Buckeye Institute: Cuts to Ohio’s Local Government Fund Good Policy

I’ve talked to a number of local-government officials in Ohio who are very critical of the state government’s cuts to the state Local Government Fund since Governor Kasich was elected in 2010.  Some of the criticisms are covered in this Columbus Dispatch article, for example.

Abortion Methods Explained

 

Well-spent Journey has put together a concise, matter-of-fact overview of the most common methods of abortion and how they are performed:

 

“Abortion Methods: An Overview”

Most people hold strong opinions on the issue of abortion…yet in my experience, there is a widespread lack of understanding surrounding the actual procedure.

Departmentalism and Obamacare

Law professor Eric R. Claeys makes an interesting argument in National Review Online about how to repeal Obamacare, and how the government should operate more generally:

The U.S. Constitution creates, and American politics operate under, a regime of constitutional interpretive equality — or, for short, “departmentalism.” Each department of the U.S. government has the authority to interpret the Constitution as reasonably necessary in order to exercise the powers the Constitution assigns to it.

Josh Mandel Takes BBA Pledge

It’s a small but important victory:  Ohio current state treasurer and Senate candidate Josh Mandel has just become the most prominent politician to date to take the People’s Balanced Budget Amendment pledge.

A month and a half ago, I discussed and recommended We Demand a Balanced Budget .com, which encourages people to take one of two pledges:

• Candidates pledge to work to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the U. S. Constitution if elected.

• Citizens pledge not to donate money toward, or otherwise support, any candidate who has not taken that pledge.  (Obviously citizens are still free to, and should, cast their vote for the more conservative candidate every time, regardless of whether he has taken the pledge.)

National Lemonade Stand and Bake Sale Hug-a-thon Day

Glenn Beck has organized lemonade stands and bake sales across the country today to help children learn to about enterprise and “entrepreneurship”, and to raise money to feed the poor.

Find a location near you and drink to our freedom!

Related entries:

• “People Sell Lemonade at Capitol, Are Arrested”

• “Legitimacy Does Not Come from the State”

• “More Government, Less Liberty”

‘When conservatives contemplate what a liberal means by “functional,” we say “bring on the dysfunction, baby!”’

I ran across this while doing Internet searches and reading up on the American Progressive movement, and thought it was pretty well put:

When a liberal says our government is “dysfunctional,” what he invariably means is that it does not vigorously churn out the sorts of egalitarian, freedom-destroying legislation that will propel us (even more quickly) in the direction Europe has already traveled.  When conservatives contemplate what a liberal means by “functional,” we say “bring on the dysfunction, baby!”  The American system’s separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, federalism, and pluralism routinely result in the government’s utter failure to get anything done.  Thank goodness.  While there are important things that need doing, nearly all of them fall in the category of “undoings”—undoing the achievements of all that “functional” government liberals love, which have made us less wealthy and less free.

Tax Revenues 15-20% of GDP, Regardless of Tax Increases or Cuts

Far-flung Fancies is talking about something I had never heard of until recently: “Hauser’s Law”.

As Mr. Hauser explains,

Over the past six decades, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have averaged just under 19% regardless of the top marginal personal income tax rate. The top marginal rate has been as high as 92% (1952-53) and as low as 28% (1988-90). . . .

What’s Wrong with the Welfare State

Eternity Matters discusses (with illustrations) why the welfare state is bad, not just in any particular execution of the idea, but intrinsically.  It’s short; read it—if not to believe and understand the world better, then at least to understand conservatives’ point of view a little bit better.

Planned Freeloading, Theft

Rarely is a liberal this explicit about it:

America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working. 

Structural Reform: What Do You Think?

As I’ve discussed before, no matter how you measure it, government is big, and getting bigger all the time.  Comparatively speaking, Democrats are certainly the party of higher taxes, more spending, a greater regulatory burden, and more “entitlements”, but the government only ever seems to get bigger, under Democrats or Republicans. 

Government Tries To Make College More Affordable, Makes It Less Affordable

I’ve called before for a “Separation of School and State” on the grounds that the education itself is different—and not as good, for the recipient or for the rest of us—to the extent that it is paid for by the government.

This week in National Review Online, Michael Barone discusses another reason:  Government’s attempts to help are actually making college more expensive. 

Legitimacy Does Not Come from the State

You heard it here first:  On Rush Limbaugh today, Mark Steyn joked that he will soon have a new imminently soon-to-be-imminently-released book.  It will be all about the over-burdening of America with regulations, such as in the case of the lemonade stand shut down by police in Georgia, or the banning of homemade goods at bake sales in Pennsylvania.  (As the Wall Street Journal article’s subtitle puts it, “Inspector Nabs Homemade Desserts At St. Cecilia Church’s Lenten Fish Fry.”  The tag and URL on the first story put it very succinctly: “strange” and “bizarre”.)