Free Republic

We know illegal immigration is no longer really unlawful, but is it moral? Usually Americans debate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. Supporters of open borders rightly remind us that illegal immigrants pay sales taxes. Often their payroll-tax contributions are not later tapped by Social Security payouts. Opponents counter that illegal immigrants are more likely to end up on state assistance, are less likely to report cash income, and cost the state more through the duplicate issuing of services and documents in both English and Spanish. Such to-and-fro talking points are endless. So is the debate over beneficiaries of illegal...

In the City of Jackson, the discussion at city hall involves cutting police and fire by as many as 35 positions while the city runs two public pools that are swimming in red ink. Jackson is among many cities in the state that operates recreational opportunities - at a loss - while other core services are put on the chopping block. According to the city's budget, Jackson lost about $132,000 in 2008-09 by operating its two pools. The city also lost another $7,500 on its golf center. Jackson owns one 18-hole golf course, but its expenses are grouped in with...

The big aircraft maker Boeing Co. says "cost pressures" from the new health care law are part of the reason it's asking employees to pay more for their medical benefits next year. In a letter mailed to employees late last week, Boeing said deductibles and copayments are going up significantly for some 90,000 nonunion workers. The company cited three major reasons for the cost shift, including untamed health care inflation, the effects of the new law, and lifestyle issues including being overweight and lack of exercise. Spokeswoman Karen Forte said Boeing is concerned that its relatively generous plan will get...

President Obama prom ised that his health reform would "fix" our rising med ical costs and a growing legion of uninsured Americans priced out of coverage. Fix it in which direction? Data out last week shows that the price of insurance is rising even faster than before, the number of uninsured Americans is spiraling upward, and the choices people have of doctors and health plans are being sharply constrained as a result. Welcome to ObamaCare, Year One. This is the change we should start believing in. The Obama team blames the recession or the "greedy" insurance industry for these ills....

Rate Increases Are Blamed on Health-Care Overhaul; White House Questions Logic Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums on some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul as soon as next month, complicating Democrats' efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators. These and other insurers say Congress's landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a...

Amid high unemployment and a weak economy, employers have been shifting health care costs to workers, according to a study released Thursday. The premiums that employees pay for employer-sponsored family coverage rose an average of 13.7 percent this year, while the amount that employers contribute fell by 0.9 percent, the survey found. For family coverage, workers are paying an average of $3,997, up $482 from last year, while employers are paying an average of $9,773, down $87, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

As the educational establishment makes every effort to push Western Civilization down a memory hole, a hearty band of activists is proving, once again, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. One of these brave souls is Leigh A. Bortins, a home-schooling mom who started her own company in order to show the parents of public, private and home-schooled children how to pass a classical education through the generations. Two tips that the CEO and founder of Classical Conversations, Inc., passed on in a recent appearance at the Heritage Foundation: * Have your kids draw maps;...

College is back in session, and students have a bigger voice than ever on the topic of costly textbooks. University of Arizona students start classes today. Pima Community College students will go back to class on Wednesday. Here are three new trends that students will see in the changing world of college textbooks. 1. Book prices are listed in class schedules - by law Federal law now requires publishers to disclose textbook prices to professors and requires them to sell compact discs and other extras separately instead of as a bundle. It also requires colleges to list the prices of...

If Congress pushes through amnesty, hold onto your wallets. Taxpayers will get robbed and illegal aliens rewarded. The 11 million illegal aliens who get legalized will then qualify for many taxpayer-funded government programs, including health premium subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid. This redistribution of wealth will add billions to the government’s red ink—not to mention deprive productive Americans of their own money. To get a handle on the size of amnesty’s fiscal consequences, consider the impact on a single program: Medicaid.

