Free Republic

Government spending on the elderly continues to climb. Fueled by rapid growth in the number of Americans over age 65 and increased spending on benefits per person, public expenditures devoted to the elderly continue to edge up. A crucial question for future policymaking is whether rising outlays on programs for the aged will squeeze out spending on programs for children, especially investments in their schooling. Many pessimists think this outcome is inevitable, and they urge us to reduce government commitments to the elderly to make room for spending on the young. Federal spending is especially concentrated on the elderly. The...

A measure introduced in the Michigan House earlier this year could start the process of making an exception to the state constitution’s ban on taxpayer support for nonpublic schools. Specifically, the end result would be allowing parents to send their children with special needs to private or religious schools using tax dollars. The state would cover the cost for each child, up to the amount it would have paid for educating that at a public school. Such a change would require the approval of voters in a statewide election, and if the Legislature approves HJR B, voters would face that...

Consumers confidence fell in November to the lowest level in more than a year, a survey shows. The consumer confidence index dropped to 90.4 from a revised 99.1 in October, the Conference Board said Tuesday. That's the lowest level since September 2014. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected the index to rise to 100. The present situation index, a measure of current conditions, dropped to 108.1 from 114.6. .... "The decline was mainly due to a less favorable view of the job market," said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at board. The number of people who said jobs were...

When Congress left town for the August recess, it did so without coming to an agreement on a long-term transportation bill. Instead, the president signed a three-month extension that set the stage for another showdown this fall. More than 30 such temporary extensions have passed since the last multi-year transportation bill expired in 2011. The inability of Congress to come together to pass a transportation package has frustrated the myriad special interests whose lobbyists want assurances that the dollars will keep flowing for years, and not just months, to come. And the media, which seldom miss an opportunity to push...

olorado Springs police officers will not be required to take a physical fitness test this year, and those who failed it last year will no longer face penalties, pending the outcome of a discrimination lawsuit 12 female officers have filed. The city of Colorado Springs and its police department agreed on Friday to all conditions the plaintiffs sought in a preliminary injunction, and on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch ordered the demands be met.

As he made clear, he's not going to 'pay' for more big government business as usual. At the CNBC debate on October 28, Ted Cruz 97%released his tax reform proposal, which I believe is the best of all the presidential candidates' plans. At Tuesday night's debate, Cruz released a spending reduction plan showing how he will pay for the tax cut involved in the tax reform plan. For the individual income tax under his tax reform, Cruz's plan provides for one flat rate of 10% on everything – wages, capital gains, dividends, personal business income, rent, interest, and all other...

In a shocking admission for most of mainstream America, the former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the oft-cited figure of $18 trillion, thanks to unfunded liabilities which simply cannot be ignored. As The Hill reports, unless economic growth accelerates, he warns, "you’re not going to be able to provide the kind of social safety net that we need in this country," adding unequivocially that Americans have "lost touch with reality" when it comes to spending.As The Hill reports, Dave Walker, who headed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under Presidents...

The Senate approved the horrible budget deal last night while most of us were asleep at 3am: Ted Cruz last night called this budget deal a corrupt betrayal of the people as he spoke over an hour and a half. The vote was mostly Democrats voting to pass it but a fair number of Republicans voted for it as well. Here's how they voted: YEAs: 64 Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Baldwin (D-WI) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Booker (D-NJ) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Capito (R-WV) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Coons (D-DE)...

The leader of a key Michigan House budget committee said it’s time to take a look at how public schools are funded in Michigan. In a story posted on the MLive news site, Rep. Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, was apparently pointing to Benton Harbor Area Schools as evidence of shortcomings in the Proposal A school funding system that was approved by Michigan voters in 1994. “Take a look at Proposal A? I think that's a great question, and I think that's something we ought to look at,” said Pscholka, who is chair of the House Appropriations Committee. “ ... I've got...

Congress may be (but it isn’t known when) preparing to override President Barack Obama’s decision to veto a $612B defense bill. Obama’s reasoning for vetoing the bill: it doesn’t have enough money. Number one, it keeps in place the sequester that is inadequate for us to properly fund our military in a stable, sustained way and allows all of our armed forces to plan properly. I have repeatedly called on Congress to eliminate the sequester and make sure that we’re providing certainty to our military so they can do out-year planning, ensure military readiness, ensure our troops are getting...

