Are courts going out of the school budgeting business? Maybe, though I have my doubts. Back in October 2006, Sol Stern wrote about what happens when a politician, beholden to a teachers union, must then find a way to pay when the union’s demands threaten to impose significant burdens on the state. A group in New York sued the state for another $5 billion in school […]
John LaPlante
About John LaPlante
Posts by John LaPlante:
Risk as a political wedge
Bad stuff happens in life, some of it predictable, much of it not. Trade-offs are inevitable (guns versus butter, you know). So is risk. Lately I’ve been wondering if the most accurate way of describing the political divisions in the country is to ask some questions about risk. Take retirement planning, for example. If you prepare by investing in a broad portfolio of bonds and […]
We Need Grown-Up, not Childish Reaction to Bridge Collapse
A bridge collapses into a river, killing several people, traumatizing many. The reaction of some? Blame the no-new-taxes pledge that the governor took. Childish? Yes, especially when the blame was put into rhyme by one resident who used a child’s song in a letter-to-the-editor, published in one of the metropolitan area’s major newspapers. Ah, the wisdom of children! Children want what they want when they […]
The Cost of Regulation: Seen in Housing Prices
No surprise here: government action has consequences. In this case, people are being priced out of the housing market. Forbes reports on the least affordable U.S. real estate markets in its July 23 issue. Some of the numbers are astounding: “For example, in the first quarter of 2001, 42.3% of homes sold in Los Angeles were available to the median earning household. But in the first […]
Are Colleges Becoming Market-Oriented?
Someone once remarked to me that the college campus is the natural home of socialism. But it looks like even colleges are starting to price services according to demand rather than follow a simple uniform rule. Major in some subjects? Expect to pay more. Starting this fall, juniors and seniors pursuing a major in the business school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will pay […]
Education: Dollars and Cents; Apples and Oranges.
How much does your state on K-12 education compared with others? The U.S. Census Bureau has the goods. Here’s the home page for education-spending numbers, but you may need to head over to this page and then look for the text “Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finances” to pick from the annual reports. The reports, by the way, start in 1992 and go through 2005. Since there’s some […]
The Large Cost of Marginal Increases in the Home Ownership Rate
A key insight of economics is to focus on the marginal (or “next step”) costs and benefits of a given action. Say that you’re going to buy a new car. You may be willing to pay another $5,000 for a better vehicle, but at another $5,001–that extra dollar–you start to reconsider. The same logic works in public policy and in the economy generally. We stop […]
Isn’t Mass Murder Chic?
As music critic and political columnist Jay Nordlinger often points out, Che Guevara is uncomfortably fashionable. Nothing like honoring a “revolutionary” thug by plastering his visage over t-shirts, watches, and other stuff. Fairly disgusting, considering Guevara’s murderous life, no? I thought of Chic Che when I was perusing the trail map for a ski resort. I normally expect to see names of wildlife (ptarmigan), laborers in the […]
Want to buy a library card?
Municipal governments charge fees for golf courses, water parks, and other services. Why not for libraries? Think for a minute why governments charge fees for the recreational facilitites they run. Golf courses require regular (that is, daily) maintenance, and there’s usually someone around to check receipts to see if a duffer has paid the greens fee. Given the nature of the game, specifying the “gate” […]
Taxpayers to Pay Others to Golf
Taxes are serious business–don’t pay them, and you go to jail. Even so, voters in one Minnesota town have decided that the power of government should be applied for the great public purposes of … giving some people yet another place to play golf. As the wealth and geographic scope of a metropolitan area expands, owners of golf courses often trade lawn mowers, fertilizers, and […]