Category: Federal issues
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Republicans and Leftists Are Outraged, Outraged, I Tell You
by James A. Bacon Here’s what I missed in yesterday’s quickie post about Governor Terry McAuliffe’s plan to convene a clean energy task force: Both Republicans and leftist environmental groups are attacking the move, though for opposite reasons. Republican legislators see the initiative as an end run around the state budget, which specifically prohibits any spending…
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Boomergeddon Update: Medicare HI
by James A. Bacon The Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, one of the four major components of the Medicare program, will run out of money in 2028 — two years earlier than previously projected. That appraisal comes from the Medicare Board of Trustees, which, the last time I checked, is not funded by the Koch Brothers. The news…
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Fed Theft Update: $749 Billion from Bank Depositors
Federal Reserve Bank suppression of interest rates has cost bank depositors $749 billion in interest income on savings accounts, CDs, and money market accounts over the past six years, according to Richard Barrington with MoneyRates.com. Quantitative Easing has made possible one of the greatest redistributions of wealth in United States history. Unlike with taxes, which…
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Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work
And I thought the City of Richmond was incompetent for its inability to close out its financial books in a timely manner! Heed this opinion from the federal Government Accountability Organization (GAO) on Uncle Sam’s financial statements for 2014 and 2015: “Certain material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting and other limitations on the scope of…
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Radiation, Hormesis and Nuclear Power
by James A. Bacon I belong to a generation that grew up with a fear of nuclear war, fall-out and slow, agonizing death by radiation poisoning. We’d seen the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We lived through the scare of Three Mile Island and, years later, had our fears reinforced by catastrophes at Chernobyl and Fukushima.…
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The Tragic Political Economy of Higher Ed
by James A. Bacon Lynchburg College President Kenneth Garren was sipping wine at a reception last year when he bumped into Senator Mark Warner. He button-holed the senator and urged him to oppose an Obama administration plan to create a ratings system for U.S. colleges and universities. Two months later, under pressure from Garren and…
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How the Feds Run Virginia’s Colleges and Universities Now
by James A. Bacon A new Vanderbilt University study sheds light on the relentless increase in costs at U.S. colleges and universities: government regulation. In a detailed study of 13 institutions, Vanderbilt and the Boston Consulting Group found that compliance with federal regulations ranges between 3% and 11%, depending upon the institution, with a median cost…
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Pell Grants: Soaking Taxpayers and Creating Debt Slaves?
by James A. Bacon Earlier this month the Hechinger Report found that a large percentage of the beneficiaries of federal Pell grants to students from low-income families never graduate. The study also found that the federal government, despite spending $300 billion on the program since 2000, doesn’t keep track. The feds have doubled their commitment to…
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More Sequestration Pain for Virginia
by James A. Bacon The pain of federal budget sequestration cuts in Virginia is not yet over. Look what The Washington Post reports today: According to the Defense Department research, things are likely to worsen over the next four years. From 2010 to 2012, Virginia experienced $9.8 billion in defense cuts, with the vast majority…
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Something to Think About
Last week I was reading in the New York Times an article on Jeb Bush’s plans for the economy. One of his talking points was to reduce the federal workforce by 10%. For a state as dependent on the Feds as Virginia, this could have serious financial implications. Already, in the CNBC rankings as the…
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Alpha Natural Resources: Running Wrong
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Four years ago, coal titan Alpha Natural Resources, one of Virginia’s biggest political donors, was riding high. It was spending $7.1 billion to buy Massey Energy, a renegade coal firm based in Richmond that had compiled an extraordinary record for safety and environmental violations and fines. Its management practices culminated in a…
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The Ironies of Virginia's Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…
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The Ironies of Virginia’s Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…
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Higher Ed as Engine of Social Injustice
by James A. Bacon College tuitions have soared over the past several decades, and so have federal grants and subsidized student loans. Many observers of the higher ed scene believe that easy credit has been a driving force behind the tuition hikes: The more Uncle Sam subsidizes student participation in higher education, the greater the pricing…
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Memories of a Klan Rally
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Electoral process, Energy, Federal issues, Government Finance, Gun rights, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka I was looking through a some old clips today and spotted this Golden Oldie that ran in the Jan. 30, 2000 edition of BusinessWeek magazine where I worked for about 15 years. Bloomberg now owns rights to it and I hope they don’t mind me re-running it. Mindful of the lofty rhetoric…