The Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire has a correct view of the absurd $130 million “census awareness budget,” including the reprehensible decision to squander $2.5 million on an ad during the Super Bowl. It’s bad enough that the Census has evolved into an exercise in nanny-state intrusion, rather than the simple head-counting exercise as […]

According to a new article from the Mackinac Center, Michigan has below-average income compared to other states. But even though it is in 37th place for per-capita income, the politicians in the state are currying favor with union bosses by paying the 8th-highest teacher salaries: The president of the Michigan Education Association stated on the […]

Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. On this basis the Euro-statists are clinically over the edge. They keep centralizing more power in Brussels and then they complain that European economies remain stagnant. On this basis, the new EU President must have escaped from […]

The White House recently released the Economic Report of the President. In a post at the White House blog, Christina Romer brags that the stimulus legislation was a big success. This Act is the great unsung hero of the past year.  It has provided a tax cut to 95 percent of America’s working families and […]

Arizona was hit hard by the housing bubble and that is causing considerable headaches for politicians – particularly since they allowed spending to explode during the boom years. Phoenix could be a poster child for fiscal excess. The city budget grew by nearly 10 percent annually when revenues were buoyant, in part because government employees […]

In a rational world, Switzerland would be a role model for other nations. It is quite prosperous thanks largely to a modest burden of government. There is remarkable ethnic and religious diversity, but virtually no tension because power is decentralized (sort of what America’s Founders envisioned for the United States). Yet despite these – and […]

I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, but the U.K. government has been spending millions of dollars in a futile effort to exterminate a duck. And because they are relying on government bureaucrats to kill the ducks, the cost-per-dead-duck is well over $750. I would suggest that […]

Since we’ve been talking about the snow, here’s a story about city that must have no real crime. At least, that’s the only sensible thing to conclude after reading that cops in Harrisonburg, VA, arrested two college kids for the horrific offense of tossing snowballs (technically they were charged with “throwing a missile at an […]

The fiscal crisis in Greece is fascinating political theater, in part because the Balkan nation is a leading indicator for what will probably happen in many other countries. The most puzzling feature of the crisis is the assumption in other European capitals, discussed in the BBC article below, that a Greek default is the worst […]