Free Republic

Georgia has about 23,000 state vehicles, but don't ask where they all are. The state doesn't know. In fact, the government can't even say for sure how many vehicles the state owns. State workers authorized to take cars home are required to keep track of the miles they drive, but noncompliance is widespread. Gov. Roy Barnes gave Georgia's nearly 100 agency directors a month to account for the state's vehicles, but, 41 had not complied by this week's deadline. Personal use of state vehicles paid for by taxpayers is an issue that numerous state audits have flagged for more than...

The White House is projecting that this year's federal deficit will hit $165 billion, then gradually improve until a balanced budget reappears in 2005, Bush administration officials said Friday. The return of red ink - the first since 1997 - is abrupt but not a surprise. Analysts have been forecasting renewed deficits for many months, prompted by the fragile economy, the swoon of the financial markets, and the costs of last year's tax cut and the government's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The new numbers, to be released Friday, were described by officials on condition of anonymity. They...

While Senator Barbara Boxer is trying to get the federal government to declare more than two million acres in California off-limits to development, California's other Senator, Diane Feinstein, has already brokered a deal that takes 16,500 acres off-limits. That's about twice the size of San Francisco. Both of these liberal Senators -- and many others -- have repeatedly wrung their hands over a lack of "affordable housing" in California. Meanwhile, they are doing all they can to prevent any housing from being built on ever more vast areas of land. There is a lot of talk these days about "connecting...

Bill O'Reilly of "The O'Reilly Factor" is one of the few major media figures who does not hesitate to criticize Jesse Jackson, so it was appropriate that the author of a critical new book about Jackson appeared on that program. The book is aptly titled "Shakedown," in honor of the Reverend Jackson's success in extracting millions of dollars from weak-kneed corporations that are fearful of his calling them "racist." On the program with the author was a loudmouth Jackson supporter. When O'Reilly quoted something critical of Jackson said by Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, the response was that Raspberry wouldn't...

Trever Palmer, 17, says he felt nervous and slightly heroic the night he picked up the phone, dialed 911 and informed the King County Sheriff's Office that his father was growing marijuana. Minutes later, when Aaron Palmer, a Covington computer programmer, returned home from an evening of swimming laps at the local pool, deputies arrested him. They later found more than a dozen marijuana plants growing in a hidden room in the garage and booked the single father of three into the King County Jail on drug charges. Two months later, as Trever Palmer prepares for his last year of...

If psychic power were true what else would be true? Jr. Skeptic is doing an issue how big time media people are fooled by magicians pretending to have paranormal powers. One of the best ways to to get kids to think critically about the possibility of a paranormal claim being true is to get them to ask "If (x) is true what else would be true?" We will devote a couple pages in the next issue of Jr. Skeptic to humorous one liners like these, each illustrated by a cartoon. We would welcome any additional suggestions! If people could really...

When Hawaii recently passed a law controlling how high the price of gasoline can go in that state, it was the first law controlling the price of gasoline since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan ended federal control over oil prices. What was unusual about the Hawaiian price controls is that they do not go into effect until 2004. If price control is such a great idea, why postpone its benefits for two years? The only reason that makes sense is that the public thinks price control is a great idea, but the politicians know its bad consequences, and they don't...

Institutions -- established law, custom and practices -- matter and should not be ignored. How is it that Western Europe and the United States managed to amass unprecedented wealth while countries of the former Soviet Union, China, Africa, South America and the Middle East haven't? The answer has little to do with the people of those countries. After all, people who migrate to Western Europe or the United States often wind up doing quite well. The reason why the West has been able to amass great wealth is that rule of law is embedded in Western values. Where there's rule...

Why should we celebrate the Fourth of July? Because America — as the greatest product of Western civilization — is the greatest country in the world. But it cannot remain great unless we understand the causes of its greatness. In this age of diversity-worship, it is considered axiomatic that all cultures and countries are equal. Western culture, it is declared, is in no way superior to that of any other, not even to tribes of cannibals. To deny the equality of all cultures, claim the intellectuals, is to be guilty of the most heinous of intellectual sins: “ethnocentrism.” It is...

Cost of Government Day for 2002 is July 1. This is the date in the calendar year when the American taxpayer has paid off his/her share of taxes and regulations imposed at the federal, state and local levels. In 2002, COGD is six days later than the 2001 Cost of Government Day of June 25, meaning that working people must toil on average 182 days out of the year just to pay for government. That's nearly 50 percent of national income. The Americans for Tax Reform has calculated Cost of Government Day for the past ten years. ATR released this...

