I’ve explained before that “high-speed rail” is a boondoggle, and I’ve also posted a thorough presentation on the topic from the folks at Reason about this issue. But some politicians can’t resist throwing good money after bad on these money-losing schemes. The latest example is from the People’s Republic of California, where Governor Jerry Brown […]

President Obama’s fiscal policy is a dismal mixture. On spending, he wants a European-style welfare state. On taxes, he is fixated on class-warfare tax policy. If we want to know the consequences of that approach, we can look at the ongoing collapse of Greece. Or, if we don’t like overseas examples, we can look at […]

I’ve written before about whether California is the Greece of America, in part because of crazy policies such as overpaid bureaucrats and expensive forms of political correctness, And we all know that California has one of the nation’s greediest governments, imposing confiscatory tax rates on a shrinking pool of productive citizens. So it is hardly […]

Every so often (about 362 days per year), I come to the conclusion that government is a racket for the benefit of special interests. Greece  would be an example. And if we limit ourselves to the United States, California is probably the poster child for a kleptocracy masquerading as a government. Here are some absurd […]

I’ve had several reasons to mock California in the past couple of years (see here, here, here, and here). But I never thought state politicians would be crazy enough to impose harsh regulations on babysitting. Filling out a time card for your babysitter sounds absurd, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a […]

Walter Williams has pointed out on many occasions that many government programs and initiatives exist primarily for the benefit of the bureaucracy, and he coined the phrase “poverty pimps” to describe the folks who get comfortable government jobs to operate programs that don’t help – and often hurt – disadvantaged populations. We may need a […]

Let’s start in Washington, where USA Today reports that there are “at least 17,828 federal employees whose annualized salaries totaled $180,000 or more in September 2010.” That’s rather distressing news for taxpayers, but these excerpts from the story provide additional reason for us to be upset. …their ranks soared from the 805 with annualized salaries […]