Free Republic

It's all so terrible. The governor has proposed a budget that significantly increases government spending, but not nearly as much as the various government-dependent groups would like it to increase. Listen to the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Children will go hungry. Union workers might actually have to retire with a defined- contribution plan (a promised amount of contributions) like most of us have in the private sector, rather than with the CEO-style, taxpayer-funded defined-benefit plan (a promised amount of benefits) they now have. Overall state spending will go up by only 4.2 percent, K-12 education will go up only...

If you have a serious discussion with almost any public school teacher, principal, superintendent or trustee, you are likely to hear about the importance of local control and of protecting school curricula from outsiders who want to promote their particular set of values. Yet a new curriculum gaining steam nationwide, known as the International Baccalaureate program, confirms what critics of public schools have long suspected: a) educators embrace local control only when it suits them; b) they are more than willing to promote particular values, provided they are politically correct values. IB is an international K-12 curriculum designed to promote...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's frequently repeated mantra, "Action, action, action," should be changed to, "Blather, blather, blather."The governator has been a big improvement from Gov.-reject Gray Davis, especially as he vetoes some of the worst anti-business legislation ever to reach a governor's desk, including a minimum-wage hike, but many of the deals he has hammered out with interest groups and legislators to "solve" ongoing state crises are now unraveling within months of the signing.That's because they lack "substance, substance, substance." In his zeal to get something done and project an action-oriented image that conforms to his action-figure status, the governor repeatedly...

<p>Column by Steven Greenhut - For unthinking supporters of government, the public is just being greedy when it balks at giving even more of its money to the tax collector.</p> <p>Read any newspaper on any given day and you're sure to find at least a half dozen news stories about government agencies complaining that they don't have enough money to provide all the important "services" supposedly demanded by the public. They need more money, or else the public will undoubtedly face hardship.</p>