Study’s aim for Colorado misses the mark

Mark Hillman

If you’ve ever been disappointed by a meal at a fancy restaurant or researched a major purchase, you know that a big price tag doesn’t guarantee the best quality.

Careful consumers want the most bang for their buck — not the most bucks for their bang.

Unfortunately, big-government liberals seem to think that spending is the best benchmark to judge state government and that spending more is always better.

Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute’s "Aiming for the Middle" whitepaper concludes that you, Mr. and Mrs. Colorado, are under-taxed to the tune of $3.3 billion a year — maybe more.  That’s $1,030 a year for every man, woman and child in the state. (more…)

Must reads for July

Mark Hillman

Conservative’s shouldn’t give up global warming fight
Steven Milloy
In the cover story of the June 25 National Review, software company CEO Jim Manzi wrote that conservatives should stop "denying" that humans are warming the planet.  Manzi says conservatives should believe in global warming, not because of "liberal scaremongering … but because of the underlying physics" — which he apparently doesn’t grasp in the least.

Iran’s proxy war
Joseph Lieberman
While some will no doubt claim that Iran is only atttacking U.S. soldiers in Iraq because they are deployed there — and that the solution, therefore, is to withdraw them — Iran’s parallel proxy attacks against moderate Palestinians, Afghans and Lebanese directly rebut such claims.

Democrat candidates ‘out there’ on education
Richard Cohen
It must have sounded reassuring to big-city education unions and politicians with a gift for exacerbating racial paranoia. But to the kid in the classroom, to a parent bucking the bureaucracy, the rhetoric must have sounded like a "surge" of money instead of men or, as we used to say, throwing good money after bad.

Need or need?
Walter E. Williams
The implication of an absolute, crying, dying or urgent need is that one cannot do without the need in question. Students sometimes say they absolutely need a car or a cell phone. At that point I ask them, how in the world was it that Gen. George Washington could defeat Britain, the mightiest nation on earth, without a cell phone or a car?

Goodbye McCain-Feingold?
George Will
 McCain-Feingold’s actual purpose is to protect politicians from speech that annoys them. That is why McCain says he regrets WRTL’s victory because it will allow groups “to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election.”

Lobbying isn’t the problem; big government is

Mark Hillman

"When buying and selling are controlled by the legislature, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." — P.J. O’Rourke.

Money spent on special interest lobbying at the State Capitol jumped 14 percent this year over last, despite measures like the so-called "Ethics in Government" Amendment 41.

Lobbyists’ contracts generated more than $11 million in just the first four months of 2007, according to a recent Denver Post report — the twelfth straight year that lobbying expenditures exceeded the previous year.

But before you fall prey to the common misconception that there’s too much money in government, take a step back. (more…)

Must Reads for June!

Mark Hillman

Higher Taxes for HIgher Ed, Health Care, Transportation
The Denver Post
If you don’t think there’s a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats, consider that Gov. Ritter and the Democrats in the choir — I mean Legislature — have already raised your property taxes and are now salivating at reaching into your pocketbook three more times on next year’s ballot.

So what do you think about higher ed funding?
Vote in the WhatsNewsColorado.com poll.

Another Lesson in Selective Tolerance
David Limbaugh
For the radical homosexual lobby, it isn’t enough that its views are guaranteed full protection, even special protection by the state. They also want to ensure that those disagreeing with them are demonized and denied their First Amendment rights.

Debunking Illegal Immigration Myths
Thomas Sowell
 Last year, the sop to the American people was the promise of a fence on the border. This year, the big question is: "Where is the fence?" That will still be the question ten years from now, if we let the politicians soothe us with words.

No Drug Smuggler Left Behind
Ann Coulter
In addition to giving an illegal alien drug smuggler full immunity to testify against U.S. Border Patrol agents, the government gave him taxpayer-funded medical care for his buttocks gunshot wound, an unconditional border-crossing card, the right to sue the U.S. for "civil rights" violations, and a GAP gift card.

Health reform should promote choice, not coerce consumers

Mark Hillman

If you’re unhappy with health care, you’re obviously not alone.  For most people, the problem isn’t availability.  The problem is cost – cost of treatment, cost of prescriptions, cost of insurance, or cost of paying for the uninsured.

