Free Republic

Harris County taxpayers may have to inject up to $7 million a year into the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority for the next two years due to a financial crisis sparked by the souring of bonds used to build Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center. Facing balloon payments on $117 million in variable-rate bonds, the authority now is obliged to pay off the debt in five years instead of 23 years. That would require $24 million a year — a figure that, together with more than $30 million in additional obligations, would push the authority to the brink...

Senate Finance Committee members have been notified that the committee's health reform bill was filed today. S. 1796 weighs in at 1,502 pages, according to a Senate Republican leadership source. It's still not up yet on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov. We'll post a link as soon as we get one.

Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh Cao (R) recently appeared with local Democrats at a press conference urging Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) to reconsider his refusal to support a high-speed rail link between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But it seems that Cao hasn't given up on prodding his fellow Republican. "I was thoroughly disappointed when my state failed to file a" final high-speed rail application by the Oct. 2 deadline, Cao said today at a hearing of the House transportation committee's railroads panel. Cao called the proposed rail link a potentially "huge economic boost to the region," adding: "We worked very...

CBO: Baucus bill costs $829 billion, reduces deficit by $81 billion By Jeffrey Young - 10/07/09 04:21 PM ET The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years but be offset by enough spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion. The net number of legal U.S. residents without health insurance would reduce by 29 million over 10 years, the CBO further concluded.

Declining home values have put a serious squeeze on one of the mortgage market's most popular and fastest-growing financing concepts: the Federal Housing Administration's reverse-mortgage program for senior citizens 62 or older. In a letter to reverse-mortgage lenders on Sept. 23, FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens said his agency must reduce the maximum amounts that senior citizens can receive on reverse mortgages because the program faced an estimated budgetary shortfall of $798 million in the fiscal year that began Thursday. Mortgage industry sources said the move amounts to a 10 percent cutback for all new applicants for FHA reverse mortgages....

The small Pacific island country of Samoa is suffering a case of national road rage over government plans to switch to driving on the left early next month. The nation of around 180,000 people is due to change from driving on the right-hand side on September 7, in what is believed to be the first switch since Nigeria, Ghana and Yemen shifted to the right in the 1970s and Sweden did so in 1967. Since the government announced the plan in 2007, huge protest marches have been held, more than a sixth of the population has signed a petition calling...

Gary is expected to be the Obama administration's "national model" for urban revitalization, according to U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has established a "Gary Project" that will seek to address issues of urban decay and foster economic development in the city, including demolition of vacant properties, according to Bayh, D-Ind.

Here is video of Dave Ramsey on Fox and Friends laughing at the claim that Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" program has been a success. He said it abviously has not been, and said it is another example of "government stupidity." Ramsey said the most offensive things about it is that taxpayer money should not be used to buy other people cars. It is actually going to harm many Americans because it is luring people who cannot afford a new car to buy one, which is much like what the government encouraged through the Fannie Mae mortgage mess. Ramsey also took...

The bottom line on government health care is it's nuts. It's anti-free market. It's anti-free economy. It's anti-capitalism. It's anti-liberty. It's anti-health. It's socialism. It's un-American. It's government abuse at its worst. It's corruption. It's unconstitutional. It's tyranny! Why should we not be allowed to purchase private health care or the health insurance policies of our personal choice on the free market? Why should we allow the federal government to takeover or control the health care industry? Which enumerated power in the constitution authorizes this federal government power grab? The people pushing this big government socialist boondoggle are TYRANTS!! The...

Friday, July 17, 2009 Contact: Mike Piper, Sustainability Coordinator, City of Vancouver, 360-487-7116 E-mail: mike.piper@ci.vancouver.wa.us The City of Vancouver seeks to put stimulus and other funding to work in the community through a proposed Sustainable Neighborhood Demonstration Project to improve energy efficiency, water conservation, transportation solutions and more, all while encouraging the addition of "green jobs" to get the work done. Recently, the city sent out a request seeking qualifications of companies to assist with the project, which would maximize new and existing federal funding sources by partnering with weatherization and other programs to improve existing homes within a targeted...

Congressional Democrats proposed new health care legislation yesterday that would penalize all but the smallest businesses up to 8% of payroll if they failed to provide "health insurance" for every employee...

