Free Republic

Negotiations over increasing Illinois' payments to Medicaid providers have failed, opening the door for a U.S. judge to force the cash-strapped state to pay as much as $1 billion a month to ensure medical care continues for the program's three million recipients, according to a court filing on Monday. The move would cause a huge problem for the state, which has accumulated a $15 billion bill backlog due to a budget stalemate between its Republican governor and Democrats who control the legislature. It could force Illinois to stop making full payments on other state-mandated or court-ordered spending such as pensions...

This spring, political officials at the Environmental Protection Agency removed the agency’s climate change website, one of the world’s top resources for information on the science and effects of climate change. To me, a scientist who managed this website for more than five years, its removal signifies a declaration of war on climate science by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. There can be no other interpretation. I draw this conclusion as a meteorologist with a specialization in climate science and as an independent voter who strives to keep my political and scientific views separate. I concede that this specific issue is...

Senate Republicans, who have promised a repeal of the Affordable Care Act for seven years, took a major step on Thursday toward that goal, unveiling a bill to cut Medicaid deeply and end the health law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance. The 142-page bill would create a new system of federal tax credits to help people buy health insurance, while offering states the ability to drop many of the benefits required by the Affordable Care Act, like maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment. The Senate bill — once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health...

Wonder why your flight is late? Why planes keep circling? Why even after you've landed, you sometimes can't deplane? Bad weather plays a role, but flying is also nastier because American airports use 50-year-old technology. This shouldn't surprise us. Government bureaucracies are always slow. That's as true on the tarmac as everywhere else. It's not Federal Aviation Administration workers' fault. They're just following the government rulebook that says you must not change something without getting permission first. You must not buy anything without going through cumbersome acquisitions regulations. The FAA's new NextGen system was designed to make the system more...

Laura Reston and Sara Jones wrote an April piece in the New Republic about why Appalachia needs big government. In the article, they lay out why the Appalachian Regional Commission, or ARC, is an example of big government at its best. And with Trump’s budget taking aim at this extra layer of government bureaucracy, the authors declare that the president has abandoned this part of the country that helped propel him to victory last fall. Places like Hancock County, Tennessee, have seen manufacturing jobs disappear over the last decade. Plants are moving to China. Coal jobs are vanishing. Since Hillary...

State Sen. Toni Atkins stood on a stage outside the Capitol last month and made the case for a Democratic-backed bid to transform California’s health care system into something that’s never been done in the U.S. “People shouldn’t have to experience anxiety over whether they’ll be covered based on who’s in the White House,” Atkins, D-San Diego, told a crowd of nurses and health care advocates who were cheering her on. “It’s time to cover everybody once and for all.” With Obamacare under assault in Washington by Republicans who see it as a broken system that hamstrings people with high...

European countries and major corporations are pressuring President Donald Trump to remain in the Paris climate agreement despite his promises on the campaign trail to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era deal that never gained congressional approval.The Trump administration so far is sticking with being undecided—at least until Trump returns to the United States from his first foreign trip, where on Friday, he’s meeting with Group of Seven ally countries, which support the agreement.Back home, the pressure is growing from multinational corporations, even the energy sector, which have opposed stricter limitations on carbon.Exxon Mobil Corp., once run by Trump’s...

Big Government: You can tell whether a spending agreement is good or bad based on who is smiling: the swamp dwellers, or those who want to drain the swamp. This budget made the swamp dwellers very happy. Shortly after announcing a $1.1 trillion — with a "t" — spending deal to fund the federal government's domestic and military programs for the next five months, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a "very good deal for the American people." House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said it "reflects Democrats' values to protect health care, environment and education." Senate Majority Leader Mitch...

A bill aimed at improving patient care and staffing at 560 California dialysis clinics that serve more than 63,000 patients is threading its way through the state Legislature despite sharp opposition from some in the industry. Authored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, the measure has been fueled by dialysis workers in California who have been attempting to unionize through SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. SB 349 calls for a staffing ratio of one registered nurse for every eight dialysis patients, one technician for every three patients and one social worker for every 75 patients. It also mandates a 45-minute...

Big Government: We hear endless lamentations about the alleged gender pay gap. But what about the other, very real, pay gap? The one where government workers make far more than their private sector counterparts. To get a clear picture of public-private pay gap, the Congressional Budget Office looked at pay scales from 2011 through 2015, controlling for things like location, occupation, veteran status, demographics, as well as education. It found that among those with a high school diploma, federal civilian workers earned 34% more, on average, than similar workers in the private sector. But government workers also get benefits that...

