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When a rocket carrying the first module of the International Space Station blasted off from Kazakhstan in November of 1998, NASA officials said that the station would serve as an orbiting home for astronauts and cosmonauts for at least 15 years. It's now been over 18 years that the station has been continuously occupied by people. The place is impressive, with more living space than a six-bedroom house, two bathrooms and a large bay window for looking down at Earth. NASA and its international partners have spent decades and more than $100 billion to make the station a reality. The...

Did you hear the one about the TSA agent who stole $50,000 worth of electronics equipment from travelers by slipping iPads down his pants? Or the Phoenix-based TSA security director who deliberately increased screening wait times in order to justify increasing his own staff count? Or the TSA administrator who approved the practice of giving TSA trainees test answers in advance of their certification exams? ... The shutdown vividly demonstrates the need to fully privatize the Transportation Security Administration. Now there is the potential for a bipartisan consensus about doing just that. With a budget of $7.8 billion, TSA is...

Lawmakers and top military officials on Wednesday expressed fears that friction with Russia could someday leave the United States without the power to launch rockets into space. Reliance on a single Russian engine to launch many critical military satellites could come back to haunt the U.S., officials said, if tensions between the two nations continue to rise. “If you consider space a national security priority, then you absolutely have to consider assured access to space a national security priority,” Gen. William Shelton, commander of the Air Force’s space command, testified in a joint Senate committee hearing on Wednesday. “Given that...

As a mental challenge, try to think of all of the governmental activities — federal, state and local — that could be privatized. Now, go a step further. Suppose you were required to develop a plan to privatize, or make self-supporting through user fees, nearly every activity of government. Could you or a group of your friends do it? Try it. I expect your success will surprise you. The reason this is relevant is because most governments will reach their borrowing limits in the not-too-distant future, which means they will have to operate on current revenue from taxes and fees....

Federal officials reported flight delays at U.S. airports for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, fueling a political blame game as Republicans and Democrats accused each other of causing the furloughs of thousands of air-traffic controllers. On Capitol Hill and at the White House, the rhetoric over across-the-board federal budget cuts known as "sequestration" became increasingly biting. Both sides tried to take political advantage - and avoid responsibility - for cuts by the Federal Aviation Administration that officials say could plague the country's aviation system during the summer travel season.

Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools. The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others. Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.

A GREAT QUICK SUMMARY OF HOW TO PULL BACK FROM OBAMA ED. THE TWIN SISTER OF OBAMACARE. A lot of deals were made quickly. Arne Duncan showed up with suitcases of money. Race to the Top? Common Core Curriculum? Excuse me, I've become such a cynic. I don't believe any of this stuff will result in better schools.

There are 19 gym teachers in the Farmington School District who make more than $85,000 a year each. The average gym teacher's salary in Farmington is $75,035. By comparison, the science teachers in that district make $68,483 per year on average. That’s not unusual in Michigan schools, according to Freedom of Information Act requests received from around the state. In the Woodhaven-Brownstown district, 18.5 (FTE) science teachers average some $58,400 per year in salary, while 12 gym teachers averaged nearly $76,700. In Harrison, science teachers earned $49,000 on average while gym teachers averaged $62,000. This is not unusual, because school...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan thinks public-school teachers are “desperately underpaid” and has called for doubling teacher salaries. In a new paper co-authored with Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation, I look into whether teachers really are desperately underpaid, or underpaid at all. Jason and I find that the conventional wisdom is far off the truth. At first glance, public-school teachers definitely look underpaid. According to Census data, teachers receive salaries around 20 percent lower than similarly educated private-sector workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says teachers’ benefits are about the same as benefits in the private sector. But both the...

Maybe the problem is that kids are not taught personal pride and responsibility. Nowhere does the constitution say that your college loan must be paid for by the government. The pursuit of happiness means that you have the opportunity to succeed, not a guarantee that you will. The country and the world are in upheaval. You think if you make noise and cause havoc you can get your way. Good luck with that, you are adults now, take a shot at being one.