It hasn’t gotten much attention, but two big budget showdowns are looming in Washington in the weeks ahead. The first is what to do about raising the $18 trillion debt ceiling. And the second is whether to retain the spending caps/sequester cuts in the 2016 budget.[snip]President Obama has made his demands clear. He wants to bust the spending caps this year and he wants a debt ceiling extension from Congress with no strings attached.[snip]Some on the left argue that we should not even have a federal debt ceiling — that the government should have a rubber stamp to borrow at...

Per student spending by public schools in the District of Columbia outstrips that of all 50 states. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, as of 2012, D.C. was annually spending a total of $25,038 per pupil. Nevertheless, in 2013 Colorado-based Augenblick, Palaich and Associates – the firm recently chosen to produce an upcoming education funding “adequacy” study for the State of Michigan – released a report claiming that D.C. wasn’t spending enough. APA’s Washington funding study concluded that to adequately educate students D.C. needs to increase the amount of funding it provides by 22.1 percent. The study concluded:...

Clintondale Community Schools has been in continuous deficit-spending mode dating back to 2005-06. The Macomb County district was not contrite in explaining nine consecutive years of being unable to balance its budget. On a form required by Michigan Department of Education, the school district’s administration defiantly gives this reason for its failure: “Inadequate funding and declining enrollment.” And in a recent Detroit News story, Ken Austin, the president of the district’s teachers union local said, “We would likely not be in the current position if it were not for the many huge cuts to school funding that districts have been...

The Snyder administration's preliminary pick for a contractor to do a study on whether Michigan spends an “adequate” amount on public schools has a long history of coming to the same conclusion on similar questions: “Not adequate." The company’s 12 most recent state studies have all concluded that spending on public schools should be increased. The record includes a 2013 report which found "inadequate" school spending by the District of Columbia, which year after year spends more per student than all (or nearly all) the 50 states. Gov. Rick Snyder and legislative Republicans committed to buying what is known in...

President Ronald Reagan is invoked incessantly by conservative commentators and politicians, but never more so than when the subject is taxes. And so it was when Donald Trump released his plan for tax reform. Several conservative commentators have done Trump a favor (and the public a disservice) by vouching for the legitimacy of the plan and saying it is very much in the Reagan tradition. That gives Trump far too much credit. His tax plan bears a superficial resemblance to Reagan’s agenda, but Reagan would never have proposed something so transparently infeasible. Reagan is invoked too casually on taxes both...

He’s identified a bloc of culturally conservative voters who are to the left of the Republican Party on economics. But is it enough to win the nomination? A new Pew poll on the Republican race says several useful things about Donald Trump. For example: He’s still solidly ahead of the field in the race for the Republican nomination. The poll has Trump at 25 percent, followed by Ben Carson at 16, Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina at 8, and Ted Cruz at 6. Jeb Bush, meanwhile, has taken a beating—sliding out of the top five, only a bit ahead of...

Cutting taxes is great, but as I said, it must be done alongside genuine spending restraint — meaning serious changes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are consuming an ever-growing share of the budget. Doing one without the other would just kick the can farther down the road, an exercise that politicians are very good at. The good news for the candidates is that a plan to cut spending isn't that hard — on paper, at least. Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell calculated that we could balance the budget by 2021 by capping spending growth at...

n August, Michigan public school teacher Stephanie Keiles became a folk hero when she went public with her story about why she was quitting her job. Keiles had spent nine years as a teacher in Plymouth-Canton Community Schools when she announced in an online essay that she was leaving the profession. The Michigan Education Association promoted her story as did prominent national websites, including The Washington Post and Huffington Post. A Michigan newspaper columnist recited Keiles' claims as if they were the gospel truth as an example of how teachers are not respected. National public schools advocate Diane Ravitch even...

Unions are trying to cut a deal with business groups to prevent a repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law, according to a news account out of Lansing. The idea is that business groups would use their influence on Republican lawmakers to halt a repeal measure that is likely to succeed in exchange for the unions dropping a proposed ballot initiative to nearly double the state’s main business tax. Michigan 50-year-old prevailing wage law prohibits the state, local governments and public schools from awarding construction contracts to the lowest bidder unless the contractor agrees to pay union-scale wages on the...

Emmet County is a vacation and retirement hot spot known for its scenic beauty. If you ask residents what needs fixing, as one recent survey did, they list preserving the area’s natural resources, creating a broader job base, and maintaining the roads. But the Emmet County commissioners appear to have other priorities, high among them borrowing and spending at least $15 million to replace a functioning nonprofit ambulance service and building an observatory for stargazing. Leaders of the commissioners’ own political party are among those expressing concern. “They think they don’t have to be accountable to the public. They think...