Free Republic

A Michigan Education Association video that says schools are getting less money under Gov. Rick Snyder does not tell the whole truth about education funding. In the video, "The Truth About Funding," MEA labor economist Ruth Beier repeats the union's inaccurate claim that school funding is lower today than before Gov. Snyder took office. Never mind that the non-partisan Senate Fiscal Agency reports that the state has increased state funding for K-12 schools. School funding and number of students in Michigan. In the video, Beier cites a reduction in per-pupil revenue and says: "Let me give you the facts …"...

The University of Minnesota, which was criticized last year by a Wall Street Journal report for its administrative spending, is now slammed by a left-leaning think tank for the same thing. The Star Tribune has the story on U of M president's Eric Kaler's reaction to a report by the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, which put the school among the worst offenders of what it called "administrative bloat" at the expense of things like financial aid. His reaction: The report is "dead wrong." Kaler said that the U of M has increased financial aid "substantially." Read the University of...

Gov. Chris Christie’s foreign policy speech Sunday night is facing some criticism at home — from a fellow Republican. State Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Warren), one of the most conservative New Jersey lawmakers, said Christie’s vision for America’s role in the world is unsustainable. “During his speech yesterday, Governor Christie advocated for an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy,” Doherty wrote in an email to the Star-Ledger. “He sounds like a Woodrow Wilson progressive who is out of step with the views of the American people.”

Members of Congress fly across the country continually for business, but a new bill would keep them from spending taxpayer money on first-class seats. The "If Our Military Has to Fly Coach Then So Should Congress Act" was recently introduced by Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), with his colleagues Reps. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and John Barrow (D-Ga.). The bill is aimed at cutting "waste, fraud and abuse," according to a statement by Rep. Gosar. "Members of Congress should not be using taxpayers' hard-earned money to buy luxury airline seats. If members of our military can't fly first...

Many who advocate for perpetual increases in education spending believe that greater K-12 funding leads to better educational results. But looking at states across the nation shows this is not the case. In fact, most states that spend less on K-12 education than Michigan perform better — many significantly better. And analyzing gains in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that lower-spending states are making the largest educational gains. Three states of particular note are Tennessee, Indiana and Florida. According to the NAEP, these states were among the top six in the nation for achieving net gains for...

(CNSNews.com) – The United States Agency for International Development is planning to spend $24.5 million to circumcise an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 male infants and males aged 10 to 49 in the kingdom of Swaziland by 2018. The Kingdom of Swaziland has the highest rates of HIV in the world, accounting for 31 percent HIV prevalence among adults, the grant said.

<p>Employees at an ObamaCare processing center in Missouri with a contract worth $1.2 billion are reportedly getting paid to do nothing but sit at their computers.</p> <p>“Their goals are set to process two applications per month and some people are not even able to do that,” a whistleblower told KMOV-TV, referring to employees hired to process paper applications for ObamaCare enrollees.</p>

The Census Bureau just released a report on America’s aging population. The big takeaway is that our population will be getting much older between now and 2050. And since I’m a baby boomer, I very much like the fact that we’re expected to live longer. But as a public finance economist, I’m not nearly as happy. As I explain in this interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Digital Network (and as confirmed by BIS, OECD, and IMF data), the United States is going to get deluged by a tsunami of entitlement spending. I mentioned that it’s important to focus on...

Obama administration travel and vacation documents were released yesterday by Judicial Watch, and they reveal an unprecedented level of executive branch leisure spending. According to public information: “As of 2001, the president earns a $400,000 annual salary, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 for entertainment. The most recent raise in salary was approved by Congress and President Bill Clinton in 1999 and went into effect in 2001.” Obtained via a Freedom of Information request, here are some of the Obama presidency’s spending items: Since 2009, a total of $40,000,000 has been spent....

Give it a little time and it’ll be $530,000. We’re heading down a rabbit hole with people who print money for a living. Taxpayers will pay over $53,000 per each person newly insured under Obamacare, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the Congressional Budget Office data.The CBO predicts that on average, federal taxpayers will now pay over 95% of the total cost of the Medicaid expansion. Fewer than expected Americans who were already eligible for traditional state Medicaid programs signed up for coverage while programs received free publicity due to the furor over the Medicaid expansion, leading...

As President Obama so peevishly informed us all earlier this month, that the debate on repealing/replacing ObamaCare is now absolutely beyond contestation, so it would be really great if we could all just shut up and move on to more important things — like, say, the economy, because “the fifty or so votes Republicans have taken to repeal this law could have been fifty votes to create jobs by investing in things like infrastructure, more innovation.” That’s why the White House is leading by example and contrasting itself with Congress’s deliberately light legislative schedule — by proposing the same old...