For more than 60 years, government has tinkered with the way we pay for health care.  Unfortunately, when government "solutions" fail, lawmakers rarely admit their mistakes and go back to square one.  Instead, they layer more dubious solutions on top of those that failed until the problem becomes so intractable that far more people suffer from the solution than from the original problem.

Last year, the state legislature created the Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on Health Care Reform and charged it with divining a proposal to expand coverage, reduce the number of uninsured and decrease costs.  (After that, curing cancer should be a snap.)

A final recommendation is due this November, but the BRC now appears headed toward a nightmare "solution" consisting of higher taxes, lower wages and fewer choices. (more…)

Must reads: IMMIGRATION

Mark Hillman

Immigration bill not ready for prime time
Charles Krauthammer
This is amnesty — and I would be all in favor of it if I believed in the border enforcement mechanisms in this bill. If these are indeed the last illegal immigrants to come in, let us generously and humanely take them out of the shadows. But if we don’t close the border, that generous and humane gesture will be an announcement to the world that the smart way to come to America is illegally.

The amensty fraud
Thomas Sowell
All attention is focused on what to do to accommodate those who committed this crime. It is a question that would be recognized as an insult to our intelligence on any other issue.

‘Ordinary Coloradans’ can’t afford this kind of help

Mark Hillman

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist looks beyond. – Henry Hazlitt.

When Democrats at the State Capitol trumpeted their successes on behalf of "ordinary Coloradans" recently, I couldn’t help but reflect on this key point from Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.

The way top Democrats tell it, we ordinary Coloradans stand to benefit from a flotilla of renewable energy bills, measures to "help small-business combat soaring health insurance costs," legislation to punish "slipshod construction," and more.

These and so many other bills that passed the legislature this year illustrate what happens when politicians get so close to a perceived problem that they don’t see how their "solutions" will obviously harm the rest of us. (more…)

Must Reads for May

Mark Hillman

Was Osama Right?
Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal
Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won’t change their view.

Lack of money does not cause schools’ problems
Robert Hardaway, Rocky Mountain News
Expenditures on public schools in the U.S. exceed those of any other country on earth. Since 1970, teacher salaries have exploded 18 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, while teacher-faculty ratios have declined by one-fourth.

The Do-One-Thing Congress
Investors Business Daily
Other than deserting our troops and complaining about President Bush, what have Democrats accomplished?  Well, they’ve passed 26 laws — 12 of them renaming federal buildings.

So, you really want to pull out of Iraq?
Max Boot, Wall Street Journal
There is a serious and widening disconnect between the timetables that commanders are using to guide their actions in Iraq and those being demanded by politicians in Washington.

Dems doubletalk on Iraq
Victor Davis Hanson
When both congressional Democrats and Republicans cast their votes to go along with President Bush, they even crafted 23 formal causes for war. So far only the writ concerning the fear of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has in hindsight proven false.

World Bank an outdated relic
George F. Will
It is difficult to demonstrate that World Bank loans have produced growth, let alone as much growth as private capital would have produced. Furthermore, when the bank provides debt relief, it creates what economists call moral hazard, an incentive for perverse behavior.

Light bulb lunacy
Steven Milloy, Junk Science
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb?  About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb.   Then you could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28.

WHAT’S NEWS COLORADO
The latest local news and views from all across Colorado.

Must reads April 24-May 1

Mark Hillman

Even if Entering Iraq was a Mistake, Leaving would be Worse
Dennis Prager
The people we are fighting, including Osama bin Laden and all the variations on al Qaeda, know that the battle for Iraq is the battle for their future — that if they win in Iraq, they win all over the Middle East and beyond; that if they lose there, America and the West win.

Why Boycott Israel
Richard Cohen, Washington Post
In Iran, the government overturned the convictions of six men who killed a young couple because they were walking together in public. In China, local authorities seized about 60 women and forcibly aborted their pregnancies. In Russia, the Putin government expanded its control of the media. Given such a vast palette of injustice and depredations, the British National Union of Journalists made a truly original move: It singled out Israel to boycott.

Harry Reid embarrasses Democrats
David Broder, Washington Post
Here’s a Washington political riddle: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.  If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A.

One Choice in Iraq
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Washington Post
Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people — innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.  If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

What’s News Colorado
Latest news and views from across Colorado.