There's a big push in some corners of the US transportation industry to "bring high speed rail to America". Visions of relaxed, latte-sipping trips over the nation, no lines for security, low cost trips are certainly heady ideas, but do they bear out? Let's take a critical, cold, calculating look at the reality of the situation. As many know, I split my time between the US (Seattle, WA area) and Asia (predominantly Shanghai, China). China's been on a high speed rail building frenzy recently, and there are thousands of kilometers of line laid, with thousands more to come. Soon most...

An attempt in Scott County to tally up the price of illegal immigrants who break the law is being both praised and panned. In response to inquiries from two county commissioners who face reelection challenges this year, County Attorney Pat Ciliberto told the County Board not long ago that it costs a fortune. University of Minnesota immigration expert Katherine Fennelly said the county's top prosecutor is "creating lots of smoke where there's no fire."

The actuary for Oregon's Public Employee Retirement System confirmed Friday what is already a common-knowledge piece of the state's looming budget shortfall: the cost of funding PERS will increase sharply in 2011. As of Dec 31, the retirement system had 76 cents in assets for every $1 in liabilities, excluding prepaid contributions. The system's investments declined about 1 percent year through May 31, Mercer said. If they finish the year at this level, the system's overall funded status, excluding prepaid contributions, will decline to about 70 percent

Oregon Public Employee Retirement Costs Will DOUBLE Next Year Mike "Mish" Shedlock Jul. 24, 2010, 10:08 AM OregonLive reports PERS rates for state agencies will more than double in 2011. The actuary for Oregon's Public Employee Retirement System confirmed Friday what is already a common-knowledge piece of the state's looming budget shortfall: the cost of funding PERS will increase sharply in 2011. Mercer Inc. told the PERS board Friday that systemwide, the payroll rates paid by cities, counties, school districts and state agencies to cover their employees' pension and health care benefits will more than double in 2011, from their...

The fundamental problem with our national intelligence system is that it assumes that quantity can substitute for quality. The result is a vast, expensive network that's far less than the sum of its parts. It's as if the Yankees, stung by a string of losing seasons, avoided seeking out talented ballplayers in favor of hiring a thousand Little Leaguers (at major-league salaries). This week, The Washington Post has done something of a service with a series of articles, "Top Secret America," chronicling the lack of accountability in our intelligence community. The analysis is a bit superficial, but diligent reporting drives...

Does President Obama have any idea what's in his own health-care reform law? Since he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a bit more than 100 days ago, the president has given a number of speeches and interviews in which he continues to say things that, well, just aren't so. Just last Friday, he told MSNBC's Chuck Todd that the law "not only makes sure everybody has access to coverage but is reducing costs." Wrong on both counts. The bill doesn't come close to giving "everybody" access to coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 10 years from...

London is an amazing place, full of vitality, intensity, foreign tourists and residents, a patchwork of pluralism. Talk to the average person, and nothing seems amiss: this cab driver, having driven in London for 40 years, sees no significant change in the neighborhoods he travels through; this financier sees no signs of intimidation; this shopper, this tavern-hopper, this man on the bus, lives in an interesting and relatively normal world. A superficial walk through the [Regent’s] park gives the distinct sense of normality. But talk to the Jews, and you get a different story. The International Association of Jewish Lawyers...

Link only: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100623/NEWS01/6230331/1006/rss01

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health insurers are raising prices by an average of 20 percent for adults age 64 and younger who buy their own policies, according to a survey released by a nonprofit healthcare group on Monday. Such premium cost increases affected more than three-quarters of the 14 million adults who buy their own health plans and caused some to either seek a cheaper option with fewer benefits or switch insurers altogether, the Kaiser Family Foundation study showed. The findings come as the Obama administration works with insurers to implement some of the new rules under the recently passed...

So why do government hammers cost $1000.00? I recently came across a document prepared by a federal agency for a small construction job. This is not for any building of significance, in fact there is a provision that the main work is to be completed within two weeks. I took a brief look at this document (it’s an inch thick) and was amazed, though not surprised at what I found.

In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true. Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most...