Tag: Chris Braunlich
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Bait and Switch: Reform Reverts to Mo’ Money
By Chris Braunlich Some years back, I ran into a friend, a Virginia Education Association unit chair, outside the General Assembly building, there to lobby on behalf of a state-wide teacher salary increase.
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Analog Tax Policy is Harmful in a Digital World
By Chris Braunlich To many, testifying before a government committee conjures visions of the drama surrounding the McCarthy, Watergate, or Zuckerberg hearings. In Virginia, not so much. Faced with processing more than 2,600 bills in 60 days, the legislature conducts hearings that are often more of a kabuki dance, while backstage choreographers figure out the…
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Serious Tax Reform Addressing a Serious Problem
By Chris Braunlich The American linguist Yogi Berra once said of a New York City restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Overcrowding, however, isn’t what motivates a move to a state (or from a state). Those decisions are inspired by robust economic activity, jobs for residents, and a pathway for each generation to…
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Will the Left Repudiate this Evil?
(This column was published earlier today by The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy) by Chris Braunlich “You dance with the one who brung ya” goes one of the oldest sayings in politics. It means that when elected officials get into public office, they vote with those who helped put them there. The deadly Hamas…
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Local Government Unions Raise Your Taxes
By Chris Braunlich Subscribers to Netflix will soon see rate increases because of the Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA Hollywood strikes. Buyers of new and used cars will, as a result of the United Auto Workers strike, see prices go up as supply dwindles and costs rise. The current spate of labor actions – involving more than…
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Virginia Conservatives Need Political Infrastructure
By Chris Braunlich Governor Glenn Youngkin can take satisfaction from passage of the long-delayed Virginia budget. As my colleague Steve Haner points out, during his term of office Youngkin’s fight to increase the standard deduction will save the average Virginia couple up to $1,265 over three years, provide $900 in tax rebates, and eliminate the…
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Virginia’s New “The Stupid Party”
by Chris Braunlich From the ‘50s to the mid-‘70s, the Republican Party was known as “the stupid party” – locked in the past, making foolish decisions, promoting unwise and counterproductive policies. Today, in Virginia, “the stupid party” has returned. But it is no longer Republican. The current battle over Virginia’s budget and the prospects for…
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School Choice for Poor Still Hard Sell to Democrats
By Chris Braunlich On being told that peasants were starving for lack of bread, Marie Antoinette is reputed to have said “Let them eat cake.” Marie Antoinette had nothing on Delegate Suhas Subramanyam. At a House subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, Delegate Subramanyam was confronted with more than a dozen low-income families and Black community leaders…
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Bringing New Ideas to Education
by Chris Braunlich One of the challenges in public education – in any bureaucracy, public or private — is the tendency to establish an “echo chamber” of ideas. In public schools, this reinforces the loudest voices and makes it hard for creative educators or an informed citizenry to burst through with new ideas. In recent…
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Reject the Cut, Help the Students
by Chris Braunlich Cruise over to the website of Cristo Rey Richmond High School, and you’ll learn that all of the students there are from low-income families. You’ll also read about scores of national and local partnerships, providing hundreds of work-study opportunities to teach students the art and science of working in an office environment…
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Can Education Standards Be Brought Back?
by Chris Braunlich “… score standards were adopted that made it easier for students to pass; and changes in accreditation regulations let schools off the hook for their failures.” The words of Governor Glenn Youngkin at Thursday’s unveiling of a new report analyzing the decline of Virginia’s public education? Nope. They came from The Washington Post, in…
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A Bold Reform for Education Funding
by Chris Braunlich (Author’s Note: Eight years ago, we suggested incoming Governor Terry McAuliffe pursue a bold education funding reform that would modernize and supercharge Virginia’s education infrastructure. He chose not to. We offer it again, verbatim, to Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin … because we believe the idea crosses ideological lines and party divides and would…