No, Do Koch Our Campuses
Written on November 7, 2014 at 3:54 pm, by Harry Painter
Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has published a wretched blog at “The Answer Sheet” attacking the left’s favorite punching bag, the Koch brothers. If there was any doubt that the nation’s major newspapers employ staffers just to hit “refresh” on all Koch-related websites to see if there’s something, anything, they can vilify multibillionaires Charles and David Koch for, put it to rest. Strauss’s latest (oh, she’s written plenty) condemnation of the sinister Kochs is over Charles’ foundation publishing–on Halloween, no less!–the expectations it has for the money it gives. That’s right, when the Koch brothers give $25 million to the United Negro College Fund, they want to–shock, horror–make sure it’s used for purposes they support.
Strauss finds their commitment to academic freedom dubious:
When the foundation gives money, it expects something back, which makes it interesting that in its newly published “academic giving principles,” the foundation says it wants to fund “scholars and students who are free to teach, learn, research, speak, critique, and receive support for their work without interference from anyone on or off campus.”
Their real intent, she writes, is to push their free-market agenda on hapless college students. She then makes sure to plug the student-led group “UnKoch My Campus,” because just imagine the dystopian society we would live in if students were exposed to even the tinge of non-leftist influence that Koch gifts are having on campus.
Contra Strauss, no gift from the Charles Koch Foundation interferes with academic freedom in any way. Influence is not force. In that spirit, I recommend you combat the damage her blog has done by donating to a force for good like the John Locke Foundation or the Pope Center.
- No Comments
- Categories: Capitalism, Freedom, Higher education
Supreme Court To Hear Obamacare Subsidy Lawsuit
Written on November 7, 2014 at 1:56 pm, by Katherine Restrepo
See breaking news here.
- No Comments
- Categories: Health care
Storm Surge and Beach Plans
Written on November 7, 2014 at 11:39 am, by Becki Gray
This new interactive map shows storm surge predications along coastlines from FL to Maine, LA to TX with different categories of hurricanes. Focus in on NC to get a good idea of potential inundation along our coastline and inland.
Go to the interactive map, click here.
This also raises the question of insurance coverage along North Carolina’s coastline and who should assume risk for storm, flooding and wind damage. Is North Carolina’s beach plan enough to sustain a major hurricane hit or back to back hurricane hits? This will likely be a topic discussed again when the 2015-16 legislature convenes. In the meantime, pray for calm waters.
- No Comments
- Categories: Uncategorized
Dispatches from the campaign trail, November 7, 2014
Written on November 7, 2014 at 8:47 am, by Rick Henderson
• “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken may have finished second again — this time in his bid to unseat GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers in the 2nd District congressional race — but he did win a reality show. Esquire TV announced it will broadcast a four-episode series recounting Aiken’s bid for Congress. The show should air in January.
• Ellmers says the Republican-led 114th Congress will work on a specific policy agenda and urge President Obama to work with the legislative branch.
• One unexpected consequence of the General Assembly’s move a decade ago to make judicial races nonpartisan and the recent law ending straight-ticket voting: A larger percentage of voters are making picks in judicial contests. N.C. Voter Guide notes that this year’s drop-off in balloting between the U.S. Senate race and judicial elections ranged between 13 percent and 16 percent, roughly 10 percentage point lowers than in 2012, when voters could cast straight-ticket ballots.
• Defeated members of Congress, including Sen. Kay Hagan, get a nice consolation prize: guaranteed pensions. Hagan’s annual pension amounts to $17,400 — 10 percent of her annual salary. Lawmakers with longer tenure can collect as much as 80 percent of their salaries. The pension payments also rise along with inflation, unlike the defined contribution (401(k)-style) plans most private-sector workers receive.
- No Comments
- Categories: Elections, Politics
- Tags: campaign trail
That is just bananas
Written on November 7, 2014 at 8:18 am, by Becki Gray
$22M in taxpayer money. State and local incentives. Company closes shop. “Government officials haven’t said whether they plan to seek repayment of any of the incentives that have been paid out so far.”
Just another example of Carolina Cronyism gone bad. And why the whole thing is just bananas.
- No Comments
- Categories: Uncategorized
Election results could boost efforts to reform public pensions
Written on November 7, 2014 at 7:16 am, by Mitch Kokai
Tim Reid reports for Reuters on the potential impact of this week’s elections on efforts to reform public pension systems across the United States.
Union-backed defenders of public pensions and their opponents expect their battle to expand to more states next year in the fight over U.S. entitlements after Tuesday’s mid-term elections.
