Free Republic

HARRISBURG — Motorists blow past Pennsylvania Turnpike toll booths every year, resulting in millions of dollars of losses. The agency that manages more than 500 miles of highway is supporting legislation to punish those scofflaws. A bill pending in the state Senate would “give us the hammer we need to go after habitual toll cheats,” Turnpike Commission Chairman Sean Logan said. “This measure would ensure that everyone pays their fair share. There are no free rides.” The bill by Senate Transportation Chairman John Rafferty, R-Montgomery County, and Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, would allow PennDOT to suspend the...

Slam on the brakes. That's what state lawmakers want to do to increasingly frequent instances of motorists skirting payment of Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls. The problem wouldn't be nearly as prevalent had many of those same legislators years ago taken a detour around the lame-brain idea that directly resulted in turnpike travel becoming significantly more costly. How costly? Pretty soon only Saudi Arabian sheiks will be able to afford the outrageous tolls, though those guys probably prefer to fly their personal planes from Pittsburgh to Breezewood. Those lacking private jet transportation sidestep the tolls in renegade fashion. They fly through toll...

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, when in fact the results never change, is one definition of insanity. That definition works for economic insanity, too. Over the past seven-and-a-half years, President Obama has maintained a steady course of burdensome new regulations, significant tax increases, and massive federal spending on so-called infrastructure. He has unconstitutionally ordered executive actions, favored labor over business, attacked banks, insulted successful corporate leaders, and backed federal-government mandates on business. And with all this, strong economic recovery from a deep recession -- which has been an American tradition -- never came...

2016 Elections: Largely overlooked because of the dust over his attacks on Khizr Khan, Donald Trump made an eye-opening promise on Tuesday, saying that he'd spend twice as much as Hillary Clinton on fixing roads and bridges. It's an outlandish proposal for any politician to make. But it's almost inconceivable that the Republican nominee for president would be trudging down this dreary big-government path. "We need much more money than (Clinton's plan) to rebuild our infrastructure," Trump told Fox... The numbers we're talking about here are massive. Clinton says that if elected she would boost federal spending... Trump says he'll...

Hillary's solution for our struggling economy: Massive government spending. Massive tax increases and new taxes on individuals and corporations. Massive increase of regulations. Step up the war against coal, gas and oil. Bankrupt all traditional producers of energy. Massive new government spending on "green" technologies and "green" jobs. Bankrupt as many capitalist industries as possible. Implement universal government provided "free" healthcare. Double the minimum wage. Guarantee a minimum income to all "working" families (and non-working families). Free college education, free healthcare and free lunches for all. Open our borders, grant amnesty, citizenship, welfare and voting rights to all comers including...

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually in Georgia on uncompensated care for the uninsured. The uninsured may not have coverage but they do get sick; one way or another, we all pay for their care in a way that is terribly inefficient. • Money should follow people. It is important to support the institutions and providers that make up Georgia’s safety net, but solutions should be people-centered, not institutioncentered. • Innovation requires flexibility and choices. Micromanaging every last detail is a recipe for the status quo. The accompanying table shows the most recent data on the average enrollment...

Senate Democrats sidetracked a $575 billion defense bill for next year late Thursday and threatened to shut down Congress’ work on spending legislation, accusing Republicans of shortchanging domestic programs. The move prompted the leaders of each party to testily accuse the other side of dysfunction. Both parties support the defense measure itself. But Democrats fear that if it is completed and sent to President Barack Obama, they would lose leverage with the GOP for future spending measures financing health, public works, law enforcement and other domestic programs. The Senate voted 50-44 to head off a Democratic filibuster of the bill...

In a critique of our recently published study on the relationship between school spending and academic achievement, Bruce Baker, a professor at Rutgers University, raises technical concerns that lead him to question our empirical methodology and qualitative conclusions. The nature of his comments suggests that a select group of previous research, which stand in contrast to our research in both empirical approach and qualitative findings, are methodologically superior and show a positive relationship between spending per pupil and student achievement. We address both the general and technical concerns Baker raises and describe why our research improves over the earlier papers...

A recent state report indicates that by the end of June, as many as 18 school districts are projected to emerge out of red ink, leaving just 22 districts in a deficit situation. Although some media reports have cast this as a story of underfunded schools, they do so by ignoring the fact that just three years ago 55 districts had a deficit, a state record. Michigan school districts are required by state law to balance their budget each year and not spend more than they take in. Nevertheless, every year some do have expenses exceed revenues, which is labeled...

