The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
Since the November 8th election, a flurry of media attention has been devoted to the “Trump infrastructure plan.” As I pointed out in my column in the November Public Works Financing, three separate proposals have been made by people involved with the campaign or the transition: a $550 billion number...
On Nov. 21, 2016, EPA won an important case for American farmers. EPA defended farmers’ rights to plant seeds coated with neonicotinoids – a class of insecticides that kill insects by affecting central nervous system. Coated seeds will continue to be exempt from EPA regulation under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide,...
(This is part X of this series on energy. We hope it helps the reader better understand the issues facing our country and our state as we endeavor to tackle the problem of providing our citizens and our businesses with their energy needs.) COMPETING OBJECTIVES * Choosing between different forms...
Taxes are a funny thing. They can’t be relied on to produce the amount of money governments hope to collect from those who pay. Over and over again, it has become reality that in most cases the more government taxes something, the less that government receives in the long-run from...
The Martinsville area, a manufacturinging powerhouse as recently as the 1980s, has become the poster child for Virginia’s rust belt. Unemployment hit 20% during the bottom of the last recession, and still lingers at 6.8%. Ironically, the Martinsville-Henry County area simultaneously suffers from a labor shortage — a shortage of...
Virginia needs to improve its accountability system for K–12 education. A relic of the No Child Left Behind era, it has a critical flaw: It encourages schools to narrowly focus on the progress of their lowest-performing students. That’s a worthy and important objective, but it shouldn’t be the only outcome...
With the election over and Republicans keeping control of Congress while also securing the White House, our nation has an opportunity to finally fix our broken immigration system, secure our borders, and deal with those living in the United States illegally. To date, both sides have refused to budge on...
(This is part IX of this series on energy. We hope it helps the reader better understand the issues facing our country and our state as we endeavor to tackle the problem of providing our citizens and our businesses with their energy needs.)Hydropower* Hydropower is generated by harnessing the energy...
Do increased cigarette taxes at the municipal level increase revenues to localities? And what is the longer term effect of such increases? A new study from the Thomas Jefferson Institute has some surprising answers.
... There are a lot of issues that aren’t Virginia specific but which impact everyone of us and the dynamics of public policy on these issues is reflected in our everyday lives. One of those issues is the price and availability of sugar. Sugar is in so much of what we...