The Case Against the Cell Phone TaxMercatus CenterThere is no justification for taxing cell phones more than other goods and services. Moreover, the tax runs counter to promoting access to broadband connectivity. (For what it’s worth, Virginia’s cell phone tax rate ranked among the 10 lowest in the country in 2010.)

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s cursory decision to mandate a union workforce for Phase 2 of Metrorail-to-Dulles potentially exposes the project to hundreds of millions of dollars in higher costs. How much will the Project Labor Agreement add to the cost of Phase 2 of the Metrorail-to-Dulles project? That’s the $64 (million) question. Supporters of…

Obamacare is a fiscal juggernaut bearing down on state government. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will expand access to the health care sector by enrolling millions of Americans in Medicaid. In Virginia, Medicaid spending will increase from 14% of General Fund expenditures in 2009 to 21% in 2012, projects the Virginia Hospital and…

Falling Between the Cracks of ObamacareUrban InstituteThe Patient Protection Act will expand access to health care but some 20 million children still may fall under “complex coverage situations” that make it unclear what coverage they qualify for. In Defense of TestingHoover InstituteThere is a growing backlash against standardized school testing, but the tests are important:…

EMR was very disappointed with TMT’s comment on Jim Bacon’s 30 May post “ First, let us be very clear: Jim Bacon is absolutely right about the future direction of settlement patterns in the Core of NURs – Richmond, Tidewater, Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington- Baltimore…. At this point there can be little question about this fact.…

JOB CREATION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ‘RURAL.’ In a recent comment Larry Gross observed: “I’d point out one more thing about Germany’s small rural company approach. “It can’t work without a national health care system because small businesses cannot offer affordable health care to employees.” Larry is right about the need for a…

Crime in the United States has receded to the lowest ebb in 40 years, according to the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation uniform crime reports. In a world where everything seems to be falling apart, it’s reassuring to know that one of the country’s great social scourges is relenting. The decline in crime is occurring…

Abuse and Neglect in Programs for Troubled YouthGovernment Accountability OfficeThere have been thousands of allegations of abuse and neglect in residential treatment programs over the past two decades, including many deaths. Ineffective management and staff training typically played a role. Fraud and Abuse in the Head Start Program? Who Would Have Thought?Government Accountability OfficeIn 15…

Joseph E. Gagnon and Marc Hinterschweiger have gone where no man has gone before. Well, maybe not no man, but very few… I went there in my book “Boomergeddon,” but I’m not a trained economist so in the parlors of power I don’t count. In a new book, “The Global Outlook for Government Debt over…

In an article republished in today’s Bacon’s Rebellion newsletter (a product of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy), the Reason Foundation’s Bob Poole discusses the bankruptcy of two public-private partnership toll projects, one in Brisbane, Australia, and the other in San Diego. In both cases, taxpayers emerged whole. The bottom line here is that…

JARC Programs Making More Use of Federal FundsGovernment Accountability OfficeThe Job Access and Reverse Commute program helps low-income people get to work. The number of local grantees who let their funding lapse has shrunk in recent years, the GAO reports. Phew! For a while, I was really worried people might find their own rides.Same Day…

Always follow the Koch money. A two-year-old conservative outfit coyly named the “American Tradition Institute” has forced the University of Virginia to “cough up” thousands of emails through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit focusing on Michael Mann, a former U.Va. climatologist who has been hounded for more than a year for his research and…

The California School-Aid Deregulation ExperimentRand CorporationIn 2008, California’s legislature combined 50 K-12 school programs totaling $4.5 billion in spending, cut 20% and gave school districts more flexibility on how to spend what remained. Lesson learned: Set clearer goals. Spurring Growth through InnovationBrookings InstitutionWant to spur innovation in the U.S.? Stabilize the federal budget, support research…

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, and the American Tradition Institute (ATI) won a circuit court order Tuesday ordering the University of Virginia to disgorge emails and other communications sent and received by Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” graph. The graph, which purported to show a dramatic spike in global temperatures in the…

Reforming Virginia Health CareThe Virginia NewsletterFederal health care reform will have a big impact on Virginia by 2014. Here’s what the state is doing to get ready for it. Reform the Healthcare Payments SystemBrookings InstitutionIt is possible to tame rising healthcare costs without sacrificing quality: Change the payments system from a fee-for-service arrangement to one…