An Answer To Critics Of Mixing Faith, Charity & Tax Dollars
Critics on the left and right are questioning President George W. Bush's plan to make it easier for faith-based charities to compete for federal welfare funds.
Focus Point – Tax Confusion
The congress's joint committee on taxation just released a new study on tax simplification. The statistics – which have nothing to do with simplicity – are mind-boggling.
Bush Energy Plan Offers Balanced Approach
In anticipation of the announcement of President Bush's national energy strategy, H. Sterling Burnett, senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) signaled his optimism that the administration will unveil a plan with "a proper and realistic balance between energy and environmental concerns."
U.N. Decision Says More About U.N. Than U.S.
Breaking news: a secret vote at Joliet state prison has led to the ouster of the long-serving warden, with rule enforcement now to be decided by a collection of death row inmates.
Focus Point – Space For Hire
What do you do when you have money to burn? Buy an NBA team? Create a philanthropic empire? Run for the senate?
School Choice Grows Despite Congressional Setback
Congress is moving forward with President Bush's education reform package. But with each new step the plan gets pieces shaved off and other pieces tacked on. The once comprehensive proposal now looks more like a patchwork quilt.
Focus Point – Protecting Privacy
Information technology has made society much more transparent. Personal, medical and financial information can be used by insurers, marketers and employers.
Vouchers, Vouchers Everywhere
There are currently 81 voucher programs operating in the United States, according to a 1998 study by the General Accounting Office and Urban Institute analysts. Eleven of those are federal government programs.
Focus Point – Burden Hours
Right up there with the taxpayer simplification act, my favorite recent federal legislative moniker was the paperwork reduction act of 1995.
Focus Point – Insider Campaign Reform
If you want a cogent analysis of the so-called campaign reform now the craze in congress, how about asking somebody whose job it is to study it: Bradley Smith, who's actually a member of the Federal Election Commission, in a new book called "Unfree Speech," Smith says McCain-Feingold type reforms are wrongheaded.
Focus Point – Bush At 100
You know democrats are running scared when the worst they can do in Bush's first 100 days is run fright ads about arsenic in the water, an issue that carries a lovely little dart: Senate democratic leader Tom Daschle voted for the arsenic levels he now castigates Bush about.
First Step Towards Saving Social Security
This month President Bush followed through on another campaign promise by formally appointing a bipartisan commission to craft a proposal for an investment-based reform for Social Security.
Focus Point – Better Writing
I recently came across a book that most people could find useful – especially one group.
Focus Point – Ed Fight II
Yesterday I talked about the sorry state of American education's reading instruction, and why the fight to improve is a local one. Today, why it's a tough fight.
Quebec's Commanding Heights
Antitrade protesters push for world socialism, against freedom.
Packing Private Heat Quashes Crime
Firearms are used by law-abiding citizens about five times more often to prevent crimes than to commit them.
Focus Point – The Education Fight
Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett recently weighed in on the subject of literacy – or rather, the lack of it.
Tom Saving Appointed To Social Security Commission
The Bush Administration announced today the appointment of Dr. Tom Saving, professor of economics at Texas A&M and a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), to the bi-partisan commission on Social Security reform.
Focus Point – Drawing the Line
Phillip k. Howard's new book focuses on the triumph of so-called individual rights – rights based on litigation. A few examples will suffice.