A Case Study in Local News Futility
The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism recently surveyed 490 hours of local news reports in the Los Angeles area and found...
View ArticleNew Book on Eminent Domain and Property Rights Available
The infamous Kelo decision in June 2005 sparked renewed interest in eminent domain use and abuse. Dozens of state initiated reform efforts, most focused on reining in the power of government to...
View ArticleThe FBI Closes a Window to the Truth
Modern recording devices are a boon to law enforcement. Wiretaps betray crooks plotting their crimes. Surveillance cameras on city streets identify muggers and drug dealers. Video gear in patrol cars...
View ArticleParasitic Tort Lawyers
Tort lawyers lie. They say their product liability suits are good for us. But their lawsuits rarely make our lives better. They make lawyers and a few of their clients better off—but for the majority...
View ArticleWine Snobs and Suds Swillers Unite!
The life of a wine snob is a hard one. Every bottle holds peril and promise—the thrill of a buttery finish, the agony of harsh tannins. But life may get harder still, thanks to a new bill to restrict...
View ArticlePrivate Prisons a Smart Strategy for Kentucky
The Courier-Journal painted a one-sided view of prison privatization ("Experts question benefits of private prisons," July 5, 2010) that ignored abundant research demonstrating cost savings and quality...
View ArticleDebating Public-Private Partnerships in Parks
The dialogue on public-private partnerships (PPPs) in parks is starting to take hold. States and cities around the country are faced with difficult budget cuts, and when ranking spending priorities,...
View ArticleDouble-Dip Recession Talk
Earlier this week I appeared on RT to discuss all the talk of a coming double-dip recession (video below). As I've said on this blog a number of times, there certainly is a chance for a double-dip, or...
View ArticlePublic Pension Reform: Free the Teachers
In the New York Daily News, charter school Biology teacher, Emmanuel George, makes the case for teacher pension reform.The good news is that charter schools like Democracy Prep have shown there is a...
View ArticleTen Principles of Privatization
Privatization means shifting some or all aspects of service delivery from government to private-sector providers. It is a strategy to lower the costs of government and achieve higher performance and...
View ArticleMinimum Wage Still Hurts the Poor More Than It Helps
In the January 2010 issue of the Southern Economics Journal (Vol. 76, no. 3), Joseph Sabia (American University) and Richard Burkhauser (Cornell University) find that the effects of raising the minimum...
View ArticleNJ Privatization Task Force Report Offers Reform Roadmap, Over $210 Million...
Taxpayers in the Garden State have reason to cheer today. As the Star-Ledger reports, the New Jersey Privatization Task Forceâ??established by Gov. Chris Christie under Executive Order #17 in...
View ArticleThe Government's Catastrophic Response to the Oil Disaster
Incompetence has turned the Gulf oil tragedy into “Obama’s Katrina.” As more and more startling facts emerge we are finding almost criminal ineptness by Washington compounded by BP’s almost criminal...
View ArticleCivil Rights and Armed Self-Defense
On December 11, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Virginia v. Black. At issue was the constitutionality of a Virginia statute that prohibited the act of cross burning, a...
View ArticleThe Defector
Hitch-22: A Memoir, by Christopher Hitchens, New York: Twelve, 448 pages, $26.99In 1990, Commentary magazine warned its readers that Christopher Hitchens, then a bomb-throwing columnist at The Nation,...
View ArticleMisrepresenting the Benefits of High-Speed Rail
National Journal's Transportation blog asks:Does a recent report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors touting the economic benefits of high-speed passenger rail put to rest questions about HSR's value as a...
View ArticleUnemployment is a Structural Problem, But That Doesn't Mean Government is the...
Surveys are showing that if you have a college degree you are more likely to find work in today's employment climate than those who don't have a high school diploma. This isn't necessarily always true...
View ArticleReason.tv's School Choice Extravaganza
Check out Reason.tv's week long school choice extravaganza including a piece about the school choice revolution in New Orleans; an interview with Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek about how...
View ArticleCA Local Governments Looking to Cut Pension Benefits
The Sacramento Bee reports"Local governments across California are poised to roll back pension benefits for public employees."The movement comes a decade after retirement systems made huge gains in the...
View ArticleLeBron James, Loyalty and the Economic Future of Cleveland
I don't follow follow professional basketball, but it was virtually impossible not to avoid the media frenzy around LeBron James' decision to move to Miami and leave Cleveland. The outcry from loyal...
View ArticlePoll--People Blame Overspending for State Budget Crises
Rasmussen has a new poll out asking people about their state's budget crisis, what caused it and how to solve it. The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on July 5-6, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The...
View ArticleUnemployment Pointâ??Counterpoint
The weekend edition of the Morning Call (Pennsylvania) featured thoughts on the unemployment from myself and Center for American Progress economist Heather Boushey. The whole piece is here. Since we...
View ArticleStuck in Afghanistan
There is good news about Afghanistan.No, really. It comes from Jonathan Alter, Newsweek columnist and author of the book The Promise: President Obama, Year One. He thinks the president is firmly...
View ArticleWhere Do Libertarians Belong?
For those who cherish the ideals of free minds and free markets, 21st century politics in the United States has not been a particularly welcoming place. The big-government conservatism of George W....
View ArticleThe Trial of John Stagliano
It is business as usual in government, despite a president who was elected with a promise of hope, change, and the end of, well, business as usual.At a conference of the nation's governors in Boston...
