Free Republic

[Excerpting required] ...the task force would also help determine what programs should be created or bolstered in health care, transportation, housing, nutrition, education, recreation, employment and other areas. The General Assembly last year decided to re-establish the Department on Aging, which was disbanded in 1993 during budget cuts. Its administrative responsibilities were folded into the Department of Social Services, and a 17-member commission on aging was created as an independent advocacy group. Twenty-three states have separate departments on aging ...according to a 2005 report from Connecticut's Office of Legislative Research. --- "I get calls from all over the state from...

When he was named president of the Club for Growth (clubforgrowth.org) last year, Pat Toomey didn't need anyone to tell him how important it was having the Republican lobbying group on his side in a tight political race. When the former Lehigh Valley congressman almost unseated Arlen Specter in the Senate primary last spring, the club — which specializes in helping candidates who favor small government, free markets and low taxes — contributed nearly $1 million to his campaign. I asked Toomey about his new job and his future political plans, when I called him at his offices in Washington:...

Legislation Would Make Universal Basic Education a Major Foreign Policy Goal, Providing a new Tool Against Terrorism Washington, DC - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (NY-18) announced, today, the introduction of legislation that would focus U.S. attention on the need to provide all children around the world with a quality basic education. The Education for All Act of 2004 would do this by concentrating on policy, leadership and resources, three areas in which U.S. action has long been lacking. Senator Clinton believes that making universal basic education a major goal of U.S. foreign policy, the world...

Revive the Conservative Revolution by Stephen Moore Posted May 21, 2004 This summer, the famous Contract With America that swept Republicans into power in Congress in January 1995 turns ten years old. The contract was a bold and sweeping agenda to change the way government works in Washington. It included 10 major provisions, including welfare reform, rules to force Congress to live under the same laws as the rest of us, term limits, tax cuts, and, most importantly, budget reduction. In the memorable words of Newt Gingrich, the Republican revolutionary who inspired and led the Contract With America Revolution, Republicans...

Betraying the will of the people Posted: February 5, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger have done more to demoralize American voters than any two politicians in my lifetime. Both were elected with the promise of bringing real change to their respective offices – the presidency and the governorship of California. Their candidacies generated great excitement. Their elections brought great hope. But their actions suggest all they did was fool enough of the people to get their votes. And the people are catching on. George W. Bush promised to rein in spending. Instead, he...

Mars Looks Like Nevada I wish I could share the excitement the scientists obviously feel about the pictures from Mars, but they just look like Nevada to me. If they ever get air conditioning on Mars, maybe somebody will open a casino there. Actually, it's a great technical accomplishment, but the key question is, of what benefit is it to people on Earth? Perhaps we have gone from art for art's sake to science for science's sake and there are no public benefits at all. I don't believe in public subsidies for artists, and I don't believe in public subsidies...

Bush, Nixon & LBJ Posted: December 8, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Re-election year is shaping up as positively for George W. Bush as it did for LBJ in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972. Recall: Both LBJ and Nixon had engineered surging economies for the election year. Both held the face cards in foreign policy in wartime, with electorates wary of the perceived radicalism of their rivals. Both were facing opponents, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, who had been luridly painted as outside the mainstream. And both benefited from an opposition party polarized over its...

Richards delivers dynamite talk at TAMIU BY TRICIA CORTEZ Times staff writer Former Texas Governor Ann Richards delivered a scathing indictment of the Texas public education system Tuesday night, focusing on its accountability and high-stakes testing system that is now being implemented nationally under the No Child Left Behind Act. "The current No Child Left Behind is a lie. It is a total lie. We are leaving children behind right and left," Richards told a packed house of the Fine and Performing Arts Center at Texas A&M International University. "Do you know what the current education system is in the...

It is said that if a frog is put in a pot of hot water, he will jump out. But if he is put on a stove in a pot of cold water and the temperature is slowly turned up, he will boil to death instead of jumping out. Like the frog, American taxpayers are slowly being boiled to death in taxes but do not realize it. A Heritage Foundation study shows how much federal spending and taxes have increased over the years. It can be found at: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/fed_spend.pdf. Consider these alarming statistics from the study. (Figures are expressed in...

Not Your Daddy’s GOP Tuesday, July 09, 2002 - Commentary by Cal Skinner, Gubernatorial Candidate, Libertarian Party Some of us are old enough to know Kennedy Democrats who are now Republicans. They switched parties because the Democratic Party had left them and their values. I have a sense that the Illinois Republican Party has left me. It is no longer the party of reform or limited government. Let's face it. The Illinois GOP is not your Daddy's Republican Party. Jim Thompson made a reputation for putting crooked Chicago area politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- in jail during the...

President Bush devoted his Saturday radio address this week to home-ownership and, in particular, the racial "gap" therein. He declared that "while nearly three-quarters of all white Americans own their own homes, less than half of all African Americans and Hispanic Americans are homeowners." And so, of course, we must "close this home-ownership gap." Not only the government, but the private sector, must be mobilized "in a major nationwide effort to increase minority ownership." He gave a speech in Atlanta two days later to the same effect, adding a graceless attempt to tie home-ownership to the war on terrorism. (I...