Of all the departments of our federal government, the most pointless and unconstitutional is the Department of Education. Since it was created back in 1976, test scores have shown no substantial improvements compared to all the money we are spending. If we are looking for ways to cut back our budget and the debt itself, one of the first places we should look is the Department of Education. The Department of Education's budget has increased over 300% from when it was first established. With this significant increase, one would logically think that test scores of American students would be increasing...

Before the creation of charter public schools in 1994, mere geography determined the education of Michigan’s public school pupils. Much like buying boots in the old Soviet Empire, parental choice was limited to accepting what the bureaucrats in the local education monopoly offered, or fleeing with the family across the border to another district (if you could afford it). Even today, a majority of charters have a wait list, and some must conduct lotteries to determine which parents get a choice over who teaches their kids. For last school year, one such lottery was used because a district had just...

When President Obama provides his roadmap for saving the economy, he needs to explain why it is bad to privatize Social Security but good to privatize military retirement, changing it from a government pension plan to a 401(k) investment program. And if this really is the key to economic solvency in the retirement system, then why not privatize Social Security as well? When things aren't broken, don't fix them. The all-volunteer military system still attracts some of our finest young people even though we have been at war for ten years. If a change to 401(k)s is a good idea,...

President Obama met with executives from the nation’s largest corporations and demanded large cash payments for education. Corporate bosses eagerly agreed to fork over what amounts to additional taxes for a schools system that does little to educate future employees. President Obama agreed to do nothing in return to improve the state of the public schools. He orated: “We’ll tell you what you need. Your job is to feel guilty and sign checks.” Corporate executives and government officials held hands and sang verses from Gilbert and Sullivan, with an especially rousing rendition of “We are the very model of a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Months after they hammered Democrats for cutting Medicare, House Republicans are debating whether to relaunch their quest to privatize the health program for seniors. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is testing support for his idea to replace Medicare with a fixed payment to buy a private medical plan from a menu of coverage options.

Which, if any, of the four options being looked at for privatizing the state liquor store system do you prefer? Privatize retail and wholesale operations and auction licenses to distributors and sellers of spirits. Retain control of retail and wholesale operations and use private retailers to sell spirits for the state Sell wholesale and retail rights to a corporate partner. Allow the more than 3,000 Virginia stores already licensed to sell wine and beer to also market liquor Make no changes.

When City Manager John Szerlag said he would consider privatizing all of Troy's city services, he said if the municipal departments could match the private company bids, he'd keep them. The city's building department, however, never bothered to even put in an official bid, Szerlag said. That's because a quick review found that every one of the 22 employees in the building department would have to take a 35 percent cut in pay, an option deemed unacceptable to the city employees, Szerlag said. From 2001 to 2009, the city's general fund had subsidized the building department to the tune of...

“Obama's NASA selection is a boost for manned spaceflight” proclaimed the headline to the May 24 Los Angeles Times story. Apparently, “the choice of astronaut Charles Bolden as NASA administrator reassures many who feared that Obama was lukewarm on future manned missions,” and is being interpreted as supporting NASA’s goal of humans once again going to the moon by 2020.“Clearly Charlie Bolden would not have taken the job if he were being asked to shut down human spaceflight," said John Logsdon, a space policy expert in Washington, according to the Times. If approved by the Senate to take the captain’s...

Blue Dogs look beyond '08 electionBy PATRICK O'CONNOR | 6/11/08 4:50 AM EST Democrat Jim Cooper is focused on the federal government’s swelling financial obligations. Photo: John Shinkle Rep. Jim Cooper never misses a chance to talk about the federal government’s swelling financial obligations. But the Tennessee Democrat clams up when asked about a conversation he had on the topic with his party’s likely presidential nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. “I’ll let his campaign speak to his position on this issue,” Cooper says. Cooper’s silence is understandable: Although the party that takes power next year will have to address deficit...

Canadians are losing faith in the health care system and are open to the possibility of private initiatives if their access to quick and effective treatment does not improve, according to a new survey. "If Canadians are not reassured that timely access is eventually going to happen, their support for this private option is likely to increase," said Marie Larose, vice-president of POLLARA Research, which conducted the 2005 Health Care in Canada Survey. "If politicians are not able to demonstrate that there are solutions, people are more and more going to turn to other answers." Fifty per cent of respondents...