Free Republic

Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic Party-controlled state Legislature and the army of bureaucrats and tax collectors doing their bidding have triumphed again. California-based Apple Computer will build a spanking new, $210-million manufacturing plant. In China. Is anyone surprised? The corporate tax rate in California is horrendous, the workforce is taxed worse than the corporations, the cost of living is off the charts thanks in large part to the costly burdens added by government regulations and housing, well, you know how that compares for California versus the rest of the world...

Survey: Which States Are Small-Business-Friendly? Posted By Walter Olson On May 11, 2012 @ 3:38 pm In Government and Politics,Regulatory Studies As Tad has noted [1], Thumbtack.com in cooperation with the excellent Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City has produced this attractive, clickable map [2] of the 50 states displaying the results of a survey of small-business friendliness. It’s worth checking out your state’s standing, as well as that of states with which it competes for new business. To a large extent the findings come in just about where one would expect: California plus the Northeast (aside from New Hampshire) are...

State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion and expanded the first stretch of track to run from Merced in the Central Valley south to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The California High Speed Rail Authority's revised business plan, which will be released Monday in Fresno, calls for those dramatic changes as the agency prepares to ask the Legislature to use $2.7 billion in state high-speed rail bonds to start construction by early next year. The drastic revision, which puts the proposed cost of the system at $68.4 billion...

One year after the passage of ObamaCare, this paper published an op-ed I wrote ("ObamaCare and Carey's Heart") about how America's health-care system saved my daughter's life, and describing how implementing this law will limit innovation, lead to rationing, and lower the quality of care. Now, two years out, I would like to focus on the budgetary disaster. As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly claimed that his health-care plan would lower annual family health-insurance premiums by $2,500 before the end of his first term as president. But the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that the average family premium has increased...

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius says she has no idea on what the fiscal impacts of Obamacare might be. “I haven’t really approached the issue from that perspective,” Sebelius told Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc) at a recent hearing. “We’re just trying to make sure everyone and everything is covered. Maybe we’ll take a look at costs later when we have more time.” Senator Johnson’s suggestion that all the requests for waivers that HHS has granted indicate a problem with cost was brushed aside by the Secretary. “First of all, I don’t know which waivers you are...

Politics Buzz Mitt Romney has been firmly pro-life since his 2005 conversion after legislation came to his desk in regard to Stem Cell research. But a trek over to the website of Commonwealth Care, the state funded health insurance program for low and moderate-income Massachusetts adults who don't have health insurance, created by RomneyCare, offers a copay for abortions.

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs. A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year. “The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew...

Link only - Questions Raised After DOE Hides Costs Of Energy Projects Each project is listed in detail on the DOE's website, but the costs were recently taken down.

Okay. So it’s too late for some fried brains – but better late than never. From Reuters: Now, a Dutch commission has found that hashish and marijuana on sale in the Netherlands contain around 18 percent of THC, the main psychoactive substance, and advised the health minister that anything above 15 percent put drugs on a par with heroin or cocaine. “I've been very worried for years about the THC concentration, especially if it is so high. We will take a serious look at it," Health Minister Edith Schippers told public broadcaster NOS. “The addictive consequences are much stronger and...

How much did the Obama administration’s knee-jerk moratorium on offshore drilling cost residents on the Gulf of Mexico last year? Although the moratorium was lifted after six months, the Heritage Foundation notes that nothing changed. It was only after tens of thousands of jobs were lost and gas prices soared that the Obama administration began approving a permit here and there. This lagging energy exploration has had serious impacts on the energy industry and, as a result, the entire U.S. economy:

If you've tried to buy a used car recently -- a lot of people are finding it hard to get what they want. There is something of a used car shortage going on. News 10NBC found out there are a number of factors why there are fewer used cars out there. One is -- more people are holding onto their new cars longer but also, there are fewer rental cars coming on the market and fewer people are leasing vehicles so therefore -- fewer of those cars are out there. Joan Kamisch is trading her 2000 Chevy Lumina for a...

A Tomahawk missile costs $1.4 million. If you don't know that, you haven't paid attention to the debate over the Libya War. The war is America's first conflict initiated against the backdrop of $1 trillion deficits, and as such practically every strike is subject to the accountant's bean-counting. Our first fusillade of 160 cruise missiles, we are told, cost hundreds of millions of dollars alone. Even Indiana's Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican establishmentarian and internationalist of long standing, argues the cost of the war is too damn high. "Who has really budgeted for Libya at all?" he asks. Yes, by...

Madison - Law enforcement agencies ran up more than $3.2 million in pay, overtime, mileage, food and hotels while providing security during weeks of protests at the Capitol, according to preliminary numbers compiled by the Journal Sentinel.The total bill is certain to go higher, largely because some municipal police departments and county sheriff's departments have not completed totaling their bills, some invoices are incomplete and costs for some larger law enforcement agencies, including the Wisconsin State Patrol, were not immediately available.

