Category: Government Finance
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Budget Busters Thrown Again
While the budget busters in Washington struggle to tame trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, they keep getting thrown. The Obama administration took a particularly nasty spill yesterday, announcing that the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, a long-term care initiative embedded in Obamacare, is beyond salvage. “Despite our best analytical efforts, I…
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Can Japan Keep Pitching?
By Peter Galuszka (Last of a series) TOKYO, Japan — “Technology is like water, it runs down hill.” My old Japanese friend and I are chowing down on delicious fried oysters and sashimi in a downtown Tokyo restaurant. We had just had drinks at the Foreign Correspondents Club Of Japan which offers a spectacular, 20th…
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Too Bad We’re Not Dead Last
Public officialdom in Virginia has been increasingly focused on Virginia’s heavy dependence upon the federal government for economic activity and employment. As the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission pointed out in its “Review of State Spending: 2011 Update,” Virginia ranked second among the states in total federal spending per capita. In federal FY 2009…
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Restraining State Spending through Governance Reform
Fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path at all levels of government. While reformers should look for ways to reduce spending on particular budget items, tomorrow’s legislatures may easily reverse these cuts, argue Matthew Mitchell and Nick Tuszynski with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. By contrast, they write, “a change in the rules that govern…
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Congressional Republicans Cave — Again
The Obama administration has successfully painted House Republicans as mad, uncompromising Tea Partiers willing to push the federal government to default in pursuit of their extremist agenda. Of course, when Republicans cave on major spending issues, like the transportation bill, we hear little about it. This column was penned by an observer of the Washington…
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No Solyndras in Virginia, Please
by James A. Bacon Fears of repeating another Solyndra or Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac fiasco shadowed discussions of an innovative Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank (VTIB) at the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting today. Funds from the VTIB, which will be capitalized initially with $283 million, will help finance transportation projects that might not otherwise be built. Initially,…
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IG of the Day: Student Loan Defaults
Source: Stateline Virginia public universities have among the lowest rates of student loan defaults in the country. Not a surprise considering that Virginia also has one of the lowest unemployment rates. — JAB
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Thanks, Monsieur Warbucks!
By Peter Galuszka Sometimes there are enlightened people out there. This is point to shake up the Baconauts and Boomergeddons, but the New York Times has an editorial this morning about the enlightened rich. Following the lead of Warren Buffett, the investment Sage of Oamaha who says he should pay more taxes: “Sixteen of France’s…
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Discrimination at Cardinal Financial? Or Race Hustling at Obama’s DOJ?
by James A. Bacon In 2004, Cardinal Financial Corp., a regional bank based in Tysons Corner, purchased George Mason Mortgage, which originated mortgage loans in the Washington metropolitan region, predominantly in Northern Virginia. Seven years later, in a July 1 letter to Cardinal Financial Corp., the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accused the $2 billion…
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The Over-Regulation Hoax
By Peter Galuszka “They’re coming out with multiple, onerous regulations,” says Mike Bucci, a small business owner in Richmond, according to a visual runby Chief Baconaut James A. Bacon Jr., as part of a blog posting titled”Paperwork, Solar Panels, and Job Creation.” Mr. Bucci complains that his small business, which comes up with business solutions,…
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Killing Virginia’s Golden Goose
By Peter Galuszka Will Virginia end up killing the goose that has laid its golden egg? With apologies to Aesop, it is the most pressing economic question the Old Dominion faces. The golden egg, of course, is the federal government whose jobs continually prop up the state work rolls and help the flow of state…
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Grumpy Old Men
By Peter Galuszka Here I was, sitting in a strip mall Panera, waiting for the next electric socket to open up. It was the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and I had been without electricity since 4:35 p.m. Saturday. I have a home office, so having no power can be deadly. Plenty of other people had…
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Vive La France!
By Peter Galuszka The French, who often come up with the sine qua non many situations, have done it again. Like the U.S., the French face a troubled economy and a bloated budget. They face credit ratings downgrades. So, the wily ones have decided to slap on an extra tax on sugary soda, alcohol and…
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Forget FOREX, VRS’ problem is with active management
by Norm Leahy The headline news is that Virginia and Florida are suing Bank of New York Mellon for “…cheat[ing] pension funds in those states by choosing improper prices for currency trades the bank processed for the funds. But the real headline story that, so far, I’ve only seen posted here, is how Virginia’s public…