Spending on health care grew an astounding 9.9% in the Bureau of Economic Analysis' advance estimate of first-quarter GDP. It's the biggest percent change in health-care spending since 1980, when health-care spending jumped 10% in the third quarter. Analysts said it's primarily due to a consumption boost from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Adjusted for inflation, America is spending more on health care than ever before.Personal consumption grew by 3.0%, about half of which was due to the growth in health-care spending, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics. "If health-care spending had been unchanged, the headline GDP growth number would have...

The St. Paul teachers’ contract may have an unwanted side effect: Limiting school spots for the city’s integration effort. The class-size lim­its her­ald­ed as a key fac­et of the new St. Paul public schools teachers contract are com­pli­cat­ing ef­forts to boost en­roll­ment and blunt­ing an in­itia­tive de­signed to in­te­grate some of the district’s most popu­lar schools. That initiative, Re­flect­ing St. Paul, was launched this school year and seeks to open seats in 11 schools to stu­dents from neighborhoods with low­er in­comes, high­er per­cent­ages of non-Eng­lish-speak­ing families and low­er test scores. Under the program, the stu­dents, many from mi­nor­i­ty groups, are...

Mother Jones does love found footage, doesn't it? The progressive mag's airing of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comments at a fundraiser definitely hurt the former Massachusetts governor in his attempt to boot President Obama in 2012. Now Mojo is back with the vid above, which the mag must hope will discombobulate Republicans and help put the brakes on a libertarian-leaning senator whose anti-war and anti-NSA stances draw long looks from disaffected liberals and lefties."Rand Paul: Jimmy Carter was better on the budget than Ronald Reagan" is how the vid begins. It shows the Kentucky senator in a variety of settings...

Breitbart News and others have chronicled the "Unmatched failure" that Cover Oregon has now officially become. As was pointed out on March 20 of this year, "The Oregon Obamacare exchange has received $305 million in taxpayer-funded federal grants, spent $160 million on its busted website, dropped $10 million on hipster promotional ads, erroneously enrolled 4,000 illegal immigrants in full Oregon Health Plan coverage contrary to federal law, and has not enrolled a single Oregonian online." Oregon was even given "a $48 million "early innovator" grant for states whose exchanges were intended to serve as models for the nation." While the...

Failed government subsidies have existed in U.S. history from George Washington to Barack Obama. But what's especially remarkable about the stream of government aid — subsidies to the fur trade, steamships, railroads, airplanes, and even ethanol today — is that private citizens, with no federal funds, almost always outperform the men whom the government endows with large chunks of cash. In the first years of the American Republic, John Jacob Astor owned a fur company that defeated a government-funded rival — supported by George Washington himself. Astor actively traded with Indians instead of trying to tell them what they wanted...

Remember President Obama's vow that, if re-elected, he'd pursue "balanced" deficit reduction? Either he forgot, or he hopes voters have, because a new report shows his latest budget is entirely unbalanced. When Obama released his budget this March, he said it included "smart spending cuts" and closed "tax loopholes" that benefit only "the wealthiest Americans." Obama added that his budget would put "our debt on a downward path as a share of our total economy, which independent experts have set as a critical target for fiscal responsibility." As with just about everything Obama says, none of these claims turns out...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says President Barack Obama's budget request would mean significantly larger budget deficits than the White House claims. CBO says the budget plan proposed last month by Obama would produce deficits of $6.6 trillion over the next 10 years — $1.6 trillion more than the White House estimates. The main reason is that the White House has a rosier estimate of the economy's performance over the decade than CBO. That means the administration predicts higher tax revenues. The president's budget is just a proposal; it has gained little...

(CNN) – Hoping to help close the gap between workers' skills and the needs of businesses, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will announce he's putting hundreds of millions toward job training programs that produce highly skilled workers. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will head to a community college in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to make the announcement. The funding will come in two parts: $500 million toward a new job training competition that pairs community colleges with businesses, and $100 million for new apprenticeship programs to train workers. The White House says the new initiatives are meant to combat a...

The federal Medicare health insurance program winds up paying the fare for many of the ambulance rides provided by the city of St. Paul. That's why the city in 2012 was one of the largest single recipients of Medicare payments among non-hospital health care providers in the state, according to data released this month by the federal government. Out of more than 19,000 health care providers during 2012 who cared for Medicare patients in Minnesota, the city's take of more than $2 million was the ninth largest individual sum. Whether they were providing ambulance rides or treating illnesses, the state's...