Two recent actions by the McDonnell Administration raise questions about just how much state public education is being short-changed by el-cheapo spending practices. First, Gov. Bob McDonnell vetoed a bill that would have expanded to 150 minutes a week the required physical education that children in lower and middle schools would get. The average now…

Here’s a news item you aren’t likely to see in “Boomergeddon:” U.S. industrial behemoth General Electric paid no taxes in 2010. That’s right: zippo, nada, nichevo. How can it be? As the Boomergeddons and Baconauts complain, we’re heading towards financial meltdown in terms of deficits and debt. Their culprits are entitlement programs, the Washington establishment,…

(Let me introduce my latest op-ed piece in the Washington Times with the observation that the preferred U.S. path to “energy independence” is conservation — not just higher mileage standards or electric vehicles but “deep” conservation enabled by the reform of human settlement patterns. But that’s not something that can be explained in a 750-word…

Today is the first anniversary of Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Health Care for America Act. And despite the Sound and the Fury, basic problems still remain unsolved. Over the past year, there’s been plenty of gnashing of teeth, mostly from the GOP, well-funded by the managed care industry, which wants Obamacare repealed or…

NOTE ON JIM BACON’S COMMENT Jim Bacon made and important comment on the 18 March A WRAP post. That post now has a number of comments and has slipped into history status. This response would require at least five comments due to the limit on comment length of Blogger so it is a new posted.…

The United States has the most progressive tax system among the Organization for Economic Collaboration and Development states. Says who? Says OECD, which, the last time I checked, was not a mouthpiece for the Koch brothers. The top richest decile earns 33.5% of the national income and pays 45.1% of personal income taxes, for a…

The University of Northern Virginia (UNVA) does business in Annandale, but you won’t find it listed on the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia’s list of accredited private colleges and universities. It’s one of an increasing number of unaccredited institutions that cater to foreign students, mostly Indian, who want to gain admittance to the…

EMR agrees with Observer’s comment on the “Batten Down the Hatches” (16 March) post: Disappointed that Mr. Bacon did not come back refreshed and with a clear perspective on the world and what will put humans on the sustainable trajectory. More on that in a copy of a note EMR received from MGM included below.…

At the suggestion of Groovey G. Groveton, I am creating an open thread. For those of you (I have Larry G. and Ray Hyde in mind) who like to carry on conversations that often range off topic from the original post, feel free to blast away.

The following essay was published in the Winter 2011 edition of Virginia Capital Connections. It serves as a useful reminder of the fact that the looming insolvency of the federal government, and of state governments dependent upon federal largesse, is not some fable foisted upon the American public by shadowy, union-busting billionaires as some commentators…

A nice person wouldn’t kick a man when he’s out of town. Not me. The argument about teachers’ unions and collective bargaining is too intriguing and too important especially since the right-wing crowd of Libertarians and standard Republicans have suddenly made public school teachers and other public workers the sudden targets of their drive-by shootings.…

The Tea Party movement in Virginia has a new whipping boy: smart growth. One focus is Chesterfield County, the largest suburban area in the state capital region which has been beset with the woes of overbuilding and lax oversight for decades. That doesn’t faze a Tea Party offspring that calls itself the Virginia Campaign for…

You guys won’t have Bacon to kick around anymore… at least for a while. The Bacon family is off to Hawaii. So long, suckers! Update: I know you all were worried… But Bacon & family did survive the tsunami. We were sleeping on a cruise liner on the southeast coast of Kaua’i, opposite from the…

From my op-ed today in the Washington Times: There is much more at stake in the showdown between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the public-employee unions than negotiations over pay scales or even the extravagant pension costs that threaten to drive the state into insolvency. The sleeper issue, the one that could have the biggest…

Since the fifth post on INFRASTRUCTURE that was just put up is intended primarily for Groveton and Larry G., EMR took the opportunity to post AZA’s revision of his AntiPartisan comment on the Virginia “Official” Saltwater Fish” post by Peter Galuszka on 23 February. For the background on AZA’s AntiPartisan agenda see the comments by…