The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
Let’s think through this Medicaid expansion issue. First, everyone wants to make sure that those who need health care assistance have access to it as needed, but how to best do that – for those who are financially less fortunate and need medical assistance and for the taxpayers who have...
The jobless rate is falling, and that’s good news. But it is declining for the wrong reasons, and that’s not good for a variety of reasons. The rate has fallen significantly since the recession ended. It stood at 6.6 percent in January. The government released the February figures Friday, March...
State transportation departments across the country are spending billions of dollars to build new roads and highways even as they fail to maintain the road networks they already have, according to a new report by Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense. Between 2009 and 2011, the most recent...
“Despite a quarter century of promises, agricultural biotechnology has yet to provide any concrete advancements towards reducing world hunger, ameliorating global malnutrition, combating…, creating miracle drugs through GE [genetically engineered] plants or animals, or climate change.” (WRONG!) On February 25, 2014, this statement was made by the Center for Food...
A lot of the push for increased federal transportation funding has been generated over the years by projections from the Federal Highway Administration and two national commissions, based largely on numbers from FHWA’s biennial Conditions & Performance (C&P) report. The latest C&P report, 2013 Status of the Nation’s Highways Bridges,...
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case will determine how far EPA can extend its regulatory overreach, to control “climate changing” carbon dioxide from power plants and other facilities – by ignoring the Constitution’s “separation of powers” provisions,...
Noting that the Keystone Pipeline decision is coming down to the wire, Thomas Jefferson Institute President Michael Thompson has written the Institute’s supporters urging their action in support of the Keystone Pipeline. "Either the US gets this needed oil or it will be shipped to China," Thompson noted. "Your action...
February, 2014 the non-partisan, independent Congressional Budget Office released a comprehensive analysis of the likely employment impacts that Obamacare will have on the economy over the next several years, and its conclusions sent shockwaves through the already heated healthcare debate. Among its many findings, the CBO study estimated that up...
The catastrophic chemical spill that put 300,000 people in West Virginia out of public water for ten days inevitably raises questions about the safety and security of water systems nationwide. On Thursday, January 9, 2014 some 5,000 gallons of an industrial chemical called 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, spilled from a storage tank,...
Today our local newspapers headlines were that the president was backing off from Social Security cuts in his budget which will be released early in March. As someone who receives Social Security, and also one hoping his own children will have a decent retirement which will include Social Security, it...