With news that Congress has passed its ballyhooed $1 billion “Cash for Clunkers” bill, we feel compelled to voice our skepticism about the program. Here’s the bill in a nutshell: Buyers of new vehicles between July 1 and November 1 will be given a voucher for $3500 if they forfeit a post-1984 car or truck that has been registered for at least one year and has a combined fuel economy rating at least 4 mpg lower than their new vehicle. The voucher grows to $4500 if the increase in fuel economy is 10 mpg or higher. The old car or...

Don’t be fooled by reports that Obama’s carbon cap and trade legislation is in trouble; this program is an article of faith for the environmentalist left and such firebrands as Weird Henry Waxman are determined to push it through. Obama-style cap and trade is a AAA-rated boondoggle, a massive energy tax in disguise.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Thursday that it is proceeding with plans to allow 10 rail corridors — including one linking Buffalo and Albany —to compete for up to $13 billion in federal high-speed rail funding. The announcement gives the new administration’s stamp of approval to rail corridors that were designated as eligible funding candidates as far back as 1991. The Empire Corridor, linking Buffalo and Albany, won its designation in 1998. While only six of the 10 corridors are expected to receive funding, local lawmakers touted the Obama announcement as a hopeful sign. And perhaps most hopefully of...

Praise Mitt Romney. Three years ago, the former Massachusetts Governor had the inadvertent good sense to create the "universal" health-care program that the White House and Congress now want to inflict on the entire country. It is proving to be instructive, as Mr. Romney's foresight previews what President Obama, Max Baucus, Ted Kennedy and Pete Stark are cooking up for everyone else. In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise,...

To Whom it May Concern in China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Elsewhere, When they return from their hedonistic jaunts to Italy and elsewhere, America’s “leaders” will return to gorge themselves at a self-awarded political feeding frenzy. As is their tradition, the preferred source of funding will be the acquisition of debt which they intend to bequeath to their children, great grandchildren, and any other generations that may possibly follow. Yet they will be faced with one final task before beginning the feast, which is to locate lendors who will purchase their treasury notes (aka “IOUs”). There are but a few...

Barely a year after Congress enacted an energy law meant to foster a huge national enterprise capable of converting plants and agricultural wastes into automotive fuel, the goals lawmakers set for the ethanol industry are in serious jeopardy. As recently as last summer, plants that make ethanol from corn were sprouting across the Midwest. But now, with motorists driving less in the economic downturn, the industry is burdened with excess capacity, and plants are shutting down virtually every week. In the meantime, plans are lagging for a new generation of factories that were supposed to produce ethanol from substances like...

Republicans have caught the Democrats in a midnight “stimulus” power play that seeks to cut Republican conferees out of the House-Senate negotiations to resolve a final version of the Obama “stimulus” package. Staff members from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met last night to put together the “stimulus” conference report. They intend to attempt to shove this $1.3 trillion spending bill through in the dead of the night without Republican input so floor action can take place in both chambers on Thursday. I spoke with House Republican Conference Chairman Mike...

The Democrats in the House passed the Spendulus Plan bill, H.R. 1, well-porked to the tune of $819 billion. To move the bill forward in the Senate, Harry Reid et al compromised left and right and "cut out the fat," so now the price is $827 billion. Only in Washington, D.C., does "cutting out the fat" increase the cost to us taxpayers by $8,000,000,000.00.

We are living in a historical moment that in some ways represents uncharted territory. In other respects, however, the current moment is a return to a simpler and clearer past, when the hallmark of conservatism was opposition to extravagant spending boondoggles proposed by liberals. For a variety of reasons the fiscal battle lines have been blurred in recent years, but these days we are back to the paradigm that held sway decades ago. Yesterday, Minority Leader John Boehner sent out an email on the House Democrats' ridiculous $825 billion "stimulus" bill. It is worth reproducing in its entirety: A Dozen...

The Democrats are poised to spend something like a trillion dollars to "stimulate" the economy, and at this point no one has any clear idea where it is going to go. My fear is that it will introduce a new phrase into our political lexicon: "crony socialism." Well, maybe that's redundant, but you get the idea--the Dems' friends and patrons get billions, and the rest of us are stuck with the tab. Hugh Hewitt proposes something much bolder and more productive: If President Obama was to demand the funding for and enabling legislation to kick start the construction of the...

