As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, politicians like to spend money on government pensions, for obvious reasons. It reinforces their professional ruling-class status, they are spending other people’s money on themselves, and the spending comes down the line in the future. But in a lingering recession and shrinking economy, articles like this are starting…
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Lawyers are beginning to complain about California’s cuts to the court system, one of “the hardest hit arms of government during the recession” with revenue “slashed by $1.1 billion over the last five years – an agonizing 30 percent cut since 2007” according to Brian Kabateck, president of Consumer Attorneys of California. As a…
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Gasoline prices are up 75 cents a gallon since December and now double what they were when President Obama was inaugurated. Motorists in southern California are already paying more than $5 a gallon and prices are headed resolutely skyward. What could be the reason? First, understand that soaring gasoline prices are not due to…
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The hefty raises given to U.S. Postal Service bosses did not prevent losses of more than $15 billion last year. The postal bosses now want to reduce those massive losses by eliminating Saturday mail delivery, a congressional mandate dating from 1981. But since 2007 first-class mail volume has declined by 37 percent, giving way…
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“In June 2009, President Obama proposed to address failures of consumer protection by establishing a new financial agency to focus directly on consumers, rather than on bank safety and soundness or on monetary policy.” So explains the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), the new federal agency that emerged in the midst of a deep…
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Russell Files, a trapper with the Wildlife Services (WS), a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, objected to a neighbor’s dog coming into his yard. So while on duty he set traps that severely injured the canine. Similar incidents of wanton cruelty have prompted legislators to call for an investigation of the Wildlife…
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Americans are skeptical about the federal government’s ability to lead a recovery from the Great Recession, according to Diminished Lives and Futures: A Portrait of America in the Great-Recession Era, a national survey from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Those surveyed have good reason for that belief. Near…
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West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, is home to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) whose origins “are inextricably linked to the tragic events of 9/11 and West Point’s unwavering commitment to the future security and safety of our nation.” The Center has produced material on radical Islam and Al Qaeda but a recent report…
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One of the federal government programs slated for cuts is Head Start, which President Lyndon Johnson first deployed in 1965 as part of his War on Poverty. President Obama wants a Head Start budget of $8.2 billion, up from the current level of $7.2 billion. Republicans want $2 billion in cuts to the federal…
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When we last addressed California’s hidden money scandal, the state’s Attorney General found that the state Parks had concealed only $20.5 million and the remaining $33 million was “simply obscured by long-term complexities in managing that fund.” The AG passed the buck by letting the state Natural Resources Agency decide whether to bring in…
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