Adventures in Public Transportation
Following in the tradition of the Bensonhurst Bomber, and wanting to see up close how well mass transit a unionized, government-run transportation enterprise works, I took a slightly different trip home from the airport today. It was a waste of time, but an experiment in transportation policy. On the first leg of this trip, I got to the airport the usual way: I hitched a […]
Politics is Exciting. Policy is Boring. Right?
Picking up on yesterday’s comments, I notice that the “politics is exciting, policy is boring” theme is making its way ’round the old blogosphere. Just this morning I was driving around town, and listened to a podcast of the McLaughlin Group. It’s the old shout-em-up version of a TV public affairs program that was around long before whatever goes on cable TV. There was a time years […]
Bring back BRAC
There’s a VA hospital in Los Angeles. A Department of Veteran’s Affairs study suggested that some of the excess land on which it sits could be sold. Since the site is in a super-rich area of LA, it could fetch up to $4 billion that could be used to upgrade the care of veterans. But it’s probably not going to happen. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is […]
Strike One, Yer Out
Should public employees be allowed to go on strike? About 17 percent of workers in the University of Minnesota system, or 3,500 people, have decided to go on strike. (The link is to the Washington Post which, unlike the Twin Cities-papers, doesn’t hide its articles behind an archived firewall.) No surprise, the union says that the action may bring the universities “to a standstill.” KARE-11 reminds us […]
Who controls your health insurance?
Health care is the wedge issue for those who would insert more government control over the individual’s life. And why not, given public dissatisfaction with the status quo? But there’s a better way. From Sen. Norm Coleman’s junk mail one page “annual report” comes these encouraging words on health care policy. It’s a start. (I have introduced paragraph breaks to make the text more readable. Text […]
Minnesota is #10
We’re number 10! We’re number 10! But in this case, that’s nothing to brag about. Minnesota has the tenth-most expensive government in the country. Each year, Americans for Tax Reform computes Cost of Government Day, which measures the cost of taxation and regulation on each state. The group defines it as: the date of the calendar year, counting from January 1, on which the average American […]
Paying others to golf
Should local taxpayers foot the bill for others to play golf? That was the decision made by one southern suburb earlier this year. Taxes are serious business–don’t pay them, and you go to jail or lose your property. Even so, voters in one Minnesota town have decided that the power of government should be applied so that some people are able to … golf. As […]