With U.S. and coalition forces bombarding Libya leader Muammer al-Qaddafi's forces from the sea and air, the cost for the first day alone of the operation was well over $100 million with the total price tag expected to grow much higher the longer the strikes continue, analysts said.(Snip) With allies expected to shoulder some of the bill, the initial stages of taking out Libya's air defenses could ultimately cost U.S.-led coalition forces between $400 million and $800 million, according to a report released by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments earlier this month. Maintaining a coastal no-fly-zone

Forget Medicare, THIS Is The Chart That Shows Why America Is Doomed Joe Weisenthal Mar. 6, 2011, 8:16 AM If you look at the US fiscal situation, it's easy to see that Medicare is a looming black hole ready to swallow the entire economy. Reforming the entitlement seems necessary to prevent fiscal ruin. But actually that's too narrow a way of looking at things. After all, the costs borne by Medicare are no more sustainable if they're shifted to private individuals. It's just the path is different. The REAL problem is how expensive our healthcare system is compared to its...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Workers at a circuit-board factory here just saw their health insurance premiums rise 20 percent. At Buddy Zaremba’s print shop nearby, the increase was 37 percent. And for engineers at the Woodland Design Group, they rose 43 percent. The new federal health care law may eventually “bend the cost curve” downward, as proponents argue. But for now, at many workplaces here, the rising cost of health care is prompting insurance premiums to skyrocket while coverage is shrinking. As Congress continues to debate the new health care law, health insurance costs are still rising, particularly for small businesses....

Madison -- Administration Secretary Michael Huebsch estimated Wednesday that law enforcement costs to provide security at the State Capitol through February would likely total $4 million to $5 million.

(snip)Filing taxes takes too long, costs too much money and is far too overwhelming a process for taxpayers. (snip)"If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States," the report says. "To consume 6.1 billion hours, the 'tax industry' requires the equivalent of more than three million full-time workers."

<p>You can't blame New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he feels some satisfaction over news out of the MTA.</p> <p>A new report by Inspector General Barry Kluger found that the transit agency's major development projects -- the Second Avenue subway, the LIRR link and the Fulton Transit Center -- are five years late and $2 billion over budget.</p>

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- At least 17 people have been detained as students at the largest public university in the Caribbean clashed with police during an indefinite strike over a new fee, officials said Tuesday. Hundreds of students launched the strike a week ago to demand that university officials eliminate an $800 yearly fee that will be imposed next year to help reduce the system's budget deficit. ... A similar strike in April over the fee and other issues paralyzed the university for nearly two months. The violent clash Monday afternoon began when several people threw smoke bombs inside...

Cape Wind has outlasted a decade of government review, a slew of court brawls and fierce opposition from mariners, fishermen, Indian tribes and Kennedys just to win the right to sell its wind-fueled electricity. Now, all it needs are customers. Last month, the nation's first offshore wind farm nailed down its first buyer when the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approved a deal that sees Cape Wind selling half its power to National Grid, the state's largest electric utility. But the other half of the Cape Wind project's electricity remains available with no obvious takers, raising the possibility of a...

It has become a trend among Chinese traveling abroad to go shopping for products such as iPads, laptops and cameras. The Christmas and New Year season will see more people from the Chinese mainland looking for bargains in Hong Kong and Macao, and other places. Ironically, most of the these products are made on the mainland. So why this craze? Because - ironically again - they cost more on the mainland. Take 16 gigabyte iPads, assembled in Shenzhen, Guangzhou province, for instance. Their launch price was $499 (3,326 yuan) each in the United States and HK$3,888 (3,336 yuan) in Hong...

We know illegal immigration is no longer really unlawful, but is it moral? Usually Americans debate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. Supporters of open borders rightly remind us that illegal immigrants pay sales taxes. Often their payroll-tax contributions are not later tapped by Social Security payouts. Opponents counter that illegal immigrants are more likely to end up on state assistance, are less likely to report cash income, and cost the state more through the duplicate issuing of services and documents in both English and Spanish. Such to-and-fro talking points are endless. So is the debate over beneficiaries of illegal...

In the City of Jackson, the discussion at city hall involves cutting police and fire by as many as 35 positions while the city runs two public pools that are swimming in red ink. Jackson is among many cities in the state that operates recreational opportunities - at a loss - while other core services are put on the chopping block. According to the city's budget, Jackson lost about $132,000 in 2008-09 by operating its two pools. The city also lost another $7,500 on its golf center. Jackson owns one 18-hole golf course, but its expenses are grouped in with...