May I posit that the withdrawal of Governor Bill Richardson’s name as the nominee to serve as commerce secretary in the incoming Obama administration qualifies as an “epic fail”? Anytime a presidential transition is disrupted by the need to withdraw the name of a nominee for a high-profiled cabinet post, the transition process suffers. Given the nature of the withdrawal and the reasons behind it, the Obama transition has suffered an especially tough blow. Of course, Richardson is not the only symbol of an epic fail around here; the bulk of Barack Obama’s economic program is swiftly moving into epic...

A southbound Rail Runner commuter train was halted for about 20 minutes Wednesday night after striking a cow near San Felipe Pueblo , and morning delays from track-signal problems and missed bus connections plagued the commuter train on its first day of service between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Passengers onboard a train that left a station near the state Department of Transportation headquarters about 5:22 p.m. reported the train screeched to a sudden halt at about 6:10 p.m., and emergency lighting came on in passenger cars. The conductor informed passengers over an intercom that the crew was investigating what the...

Delays from track-signal problems and missed bus connections plagued the first day of commuter train service between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Many passengers, however, remained optimistic that the New Mexico Rail Runner Express would turn into a reliable transportation option. "You know, they are going to have kinks, so hopefully they will get them worked out, " said Marlene Benavidez, a Santa Fean who was late to her job with the Postal Service in Albuquerque on Wednesday morning as a result of the problems. Benavidez boarded the first south-bound train of the day just after 6 a.m., but that train...

In 2004, voters narrowly approved Proposition 63, the Mental Heath Services Act (MHSA), which imposed an additional 1% tax on personal income above $1 million. The funds generated from this “millionaire’s tax” were intended to expand county mental health programs. Taxpayer and business groups opposed the measure for a couple of obvious reasons. First, California is already a high tax, high spending state that didn’t need any more revenue. Second, as we predicted, Prop 63 would exacerbate California’s income tax volatility. Although the final vote for Proposition 63 was tallied more than four years ago, evidence suggests that California’s most...

Other than that Christmas Eve flight hauling gifts around the globe, perhaps there's no run more anticipated these days than the one set to start about two weeks from today. "This is the hottest ticket in town for the holidays, buddy," Lawrence Rael of the Mid-Region Council of Governments said. "Even Santa wants a ride." Mark your calendars: The Rail Runner Express commuter train's inaugural public run into Santa Fe is tentatively set to take place Friday, Dec. 12, with Wednesday, Dec. 17, expected to be the actual start of scheduled commuter service to and from the capital city. Thus...

Once upon a time, ethanol was seen as the future of clean energy and as leading the U.S. to energy independence. That was 2004, but Wall Street wised up fast that ethanol was ready for a bust. So, in 2006 and 2007, when Wall Street firms started investing their own money in renewable energy companies, they left ethanol far behind. snip It is one of the few things Wall Street investment banks have gotten right lately, while private investors including Bill Gates and Richard Branson were bullish on ethanol as recently as January. We were thinking of this in reading...

[...] The Pickens Plan, which could be overly ambitious in this financial crisis, calls for a conversion from oil products to natural gas in vehicles, first by phasing in two million new heavy trucks - roughly the entire fleet of big rigs that move goods around the country. Trucks account for about a quarter of the amount of oil we import every year. "If you don't buy into natural gas, you're not buying into the Pickens Plan as a bridge to the future?" Rose asks. "That's right," Pickens agrees. "Anybody, whether it's Sarah Palin or George Bush or John McCain,...

A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade. The $35 billion plan would replace the current radar system with the kind of GPS technology that has become commonplace in cars and cell phones. Supporters say it would triple air traffic capacity, reduce delays by at least half, improve safety and curb greenhouse gas emissions. An AP analysis of federal and industry data found that...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Bush will make a statement early tomorrow to address the financial crisis and the House vote to reject a $770-billion bailout plan Bush and House leaders had been pushing. The vote unnerved Wall Street, where the markets plummeted. The Dow dropped 777 points, the most ever in a single day. And there have been sharp declines in early Tuesday trading in Asia and Australia. Just where lawmakers go from there is unclear. But both sides say a legislative fix is needed. The legislation would have allowed a federal buyout of bad mortgages...

WOOHOO!!!!

