General Motors knew about faulty ignition switches that could cause vehicle engines to turn off, disabling air bags with deadly results. Federal government investigators with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration knew about this problem but as this report notes the NHTSA “twice passed on investigating” the faulty switches that “led to at least…
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California’s punitive tax structure virtually guarantees high volatility in state finances, particular during times of boom and bust in the economy. But through thick and thin some things never change. As this report notes, the state’s payroll and the size of the state workforce hold steady, and there’s always more to that story. Consider,…
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Summer will soon be here, and with all the fuss about global warming one would think Americans could avail themselves of the most protective sunscreens, like those used by their counterparts in Europe. They won’t be able to do that because, as this Washington Post report notes, “applications for the newer sunscreen ingredients have…
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The Obama administration promised to be the most transparent administration in U.S. history, but according to a recent report by the Associated Press, the reverse might be true. More often than ever, the administration “censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more…
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California governor Jerry Brown is an ardent supporter of the state’s high-speed rail project and as this report shows, he has now come up with a new reason for it. “There’s a lot of old people who shouldn’t be driving,” he recently told some union bosses in Sacramento. “They should be sitting in a…
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The media love anniversary stories, but last month the fifth anniversary of President Obama’s stimulus package slipped by without much fanfare. Taxpayers might recall how, in 2008, spending on the order of $800 billion was urgently called for and delivered. But it failed to stimulate much economic growth. In the last three months of…
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As we have noted, the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge cost $6.4 billion, $5 billion more than the original estimate, and came in ten years late. Despite the prodigious waste and delay state politicians and Caltrans bosses hailed the new span as a great victory. But problems quickly arose. Steel rods broke…
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K-12 education is the biggest item in the California budget, but for California’s education cartel the state never spends enough. As this report notes, the Education Coalition, an alliance of unions, school boards and administrators, “lobbies for higher school spending continuously.” The Coalition wants to put California in the top 10 states on per-pupil…
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So much reporting on Obamacare ignores the failures of the so-called Affordable Care Act. One pleasant exception is Emily Bazar of the CHCF Center for Health Reporting. In a recent column she outlines what has been called Obamacare’s “kid,” “family,” or “affordability” glitch. As she notes, the federal government offers sliding-scale tax credits to…
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As we recently noted, deploying the IRS, NSA, ATF, EPA and now the FCC against Americans shows that ruling-class abuse has become inclusive. But some think the abuse is not quite inclusive enough, or severe enough. Consider, for example, this remark about critics of Obamacare. “There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of…
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