The big aircraft maker Boeing Co. says "cost pressures" from the new health care law are part of the reason it's asking employees to pay more for their medical benefits next year. In a letter mailed to employees late last week, Boeing said deductibles and copayments are going up significantly for some 90,000 nonunion workers. The company cited three major reasons for the cost shift, including untamed health care inflation, the effects of the new law, and lifestyle issues including being overweight and lack of exercise. Spokeswoman Karen Forte said Boeing is concerned that its relatively generous plan will get...

President Obama prom ised that his health reform would "fix" our rising med ical costs and a growing legion of uninsured Americans priced out of coverage. Fix it in which direction? Data out last week shows that the price of insurance is rising even faster than before, the number of uninsured Americans is spiraling upward, and the choices people have of doctors and health plans are being sharply constrained as a result. Welcome to ObamaCare, Year One. This is the change we should start believing in. The Obama team blames the recession or the "greedy" insurance industry for these ills....

Rate Increases Are Blamed on Health-Care Overhaul; White House Questions Logic Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums on some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul as soon as next month, complicating Democrats' efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators. These and other insurers say Congress's landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a...

Amid high unemployment and a weak economy, employers have been shifting health care costs to workers, according to a study released Thursday. The premiums that employees pay for employer-sponsored family coverage rose an average of 13.7 percent this year, while the amount that employers contribute fell by 0.9 percent, the survey found. For family coverage, workers are paying an average of $3,997, up $482 from last year, while employers are paying an average of $9,773, down $87, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

As the educational establishment makes every effort to push Western Civilization down a memory hole, a hearty band of activists is proving, once again, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. One of these brave souls is Leigh A. Bortins, a home-schooling mom who started her own company in order to show the parents of public, private and home-schooled children how to pass a classical education through the generations. Two tips that the CEO and founder of Classical Conversations, Inc., passed on in a recent appearance at the Heritage Foundation: * Have your kids draw maps;...

College is back in session, and students have a bigger voice than ever on the topic of costly textbooks. University of Arizona students start classes today. Pima Community College students will go back to class on Wednesday. Here are three new trends that students will see in the changing world of college textbooks. 1. Book prices are listed in class schedules - by law Federal law now requires publishers to disclose textbook prices to professors and requires them to sell compact discs and other extras separately instead of as a bundle. It also requires colleges to list the prices of...

If Congress pushes through amnesty, hold onto your wallets. Taxpayers will get robbed and illegal aliens rewarded. The 11 million illegal aliens who get legalized will then qualify for many taxpayer-funded government programs, including health premium subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid. This redistribution of wealth will add billions to the government’s red ink—not to mention deprive productive Americans of their own money. To get a handle on the size of amnesty’s fiscal consequences, consider the impact on a single program: Medicaid.

There's a big push in some corners of the US transportation industry to "bring high speed rail to America". Visions of relaxed, latte-sipping trips over the nation, no lines for security, low cost trips are certainly heady ideas, but do they bear out? Let's take a critical, cold, calculating look at the reality of the situation. As many know, I split my time between the US (Seattle, WA area) and Asia (predominantly Shanghai, China). China's been on a high speed rail building frenzy recently, and there are thousands of kilometers of line laid, with thousands more to come. Soon most...

An attempt in Scott County to tally up the price of illegal immigrants who break the law is being both praised and panned. In response to inquiries from two county commissioners who face reelection challenges this year, County Attorney Pat Ciliberto told the County Board not long ago that it costs a fortune. University of Minnesota immigration expert Katherine Fennelly said the county's top prosecutor is "creating lots of smoke where there's no fire."

The actuary for Oregon's Public Employee Retirement System confirmed Friday what is already a common-knowledge piece of the state's looming budget shortfall: the cost of funding PERS will increase sharply in 2011. As of Dec 31, the retirement system had 76 cents in assets for every $1 in liabilities, excluding prepaid contributions. The system's investments declined about 1 percent year through May 31, Mercer said. If they finish the year at this level, the system's overall funded status, excluding prepaid contributions, will decline to about 70 percent

Oregon Public Employee Retirement Costs Will DOUBLE Next Year Mike "Mish" Shedlock Jul. 24, 2010, 10:08 AM OregonLive reports PERS rates for state agencies will more than double in 2011. The actuary for Oregon's Public Employee Retirement System confirmed Friday what is already a common-knowledge piece of the state's looming budget shortfall: the cost of funding PERS will increase sharply in 2011. Mercer Inc. told the PERS board Friday that systemwide, the payroll rates paid by cities, counties, school districts and state agencies to cover their employees' pension and health care benefits will more than double in 2011, from their...

The fundamental problem with our national intelligence system is that it assumes that quantity can substitute for quality. The result is a vast, expensive network that's far less than the sum of its parts. It's as if the Yankees, stung by a string of losing seasons, avoided seeking out talented ballplayers in favor of hiring a thousand Little Leaguers (at major-league salaries). This week, The Washington Post has done something of a service with a series of articles, "Top Secret America," chronicling the lack of accountability in our intelligence community. The analysis is a bit superficial, but diligent reporting drives...