John McCain roared into Washington yesterday and reportedly broke up an agreement on the bailout deal. In doing so, he went against not only Democrats but the Republican president, the panicked Republican Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman, and Republican Congressional leaders. Instead, he sided with a small band of outraged Republicans grousing about violation of free-market principles. So was this idiotic McCain self-destruction, as most people are suggesting? Or was it a brilliant populist move? We think the latter. Americans hate the Hanke-Panke plan, which they accurately view as a bailout of the financial-services companies and executives that helped get...

This tale begins in the small town of Nanticoke, Penn., population 9,500, where hometown Rep. Paul Kanjorski got more than $3 million federal tax dollars to build the "Kanjorski Center," an office building to attract business and help the local economy. "I'm used to getting a great deal of money for my district," Kanjorski said. But things haven't quite gone according to plan. The Kanjorski Center's main tenant moved out in 2005, and the building's been empty ever since. "How much is the city paying for the building while it's empty?" Attkisson asked Pennsylvania state Rep. John Yudichak. "The city's...

Massachusetts residents got a shock when state officials, at the peak of construction on the Big Dig project, disclosed that the price tag had ballooned to nearly $15 billion. But that, it turns out, was just the beginning. Now, three years after the official dedication of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel, the state is reeling under a legacy of debt left by the massive project. In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not...

It may come as a surprise to some on the left, but it is the Bush administration that made the state of Massachusetts' health-care revolution a reality. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, together with Massachusetts leaders from both parties, enabled our state to launch a health-care plan that is on track to get virtually every citizen insured. Moreover, Bay Staters are now able to own their own insurance with the same low rates that are paid by employers. And there is no more worrying that if you lose your job, you lose your health insurance. The Bush administration...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has placed his support behind a costly high-speed rail system in California. Schwarzenegger told NBC11 he wants California to lead the way in transporting commuters across the state at near-record speeds while reducing global warming at the same time. Critics have said the state's proposed high-speed rail system is too costly and too good to be true, NBC11's Mike Luery reported. On the very spot where the Transcontinental Railroad was established nearly 140 years ago, Schwarzenegger told Luery that a less-than-three-hour trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles represents the type of progress that...

No matter how well-meaning, politicians frequently fail to understand all the consequences of their laws. Real world costs, the costs and benefits faced by those who will actually have to live with the regulations, often elude those who pass these rules. Yet, even by those depressing standards, problems with the mandated that people will soon be forced to use stand out. The advantages of compact fluorescent light bulbs are obvious. While the fluorescent bulbs can cost 10times more than incandescent ones, fluorescent bulbs use 75percent less electricity and last up to 10times longer. But longer life and energy savings come...

Keeping you up to date: I told you this morning about the Lieberman-Warner “climate change” boondoggle. At 6:25pm Eastern tonight, the Senate voted on the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S.3036 ). It passed 74-14, with 12 not voting. Thirteen GOP senators plus Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (yes, Robert Byrd) opposed the massive eco-pork bill that would perpetuate the carbon offset/cap-and-trade fraud.

Eight ships that were supposed to be the government's latest, best weapon for stopping terrorists, illegal immigrants and smugglers now float unused in a U.S. Coast Guard shipyard in Baltimore, the symbol of a nearly $100 million taxpayer debacle. Instead of patrolling, the ships were deemed unfit for the high seas after just a couple of months of use and eventually will be dismantled without ever fulfilling their promise. The Coast Guard hopes to finally put the problems with its much maligned "Deepwater" program behind it, taking ownership this month of a brand new 418-foot national security cutter that was...

Thursday, March 27, 2008 By Elizabeth Hovde Portland Mayor Tom Potter joked Monday that to get to Vancouver, he gets to “cross the I-5 Bridge that apparently was built by the Lewis and Clark expedition.” The bridge isn’t that old, but it is outdated in size, form and function. Ask almost anyone if we need a new Interstate 5 bridge and they should nod in agreement. For heads that don’t bob, tell them the northbound span was built in 1917 and the southbound in 1958. Remind people that the bridge is seismically unfit and that it offers the only red...

The Municipal Railway will not use buses from its new hybrid fleet on one line that runs through the public housing projects in San Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood until officials can stop troublemakers there from turning off the buses' power switches. Muni drivers have reported over the last couple of weeks that people have been shutting down the power on their buses by flipping a switch that can be accessed easily through an unlocked panel on the outside of the bus. When that happens, the drivers can't accelerate, they lose radio contact with dispatchers and the interior lights on the...

