California’s $3 billion Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, Proposition 71, promised life-saving cures and therapies for a host of afflictions including heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In 2004 voters approved the measure, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. CIRM drew down the money and spent lavishly, but ten years later…
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The California Department of Transportation hired Alex Morales III as statewide coordinator for compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As Jim Miller notes in the Sacramento Bee, Mr. Morales III, who was paid a base salary of $74,912, has been arrested for allegedly accepting “at least $100,000 in bribes, including an…
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The World War II generation has reason to associate the U.S. Department of State with treason in the form of Stalinist spy Alger Hiss. Baby Boomers and beyond have come to associate State Department briefings with “Saturday Night Live” in the form of spokesperson Marie Harf, who shows a keen sense for the absurd….
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In recent years California has raised per-pupil education spending about 50 percent, to $13,000 a year. As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee shows, despite this increase, “national academic testing has found that California’s students rank near the bottom in achievement.” The response of the state’s education establishment is to attack the tests. As…
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As part of his $25 billion plan for California’s water system, governor Jerry Brown wants to build two tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Each tunnel would be 40 feet high, 35 miles long, and together they would cost nearly $17 billion. Backers of the plan would do well to consider the pitfalls…
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If taxpayers have any doubt that government is becoming ever more intrusive, they might check out how California is attempting to redefine consensual sex. This legislative attempt is based on the notion that there is some part of the word “No!” that college students, allegedly the best and brightest, fail to understand. Driving the…
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As we noted last year, the U.S. military has more than enough tanks and Army chiefs of staff such as Ray Odierno protest that they don’t want any more. Politicians, on the other hand, wanted the Army to have 280 more tanks, at $8 million a pop. It turns out that there is more…
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Fifty years ago U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, also known as LBJ, famously declared a “War on Poverty.” According to Sasha Abramsky, author of The American Way of Poverty, LBJ’s war was a failure. The author wants current U.S. president Barack Obama to launch the “War on Poverty Mark II,” but will that new…
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The federal government spends nearly $1 million a year on fees for bank accounts with a balance of zero. The Washington Post calls this “one of the oddest spending habits in Washington” and explains how it works. When federal agencies hand out grants they don’t just send out checks. Rather, they create “an account…
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Most American voters want to see the federal government make spending cuts across the board, but those same voters doubt such cuts will take place, according to a recent Rasmussen Poll. The survey found that only 39 percent of likely voters think it is somewhat likely that government will significantly reduce spending while 57…
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