This is a two-for-one blog post. Not only do we get more sordid details about overpaid bureaucrats scamming the pay rules, but we also find out that this latest taxpayer ripoff was financed with so-called stimulus funds: Highly touted Bay State job creation programs have stimulated a pile of pocket-padding overtime for state workers and […]

Here’s a good big-picture analysis from the Weekly Standard blog: http://weeklystandard.com/articles/do-mention-war.  Here’s a story about riots and social chaos: http://m.cnbc.com/us_news/35810290. And here’s a story comparing Greece and New York: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/it_all_greek_to_ny_2ML0dIswG4rKRcNjUD0T1L The common theme is that reckless overspending is the cause of Greece’s fiscal crisis, yet American politicians are refusing to learn the right lesson.

When politicians talk about the human cost of global warming, we now know what they mean. According to the Daily Mail, an Argentinian couple killed themselves, one of their kids, and wounded another supposedly because of fears of climate change. Notwithstanding the title of this post, I don’t think Al Gore should be held responsible […]

Washington is buzzing with news that the Congressional Budget Office has a new cost estimate for the President’s proposal to further expand the federal government’s control over the healthcare system. The White House is doubtlessly pleased because the takeaway message, as blindly regurgitated by the Associated Press, is that a giant new entitlement program is […]

Dan Henninger authored a fascinating column in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago comparing people who became rich honestly to those who used government favoritism. He warns that Obama’s policies will encourage the latter version – meaning that smart entrepreneurs will seek wealth by gaming the political system. At best, this is a […]

Texas has a small state government and no state income tax. California has a bloated state government and a punitive state income tax. Here’s a simple quiz: Which state is doing better? The answer is obvious, as Michael Barone explains:  Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that […]

I’m not sure how to categorize this story from England. Local governments are surreptitiously adding microchips to garbage cans to weigh the amount of rubbish each household is unloading. It is generally thought that this is the beginning stage of a government tax based on weight, though it’s also possible it could be somehow used […]

According to Financial Times report the politicians in Paris and Berlin want to set up some sort of European Monetary Fund to help bail out Greece and other profligate European nations. This is good news in the short run for American taxpayers since it is less likely that American taxpayers will be financing bailouts through […]

Andy Morriss, a professor at the University of Illinois Law School, is having a debate about so-called green jobs at The Economist. For some strange reason, the British magazine picked the nutjob Van Jones as his opponent (you may remember that he was forced to resign from the Obama White House after he was exposed […]

During the Cold War era, there was something known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, which was the notion that once a nation was taken over by communists, there was no going back. A similiar principle takes place in the battle between statism and freedom in America. The left understands that once people get hooked on government […]