View ArticleJustice for Johannes Mehserle
Early in the morning of January 1, 2009, in a now infamous incident captured on video by dozens of cell phones and replayed across the globe, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Officer Johannes Mehserle...
View ArticleMystery Train
If you were looking to take some easy shots at government waste and abuse, you’d have a hard time topping California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle’s recent assessment of the Golden State’s 14-year-old...
View ArticleClosed Court, Miller Time, and Joey Silvera's Solidarity
(Editor's Note: Richard Abowitz is covering John Stagliano's obscenity trial in Washington, D.C. for Reason. Follow Abowitz on Twitter for breaking news, and keep up to date with Reason's Stagliano...
View ArticleObamaâ??s Immigration Distraction
Even advocates of immigration reform cringed at President Obama's speech last month with its impressive juxtaposition of contradictory vices: sophomoric and professorial; hectoring and plaintive;...
View ArticleForcing Consumers to Buy Renewable Energy
Carbon rationing is dead on Capitol Hill. The Democratic leadership in the Senate has concluded that they cannot round up enough votes to pass a cap-and-trade carbon rationing bill that aims to cut the...
View ArticleSchool Turnaround Folly: $3.5 Billion Federal Grant Edition
As Leslie Maxwell reports at Education Week, the $3.5 billion in school improvement grants are overwelmingly going to schools who chose the easiest school improvement model: transformation. The rest of...
View ArticleWho's Afraid of Federalism?
Last week a federal judge confounded both sides of the political spectrum by ruling that the 10th Amendment requires the federal government to recognize state-approved gay marriages. Progressives...
View ArticlePorn Over National Security, Vice Squad Overreach, and Censorship in the...
(Editor's Note: Richard Abowitz is covering John Stagliano's obscenity trial in Washington, D.C. for Reason. Follow Abowitz on Twitter for breaking news, and keep up to date with Reason's Stagliano...
View ArticleToy Story 3 and the Tea Party Movement
Is Toy Story 3 a parable for today's deep political discontent?Think about it. A slick sloganeering teddy bear convinces a gaggle of beleaguered toys that he holds the key to a brighter future. The...
View ArticleSpending Can Be Cut
When times are hard financially, families frequently let their credit card balance expand. But they also slash expenses to meet their new financial situation. They stop going out for dinner, for...
View ArticleDisney and "Private" Government
Walt Disney World sits on of 25,000 acres in Central Florida governed and managed by an essentially “private” government—the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID). RCID levies taxes on its residents,...
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The Stolen Auto Sales
Remember back in 2009, when critics (including us) were claiming in the Cash for Clunkers program would just steal demand from the future? Well, about a year later here is some evidence that could be...
View ArticleCA State Treasurer's Harsh Words on High Speed Rail
In an interview with the San Diego Union Tribune, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, expressed some serious doubts about the state's high speed rail plan.Asked about private investment:“There...
View ArticleThe Obsolescence of Federal Censorship
When former NFL player Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, Americans were more moved by it than by any other soldier's death in that war. There was intense interest, particularly in Phoenix, where...
View ArticleGovernment Attacks on Freedom
Something's happened to America, and it isn't good. It's become easier to get into trouble. We've become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through...
View ArticleRationing Debate
If government-run health care is such a bad thing—at once too expensive, too impersonal, and too ineffective—shouldn’t those who oppose it want to see the government’s major health care payment systems...
View ArticleFed Governor Nominees on Tap Tomorrow
Tomorrow, the Senate will hold hearings for President Obama's three nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. His selections are, as expected, predicated on an economic policy that promotes...
View ArticleLouisiana School Reform and Red-Tape Reduction: Heartland Institute Podcast
Check out my new Heartland Institute podcast in which I discuss school choice in New Orleans; the new Red-Tape Reduction Act for Schools signed by Governor Jindal; and the prospects of student-based...
View ArticleStudy Proposes HOT Lanes for Chicago
The Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago and the Illinois Tollway Authority have released a report by Wilbur Smith and Associates that recommends expanding parts of the Stevenson, Kennedy, and Jane...
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As Private Sector Suffers, Public Sector Unions Ride the Gravy Train
Besides the unprecedented size of last year's bloated and ineffective stimulus bill, 2009 witnessed another desultory landmark for the U.S. economy. For the first time in American history, public...
View ArticleThe Age of Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One, by Zev Chafets, Sentinel, 217 pages, $25.95.Just a few days after he was sworn in as president, Barack Obama asked the opposition to ignore its partisan instincts and...
View ArticleStar Witness Makes a Liar out of Stagliano's Prosecution
(Editor's Note: Richard Abowitz is covering John Stagliano's obscenity trial in Washington, D.C. for Reason. Follow Abowitz on Twitter for breaking news, and keep up to date with Reason's Stagliano...
View ArticlePushing Back on the Chinese Bubble Naysayers
Two weeks ago, I offered an argument for why there is a good chance a residential housing bubble is fully formed in China and is frighteningly large in scope. There are, however, plenty of critics of...
View ArticleUnions Hire Scabs to Protest Non-Union Employers. Seriously.
Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work.Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its...
View ArticleTransportation Policy Implications of a Republican Resurgence in November
C. Kenneth Orski's recent issue of Innovation Briefs(Vol. 21, No. 15, July 16) provides interesting speculation on the effects of a Republican resurgence in Congress after the November 2010 elections....
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