal freedom?
A pet global warming theory of the environmental hardliners has been proven very shaky.
You know when a cabinet secretary says "If we did it this way in the private sector we'd all be in jail," it's quite an admission.
Elections are messy. They always have been, but the Florida election called our attention to that fact.
Public education has had to suffer through some awful fads over the years. Whole language was such a disaster California had to spend billions to reverse the damage done to students. "Fuzzy math" was so horrible, 200 leading scientists and mathematicians signed a letter denouncing it.
I reported some time ago on the Irish economic comeback. Ireland used supply side economics and huge corporate, personal and capital gains tax cuts to turn a virtual third world country into what's been nicknamed "The Celtic Miracle."
Today, for the fourth of July, I'd like to celebrate independence — for people who don't have it. When you fly your flag today, or shoot off a bottle rocket, or just do whatever you please because you can do it, remember someone who can't. Ever. Because the liberty we take for granted is a special case. So think about:
A part of me doesn't mind Tom Daschle playing politics. Heck, when I was a politician, I played politics. But he's crossed the line.
The recent wide spread reporting about the failure of school voucher programs sparked an NCPA study showing that writing off school choice is wishful thinking.
Congress is holding hearings on the Ford explorer and more generally, the popular SUV.
In a classic piece of micro-managing, the 1990 clean air act mandated that gasoline sold in some states be "reformulated" with additives to reduce pollution.