Does President Obama have any idea what's in his own health-care reform law? Since he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a bit more than 100 days ago, the president has given a number of speeches and interviews in which he continues to say things that, well, just aren't so. Just last Friday, he told MSNBC's Chuck Todd that the law "not only makes sure everybody has access to coverage but is reducing costs." Wrong on both counts. The bill doesn't come close to giving "everybody" access to coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 10 years from...

London is an amazing place, full of vitality, intensity, foreign tourists and residents, a patchwork of pluralism. Talk to the average person, and nothing seems amiss: this cab driver, having driven in London for 40 years, sees no significant change in the neighborhoods he travels through; this financier sees no signs of intimidation; this shopper, this tavern-hopper, this man on the bus, lives in an interesting and relatively normal world. A superficial walk through the [Regent’s] park gives the distinct sense of normality. But talk to the Jews, and you get a different story. The International Association of Jewish Lawyers...

Link only: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100623/NEWS01/6230331/1006/rss01

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health insurers are raising prices by an average of 20 percent for adults age 64 and younger who buy their own policies, according to a survey released by a nonprofit healthcare group on Monday. Such premium cost increases affected more than three-quarters of the 14 million adults who buy their own health plans and caused some to either seek a cheaper option with fewer benefits or switch insurers altogether, the Kaiser Family Foundation study showed. The findings come as the Obama administration works with insurers to implement some of the new rules under the recently passed...

So why do government hammers cost $1000.00? I recently came across a document prepared by a federal agency for a small construction job. This is not for any building of significance, in fact there is a provision that the main work is to be completed within two weeks. I took a brief look at this document (it’s an inch thick) and was amazed, though not surprised at what I found.

In his brilliant exposition of why sweeping policy changes often have unintended consequences, the late sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote that leaders get things wrong when their "paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences" of their proposals. This leads policy makers to assert things that are false, wishing them to be true. Which brings us to President Obama's many claims about his health-care reform. Take his oft-expressed statement that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. That sounds good—but perverse incentives in his new law will cause most...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration says a climate and energy bill being pushed in the Senate would cost American households 22 to 40 cents a day, less than the cost of a postage stamp. The Environmental Protection Agency said in a new analysis released Tuesday that a bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman would cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year.

"PricewaterhouseCoopers found that medical costs are expected to rise 9 percent next year. But this doesn't mean workers will see that big a jump. Employers often try to soften the blow."

Now It Gets Interesting: Rift Grows Between BP And White House Over Cleanup Costs Joe Weisenthal Jun. 9, 2010, 5:57 PM The happy talk about from BP (BP) about how it will do everything to "make it right" in the Gulf is quickly dissipating. The straw that broke the camel's back: Noise out of Washington that BP ought to pay the salaries of everyone that's lost their job due to the spill. An anonymous BP source, presumably someone senior that wants to get a message out, told Reuters: "At some point a line has to be drawn," in response to...

Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada's provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system. British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit -- an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee. In some ways the Canadian debate is the mirror image of discussions going on in the United States. Healthcare in Canada is delivered through a publicly...

A teachers union leader's claim that the Warren Consolidated Schools were so hurting for money that students didn't have desks and had to sit on the floor is being disputed by district officials. Jennifer Miller, Warren Education Association executive director, said the district had "kids on the floor without any desks" at a Michigan Education Association rally on May 24. Brian Walmsley, the district's chief economic officer, said he wasn't aware of any instances where students sat on the floor without a desk. "I work directly with the principals," Walmsley said. "They would be the ones bringing it to my...

Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. The ObamaCare bill signed by Barack Obama after getting hastily and repeatedly rewritten in backroom negotiations by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid turns out to cost a lot more than they admitted — and in new areas that keep appearing after its passage. The CBO now estimates the “doctor fix” that Pelosi and Reid promised to the AMA in exchange for their support will cost much more than the Democratic leaders admitted, emphases mine:

In one of her most infamous and stupidest comments, Nancy Pelosi once stated about the healthcare bill, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” The bill has now passed and people are starting to learn what is in it – and most people do not like it. In the past week I have learned about a provision of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” which I certainly do not like at all. What I learned solidifies my contention that the name of this healthcare reform bill should be changed...

The real cost of health care reform, as recognized by the nation's business community, is just beginning to take shape. Bloomberg Business Week (picked up by Drudge) reports that SEC filings by such companies as AT&T, Caterpillar, AK Steel Holding, and 3M Co., reflect their anticipated costs of compliance with ObamaCare. Keep three things in mind: a.) these write-downs are not reflected in any CBO estimates of the cost of funding health care reform; b.) in order to protect stock prices, these companies have a huge incentive to understate the costs they actually face; and, c.) the true cost of...