One of the most inaccurate narratives promoted in the Detroit school bailout debate is that poor urban districts like Detroit are underfunded compared to schools in more affluent suburbs. What this storyline fails to acknowledge is the role of federal money in hiking funding for poorer urban school districts. All school districts get some federal money, but poor districts get a lot more, and the difference is significant. Click to enlarge To illustrate, the average amount of federal money received by all Michigan school districts was $513 per pupil during 2014-15, but poor districts like Detroit ($3,494 per pupil), Benton...

Madison— Faced with delays and inflation over the past five years, four major state highway projects — including a Madison artery — have accumulated overruns in excess of $700 million. While some of these increases come from faulty cost estimates or unavoidable inflation, the new figures underline the obvious: Delays can be costly for Wisconsin taxpayers. When projects are paused because of financial challenges in the state's road fund, the price of materials, labor and real estate can rise. The numbers compiled by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel underline the urgency of a divisive issue for Wisconsin's Republican leaders: finding a...

Madrid (AFP) - Spain's public debt rose above 100 percent in the first quarter to its highest level in 20 years, the central bank said Wednesday as Madrid faces an EU sanctions threat for public overspending. Debt as a proportion of economic output hit 100.5 percent in the first quarter up from 99.2 percent at the end of 2015, the bank said in a statement.

At the end of this past week, The Washington Post ran a long story on the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CFP), an organization that I have long supported. It appeared that the original goal was to do a hit piece on CFP because it had been a leader in the fight for global tax competition and smaller government. The irony was that the authors of the story quoted a number of people from around the world... ...who support bigger government and higher taxes, to the effect that those at the CFP had been highly successful in blocking a number...

Michigan public school districts received bad financial news recently when the latest audit for the school employee pension plan showed that unfunded liabilities had increased again, this time by $200 million in 2015. The statewide pension plan known as the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) saw its unfunded liabilities increase from $26.5 billion in 2014 to $26.7 billion in 2015. The unfunded liabilities were just $12.0 billion in 2009 but have more than doubled over the past six years. The state has spent about $1 billion more on pension payments over the past six years, but it hasn't...

The defense budget should be used to pay things that make our country more secure and help the men and women in uniform accomplish their mission. Unfortunately, some in Congress use this funding as a piggy bank for their own unrelated priorities. In fact, for the current fiscal year, Congress took almost $500 million from the defense budget to pay for non-military research projects. This is the wrong way for Congress to operate, and is particularly concerning given how seriously underfunded our military currently is. The U.S. military is in rough shape due to crushing budget cuts over the last...

LANSING — Due to their nature as independent, self-supporting institutions, private schools do not disclose data about themselves in a standardized format, which sometimes clouds the public's understanding of them. A new report, though, sheds some light on the private school landscape in Michigan. Rachel White, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, gave a presentation on Thursday about her new study of the private education sector. White spoke at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Issues and Ideas Forum. While 601 private schools serving 113,000 students operate in Michigan, little research has been done to understand these institutions. When...

Those anticipating the release of Michigan’s education adequacy study learned this week that, once again, they will have to wait a little longer. While the precise detailed findings are unknown, the embargoed report’s general conclusions should not remain a matter of mystery. Last September the state granted Colorado-based Augenblick Palaich & Associates a $399,000 contract to determine how much money Michigan needs to spend in order to provide “adequate” services to students. Our state currently ranks 21st in per-pupil spending but 43rd in math and reading achievement on the nation’s report card. Michigan has been spending more than the national...

Consumer spending climbed in April by the most in almost seven years, a sign U.S. households are ready to help jump start growth after a first-quarter slowdown. Key Points Consumer purchases climbed 1% in April (vs. 0.7% forecast) after little change in March Personal income climbed 0.4% for a second month Fed’s preferred measure of inflation (tied to consumer spending) climbed 0.3% from month before, the biggest May 2015; 1.1% from year before Big Picture Households will need to do the heavy lifting if a growth rebound is to materialize... [snip] The Details After adjusting for inflation, which generates the...

Based on recent media headlines, readers and viewers could be excused for believing the state of Michigan’s budget is in crisis mode. It’s not. Over the next two fiscal years, Michigan’s state government expects to collect almost $2.4 billion more from sales, income, business and property tax payments than it gets now. While the increases are slightly less than earlier estimates suggested they might be, even in Lansing a nearly $2.4 billion cumulative raise over two years is considered real money. Yet “budget crisis” is exactly how most media outlets characterized the recent changes in revenue estimates produced by the...

MIAMI - Drivers throughout South Florida have said no matter where their daily commute takes them, they feel they're spending more money, more often on tolls. Local 10 News spoke to several drivers who said the tolls are another expense and don't necessarily help them reach their destination any faster. "Three hundred to four hundred (dollars) a month," Maribel Masvidal estimated she spends commuting from Homestead to her job in South Miami. "A lot of money that could be used on other things for my family." Masvidal said that commute can take her up to two hours one way on...