The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
Household debt surpassed its 2008 recession peak in the first quarter of 2017, according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At $12.73 trillion, household debt stood at $149 billion or 1.2 percent above the previous quarter. Mortgage balances, which make up the largest amount...
“Research is to see what everybody else sees – but to think what nobody else thinks.” Albert S Gyorgyi. Dr. Gale Buchanan, former dean of the College of Agriculture at both Auburn and Georgia, has written a stunning new book entitled Feeding the World – Agricultural Research in the Twenty-First...
Virginia’s opportunity to greatly benefit from offshore natural gas and oil development had life breathed back into it by President Trump’s decision to pursue these valuable resources off our Atlantic coast. First, we need to find out what amounts of natural gas and oil is on the Outer Continental Shelf...
As part of what The Washington Post called a “leftward lurch” during the Virginia gubernatorial primary, Lt. Governor Ralph Northam signed onto a number of liberal policy initiatives aimed at shoring up his left flank – among them, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Bad timing for Northam....
Under the 2005 Restructuring Act, Virginia universities got more autonomy in exchange for more accountability. Today, they still have autonomy but there’s less accountability. This is the first of four articles exploring higher-education accountability in Virginia since enactment of the 2005 “Restructuring Higher Education Financial and Administrative Services Act.” The...
In June, 2016, I described a Clean Water Act (CWA) case involving a California wheat farmer. A U.S. District Court found John Duarte chisel plowed pasture lands which were considered to be vernal pools even though the pools seldom have water in them. The Court determined his vernal pools were...
After hinting at it for several months, the White House made it clear last month: the Administration wants states to have the option of using toll financing to modernize their aging Interstate highways. Having a toll revenue stream would also make it feasible for states to enter into long-term P3...
Virginia is honoring our immigrants with a well-deserved “Immigrant Heritage Month” as declared by Governor Terry McAuliffe. With that in mind, I want to review some important facts and figures about the impact our immigrants have here in Virginia and then highlight a few immigrant stories. Virginia has about 900,000...
The latest annual report from the National Institute for Early Education Research ranks Virginia #29 in early education access for four-year-olds – a statistic comparing unfavorably to the Commonwealth’s surrounding states. Some argue that increasing early childhood education access can come only by spending a lot more money; others dismiss...
In the wake of the financial meltdown in 2008, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank law which was intended to regulate big banks and address the causes of the financial crisis. As so often happens with legislation, despite good intentions, bad consequences have flown from the Dodd-Frank law,...