NEWTON - From the beginning, no hyperbole was spared when discussing the proposed Newton North High School. The mayor said it would reaffirm the city's commitment to top-notch education, the architect said he hoped to build the best high school in the country, and voters ultimately supported building the most expensive school in state history. The public schools, after all, are why many people moved to Newton in the first place. But now, with the estimated cost of the new school ballooning from $141 million to $186 million and beyond, and one state official referring to it as a Taj...

A company's bid to reinvent the Astrodome as a convention hotel suffered a major setback Wednesday when a county board refused to give it more time to negotiate a lease and finalize a loan. Entrepreneurs from Astrodome Redevelopment Co., aiming to transform the building once known as the Eighth Wonder of the World into a 1,300-room, $450 million hotel, say their quest isn't over. But the decision made Wednesday by the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp.'s board drops the development company's exclusive right to strike a deal, allowing the county to entertain other proposals to find a second life...

in·cred·i·ble –adjective 1. so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed. 2. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible. —Synonyms: farfetched, astonishing, preposterous. "It's an incredible plan," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). The Speaker’s quote about the just-struck agreement on government healthcare with Governor Schwarzenegger unintentionally speaks volumes. Incredible, farfetched, preposterous, hard to believe – call it what you will, the plan will cost far more than advertised and will drive business out of state, reducing state tax revenue and throwing people out of work. Beginning with a low-balled $14 billion price...

BOSTON, Nov. 20 — As the Democratic presidential candidates debate whether Americans should be forced to obtain health insurance, the people of Massachusetts are living the dilemma in real time. A year after Massachusetts became the only state to require that individuals have health coverage, residents face deadlines to sign up or lose their personal tax exemption, worth $219 on next year’s state income tax returns. More than 200,000 previously uninsured residents have enrolled, but state officials estimate that at least that number, and perhaps twice as many, have not. Those managing the enrollment effort say it has exceeded expectations....

VALENCIA, Spain - Global warming is "unequivocal" and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to an average rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, the world's top climate experts warned Saturday in their most authoritative report to date. "Only urgent, global action will do," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling on the United States and China — the world's two biggest polluters — to do more to slow global climate change. "I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role," Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own...

In the down-is-up world of American biofuels, success carries enormous costs. The latest evidence of these costs is an amendment tucked into the House version of the 2007 Farm Bill: As Mexican granular sugar flows into the U.S. in 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will oversee a supply-balancing program where the extra sugar can be purchased, at government-subsidized prices, by American ethanol makers. Sweet, eh? Moreover, if you think American corn growers are angered by seeing part of their fast-growing ethanol market legislatively handed to imported sugar, think again. Ethanol, after all, is the rabbit hole that swallowed logic...

Contracting and development executives with a financial stake in the New Mexico Rail Runner have contributed thousands of dollars to Governor Richardson’s presidential campaign. They’ve also provided Richardson with use of corporate airplanes. The $400 million commuter rail system has been pushed by Richardson. Some donations by one businessman—Santa Fe developer and art dealer Gerald Peters—were given while contract negotiations were under way with the state.

Feeling guilty about the amount of deadly greenhouse gases you emit by driving that big SUV or using your air conditioner during the summer? Well, don't count on an easy fix. While celebrities like Al Gore and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger burnish their green credentials by buying so-called carbon offsets that fund projects like wind farms to make up for their energy excesses, environmental advocates nationwide criticize the effectiveness of the programs. Their concern: The carbon offset market, which is largely unregulated, lacks the standards or the oversight needed to make sure that the projects consumers send money to are actually...

IN SOME CIRCLES, ethanol made from corn has become a golden nectar in the fight against global warming. It comes from a benign, wholesome, home-grown plant, and it produces no nasty greenhouse gases that cause climate change. But a backlash to corn ethanol is emerging. Environmentalists, economists and poverty activists all are raising questions. Making ethanol from corn may be "much less efficient" than producing gasoline from oil, reports The Associated Press: "Just growing corn requires expending energy – plowing, planting, fertilizing, and harvesting all require machinery that burns fossil fuel. Modern agriculture relies on large amounts of fertilizer and...