On Friday, April 7th, Congress left town for two weeks for Easter vacation. When they return to work on April 25th, they will have only four days to pass a bill to continue funding the federal government or there will be a government shutdown starting on the 29th. Will we change the status quo or enjoy yet another shutdown of the federal government and watch the politicians attempt to spin it to their advantage? We’ll find out at the end of this month, on exactly the 100th day of the Trump presidency. Thanks Obama… Herbert Stein, an American economist and...

The city of Oakland’s website was down Thursday for some Internet users because the city had not renewed its domain name, spokeswoman Karen Boyd said. People trying to access oaklandnet.com were met a placeholder page for a domain registration site, which read, “back order domain, renew now.” The city’s information technology department has renewed the domain name “but it takes time to propagate” to all the servers, Boyd said.

Joann Davis had a moon rock. Yes, it was real. A gift, she said, from Neil Armstrong to her late husband. She also had an ill son and the Lake Elsinore resident wanted to help with his medical care. So she contacted NASA about her intention to sell it. That led to a nightmare situation on May 19, 2011, when Davis stood in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in pants soaked in urine, answering questions from a federal agent about a rice-sized piece of moon. “He kept saying, ‘You will be going to federal court, you will be...

Bureaucracy: With surprisingly little fanfare, President Trump has set about doing something that has evaded presidents of both parties for decades: reshaping, resizing and reforming our vast, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy. If he succeeds, all Americans will be the better for it. It's not an easy task. But it is a vital one. Last Wednesday, the ball really got rolling when Trump ended his temporary freeze on federal hiring, and announced a plan to "resize" the government to make it less costly, more productive and more responsive to average citizens. It's the kind of thing that private businesses do all the...

California cities and counties will see their required contributions to the largest U.S. pension fund almost double in five years, according to an analysis by the California Policy Center. Including the costs paid by cities and counties that run their own systems, the fiscal 2018 tab will be at least $13 billion to meet retirement obligations for public workers, according to the analysis, which is based on actuarial reports and audited financial statements. Barring any changes to pensions, "several California cities and counties will find themselves forced to slash other spending," the group wrote in its report. "The less fortunate...

New York would be the first state to make tuition at public colleges and universities free for middle-class students under a state budget set for passage in Albany. The plan crafted by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo would apply to any New York student whose family has an annual income of $125,000 or less. To qualify the student would have to meet certain class load and grade point average restrictions, and room and board would not be covered. Cuomo said Sunday that the tuition plan, which his office has estimated to cost $163 million, is a national first.

Evidence has emerged of an economic dark side to San Diego’s decision last year to vault over the state minimum wage — it may have already destroyed thousands of jobs for low-wage workers even as higher pay helps tens of thousands of others. Consider the restaurant industry, for example, which economists study because it relies on low-wage workers. Amid an abrupt slowdown in growth, nearly 4,000 food-service jobs may have been cut or not created throughout San Diego County from the beginning of 2016 through February of this year. “This was at a time when both overall economies performed similarly...

However, another rule is set to take effect soon that might just take the cake. Or pizza, in this case: The nation’s franchise restaurants are about one month away from the imposition of new nutritional-labeling rules dreamed up by the Obama administration, another gift of the grievously misnamed Affordable Care Act. For outlets of brands with 20 or more locations, that means posting signs in the shop with calorie counts for every item on the menu and for every variation on that item. That’s probably not such a big deal if you are, say, Raising Cane’s, and your menu ranges...

Cut taxes. Reduce the tax burdens of the American people. Shelve hair-brained schemes like accrual accounting and FACTA whose sole purpose is to please the accountants at the CBO. Follow the Reagan model. It has a proven record of success Obamacare repeal was supposed to be an easy lift. For seven years, every Republican in Washington pledged to repeal and replace the law that has greatly damaged our health care system. Yet when it was time for a vote, political and legislative realities hit them in the face. Enacting legislation, even when in the majority, is never easy. While the...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said he would not back slashing State Department funding as the Trump administration is expected to propose, adding that deep cuts would not pass the legislative chamber. Speaking to reporters, McConnell also said Republicans, who control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, are still not in agreement on a healthcare plan to replace Obamacare.