President Bush is taking the tone of a preacher again, declaring that Americans have "received our rights from God" and that he feels "the prayers of the people" as he carries out his duties. In Cleveland on Monday, at what was characterized as a Rally on Inner City Compassion, Bush sought to rally support behind his faith-based initiative. He asserted that the United States "should not fear programs which exist because a church or synagogue or mosque has decided to start one." Since taking office, Bush has frequently cited his Christian beliefs and his desire for religion to play an...

<p>WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Florida's child welfare system, still reeling from the unsolved disappearance of 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, faces new criticism after several underaged, foster children were found, unattended, at a West Palm Beach motel.</p> <p>The Department of Children and Families (DCF) rented two rooms last month for six girls, between the ages of 11 and 15.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House announced in a one-sentence statement Monday that President Bush had signed into law a nearly half-trillion-dollar increase in the government's ability to borrow money.</p> <p>White House press secretary Ari Fleischer put the news out on paper: "On Friday, June 28, 2002, the president signed into law S. 2578, increases the public debt limit from $5.95 trillion to $6.4 trillion."</p>

Massachusetts Libertarians have filed a final batch of signatures to qualify for the ballot an initiative to abolish the state income tax -- setting up a titanic political battle this fall over the fate of $9 billion in taxpayers' money. On June 28, the secretary of state in Boston certified that 12,500 valid signatures had been submitted by the Committee for Small Government, which is spearheading the effort. In this final stage of the qualification process, just over 9,500 signatures were required to place the initiative on the ballot. When Massachusetts citizens step into the voting booth on November 5,...

This past week, at least 200 families lost their homes in Arizona because the of the terrible forest fires there. Who is to blame? Arizona Gov. Jane Hull and U.S. Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth condemned bad forest management by government agencies. I couldn't agree with them more. Notice that forests owned by private companies rarely have dangerous fires. Private forests usually are hurt only when fires in national parks spread into them. But the problems aren't just with forest fires. Any government ownership is a recipe for disaster. Have you noticed that almost all major pollution occurs on government...

America has a health care problem that has developed into a full-fledged epidemic. Over 40 million Americans currently lack health insurance. Skyrocketing health care costs eat up about 15% of the nation's total productivity. Thousands of businesses have dropped their employee health care benefits. How did the American health care system become so diseased? Prior to the 1960s, America had a health care system that many considered the best in the world. Most Americans could afford to pay for health insurance; hospital procedures didn't cost a week's pay; charity hospitals were available for the poor and indigent; and doctors even...

What's so good about democracy -- generally understood as having trust in the general will of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions? If a majority of our 535 congressmen votes for one measure or another, is that all right with you? You say: "What's the story, Williams? Is there a better method of making important decisions?" I say yes, but let's first decide whether we'd really like majority rule as a criterion for making important decisions. Suppose you're making the important decision to marry. Would you like the decision about...

Despite the fanfare of a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington, a very old and hackneyed set of proposals was unveiled as a "new vision" for the creation of "affordable housing." The speech was by Richard Ravitch, co-chairman with former Congresswoman Susan Molinari of what is called the Millennial Housing Commission, a group making recommendations to Congress on housing policy. These two members of the New York political establishment produced the kinds of proposals that such people have been turning out for years. "Affordable housing" for them means government-subsidized housing, and their report essentially spells out innumerable...

After any breakdown of a public institution, politicians feel the urge to "fix" things so it doesn't happen again. Often, however, the cure is worse than the disease. That's the case with the proposed remedies following the collapse of Enron. Why does Congress need to do anything in the first place? The Enron scandal was primarily a story of executives and auditors deceiving investors about the true state of a business. If it was "greed" that caused the deception, it was greed that uncovered it as well. James Chanos, a money manager who specializes in short-selling (speculating that a stock's...

A divided Iowa Supreme Court last week reinstated a class action lawsuit against Microsoft brought by Joe Comes on behalf of himself and his fellow Iowans who purchased computers that came pre-installed with Windows 98. As end-user licensees of the operating system, Comes charged that he was forced to pay “a monopoly price” for the privilege of using Windows, thus he should be justly compensated for this crime against humanity. Under federal antitrust law, Comes has no case, since the U.S. Supreme Court has held that secondary—or “indirect”—consumers may not assert standing in antitrust cases, since such consumers do not...