Despite defeat for a hotly contested ballot measure that sought to end traditional public pensions in Phoenix, a fight which drew millions of dollars in outside money, Republican gains in some state houses and governors’ mansions mean the battle over public pensions will likely intensify.
Defenders of public pensions say they will be particularly focused on Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where they expect moves to reform pensions will gain steam after Republican gains on Tuesday.
“This fight is not going away,” said Jordan Marks of the National Public Pension Coalition, a national union-funded group that seeks to protect public pensions. “There are a number of states, including Colorado and Nevada. We are looking at next year.”
Paul Jacob, a libertarian whose Virginia-based Liberty Initiative Fund gave $15,000 to the Phoenix measure and who has given over $200,000 to efforts in Tucson and Cincinnati to reform pensions, agreed.
“The cost of public pensions is a serious problem across the country. We are going to see these fights again and again. This is a policy battle between folks who want to be fiscally responsible and unions who want to get what they can.”
Reformers, such as Jacob, believe the pensions promised to many public workers have not been properly funded and pensions are crippling budgets. Union defenders say most workers receive small pensions and are being unfairly blamed.
Regular readers in this forum might remember that public pension funding issues have been causing concern among fiscal watchdogs for years.
- No Comments
- Categories: Politics
Barone examines the remnants of the ‘Obama majority’
Written on November 7, 2014 at 7:13 am, by Mitch Kokai
Michael Barone‘s latest analysis for the Washington Examiner focuses on the impact of President Obama’s policies on his political base.
Democratic territory has been reduced to the bastions of two core groups — black voters and gentry liberals. Democrats win New York City and the San Francisco Bay area by overwhelming margins, but are outvoted in almost all the territory in between — including, this year, Obama’s Illinois. Gov. Jerry Brown ran well behind in California’s Central Valley and Gov. Andrew Cuomo lost most of upstate New York.
Democratic margins have shrunk among Hispanics and, almost to the vanishing point, among young voters. Liberal Democrats raised money to “turn Texas blue.” But it voted Republican by wider than usual margins this year.
Under Obama, the Democratic base has shrunk numerically and demographically. With superior organization, he was able to stitch together a 51 percent majority in 2012. But like other Democratic majority coalitions — Woodrow Wilson’s, Lyndon Johnson’s, even Franklin Roosevelt’s — it has proved to be fragile and subject to fragmentation. …
… The Obama Democrats labor under the illusion that a beleaguered people hunger for an ever bigger government. The polls and the election results suggest, not so gently, otherwise.
The fiasco of healthcare.gov, the misdeeds of the IRS, the improvisatory warnings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — all undermine confidence in the capacity of big government. Looking back over the last half-century, the highest levels of trust in government came, interestingly, during the administration of Ronald Reagan.
- No Comments
- Categories: Elections, Politics
Williamson urges adding more energy to the American economy
Written on November 7, 2014 at 7:10 am, by Mitch Kokai
Kevin Williamson explains for National Review Online readers why an increased focus on energy could mean a major boost for the American economy.
“Less is more” might work in the context of the aesthetic of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or the poetry of Robert Browning, but in the economy of real things, more is more. And the new Republican majority in Congress is well positioned to implement a more-is-more philosophy in a critical economic sector: energy.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of energy in the U.S. economy: The energy market affects almost every company and every industry, from AAL to AAPL, and we have an abundant supply of it, from oil and gas to coal and other sources. Getting government out of the way and allowing those industries to flourish even more fully than they have is a project that is, unlike some of the more ambitious items on the conservative wish list, well within reach, even with President Obama’s veto pen potentially standing between bill and law. …
… The energy industry itself is a generator of enormous wealth, and it pays very good wages for everybody from Ph.D.s to truck drivers. But it is the ripple effect that makes it so important: More abundant energy means that everything that moves by road, rail, or air — i.e., basically everything — is a bit less expensive, that all of our factories are a bit more efficient, that everything made with plastics and petrochemicals — i.e., basically all manufactured goods — is a little more affordable. Those marginal changes can add up to something dramatic in an economy as complex and globally integrated as ours, because it makes the entire economy more efficient. And even with the stepped-up production of the past several years, petroleum imports alone still amount to more than half of the U.S. trade deficit — not Korean electronics and cheap plastic toys from China, but stuff we have in the ground in Pennsylvania and Texas and New York and California. Basically, we’re standing knee-deep in a pile of money, waiting for government’s permission to pick it up. You might not change Andrew Cuomo’s mind about that — or Jerry Brown’s, speaking of 1970s flashbacks — but when it comes to the millions of Americans who are not much enjoying the relative growth rates of their paychecks and their utility bills, Republicans have a pretty solid argument to make for energy abundance.
- No Comments
- Categories: Energy, Jobs and economy