Legislators have succeeded the past few years year in balancing Virginia’s budget during trying times without major tax increases (“fees” are a different matter). But a new report by the Commonwealth Institute contends that the current biennial budget falls $8 billion below pre-recession levels once spending is adjusted for the rising cost of providing services…

Back to one of my favorite themes… It is an article of faith in the higher education industry that tuition falls far short of what it costs to educate a student. The Dartmouth College Fund, for instance, claimed in fund-raising material that it charged only $49,974 for undergraduate tuition, room and board even though it…

In these days of budget buzz and deficit dallying, it is useful to consider just where things are in terms of wealth in the U.S. Nobel prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz presents some unsettling realities. While the Baconauts and Boomergeddons bemoan their idea that profligate spending and “Mass Overconsumption” (an EMR buzzword)…

Everyone knows that Virginia’s redistricting process is an abomination: an occasion for back-room deals in which the power brokers reward their friends, punish their enemies, protect incumbents, split municipalities between multiple representatives and effectively disenfranchise swaths of the electorate. But let’s see you do better. The Bipartisan Advisory Commission on Redistricting, chaired by Bob Holsworth,…

It’s nice to be proven right. I make a lot of predictions on this blog but most will not be proven right or wrong for many years, by which time everyone (including, probably, me) will have forgotten I ever made them. But once in a while a prediction comes true within my gnat-like memory span,…

Holy conservative! Richmond’s ruling elite is having a train wreck with the McDonnell Administration. After several years of pushing higher speed rail, Gov. Robert McDonnell’s secretary of transportation announced that the state would not be applying for some of the $2.4 billion made available for higher speed rail after Florida nixed such a project that…

Dana Milbank knows how to skewer pandering politicians of both political Clans. Milbank does it by using their own words. On 6 April Milbank did a fine job on the blue eyed wunderkind from the southern part of Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, Chair of the House of Representatives Budget Committee in “Paul Ryan picks a fight.”…

Why Colleges Grow Fat while Students StarveCenter for College Affordability & ProductivityColleges and universities capture the economic value of increased financial aid, so tuition and fees remain as unaffordable as ever. (See related Bacon’s Rebellion blog post below.)

The cost of higher education remains unaffordable to so many students because colleges and universities “capture” the benefits of financial aid (federal grants, veterans benefits, state grants and private grants) by increasing tuition and fees, argues a recent report, “How College Pricing Undermines Financial Aid,” issued by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The…

An Aussie organization called the Institute for Economics and Peace, publisher of the Global Peace Index, has now rolled out a American version, the United States Peace Index, that ranks the 50 states by their “peacefulness.” There are “hundreds of billions of dollars” of potential economic benefits associated with domestic tranquility, asserts the Institute, if…

More Poor in VirginiaThe Commonwealth InstituteThe recession pushed thousands of Virginians into poverty — college graduates were hardest hit. Breaking the “Whole School” ModelAmerican Enterprise InstituteAmerica’s centralized, one-size-fits-all schools are so 20th century. The future is in virtual schooling and customized education. Medicaid Expansion and Physician SupplyRobert Wood Johnson FoundationWhat happens when Obamacare expands the…

A commonly used measure of the tax burden is the average tax revenue a state and its localities collect per resident. But that’s not the same as the amount of taxes that residents actually pay. How can that be? Mark Robyn with the Tax Foundation provides the explanation in a new analysis: “Some states have…

This helps explains why the pressure for educational spending did not relent in Virginia over the past decade. I’d like to know what the demographers predict for the decade ahead. (The map comes from “America’s Diverse Future: Initial Glimpses of the U.S. Population from the 2010 Census” from the Brookings Institution.) Click on map for…

Metropolitan regions are the driving economic entities of the 21st century, supplanting the states and, given the gridlock in Washington, D.C., perhaps even the federal government. Who says? Not only our own Ed Risse, who has long contended that “New Urban Regions” are the fundamental economic building block of modern civilization, but Bruce Katz and…

Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food ProgramsCenter for Immigration StudiesIt’s pretty simple, really: Immigrants are poorer than native Americans. Poor people use more welfare. Ergo, Immigrants use more welfare.A New State of the StatesBrookings InstitutionIt’s time for states to rethink their purpose. In the 20th century,…