Not that we expect the clowns and criminals who run state government in neighboring Illinois to care, but we do hope, for a moment at least, they cast their collective gaze north of the border to Wisconsin.
Something is happening there that Illinois’ governor and most of its legislators no doubt will hardly be able to grasp. Ditto for legislators in California, New York and other fiscally dysfunctional states.
Wisconsin recently has been holding down spending and taxes, and the state has gone from a budget deficit of more than $3 billion to a projected budget surplus.
Imagine! Setting spending priorities and stopping further raids on the pocketbooks of businesses and individuals has achieved what more spending and higher taxes could not.
The Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute has the story, based on the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s latest budget projections.
Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a 
discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: While education reformers focus on big schemes like Common Core standards and teacher evaluations, little over the several past decades has seemed to change about American education. Author Beverlee Jobrack, a long-time textbook editor for SRA-McGraw Hill, explains in Tyranny of the Textbook that some of the reason why is that textbooks have not changed. Teachers keep teaching the way they always have, and publishers print books that make them happy, whether it’s based on research about how children learn best or not. Jobrack also explains why the Khan Academy and crazes over much education technology are non-research-supported fads. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Eric M. Fraser discusses his extensive research and writing on municipal wi-fi systems, finding them to be more expensive and less effective than promised by governments willing to put taxpayers on the hook to pay for them. Fraser also addresses the technical and regulatory limitations of municipal wi-fi systems. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) executive director Tom Harris explains how ICSC is turning Earth Hour into Energy Hour.
Listen here.
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This photo is currently circulating around the Internet:
Obama, attempting to be proactive, posted the photo to his Facebook page. He says “Share this chart to spread the word about another reason to like Obamacare: it’ll shut down gender discrimination so that women won’t have to keep paying more for health insurance.”
Here’s what I have to say:
Of course women pay more for health insurance. All insurance is based on risk assessment. Women have higher health risks due to their reproductive health. Women, on average, go to the doctor more due to yearly mammograms, pap smears, and other obstetric care. Women are also more likely to report fair or poor health then men (9.5% versus 9.0%) according to The National Center for Health Statistics. Just like young men pay more for car insurance because they are more likely to get into a car accident and smokers pay more for health insurance because they have higher health risks. What am I missing? Seriously?
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As a Chicagoan I often wonder why when the national average gasoline prices are reported they are 
often so much lower than the Chicago average. Even prices in neighboring states seem to be cheaper? So why the elevated prices for Chicago?
Well, you may have guessed the main culprit: taxes. Huge arrays of tax levies are stacked on top of gas’s retail price. The federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon; the IL excise tax is 19 cents plus 0.3 cents for underground storage tank fund and 0.8 cents for an environmental impact fee. But all that’s not even the half of it!
Illinois is one of only seven other states that charge sales tax on gasoline. Gas prices in most state are assessed at a fixed number of cents per gallon. Meaning no matter how crazily oil prices rise, consumers pay the same built-in tax in those states. This is not the case in Illinois however and when gas prices rise for all of America, they rise even faster in Illinois. Normally sales tax in Illinois is at 6.25% however if the gas is mixed with ethanol, which all of it is, gas is taxes at 5%. But Illinois goes even a step further, allowing counties and municipalities to tax gasoline. City, country and regional transportation authority sales tax add another 2.8% after the ethanol discount.
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The title of this post is an analogy that the Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger uses to describe the modern Democrat’s vision of the citizen’s proper relationship to the state. And it’s an excellent one to make in his always must-read regular column.
What prompted that turn of phrase by Henninger was the introduction of the House Republican budget this week by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — the most serious budget by Congress in our lifetimes. It is the only budget I have seen that (at long last) takes seriously the fiscal impossibility of continuing an entitlement culture in America — a fantasy that anyone paying attention could see was unsustainable years ago. Ryan is the first House Budget Committee chairman to finally say the truth. That took real political courage. Good for him, and the nation will be better off for it.
But back to Henninger’s theme. Most Americans don’t think of tax policy as defining the character of what this country is about. It’s natural to think: “It’s too mundane. It’s too ‘green eyeshade.’ It’s too hard to understand. Besides, only people with a lot of money care about tax policy. Me? Just give me enough money to buy something nice with my tax return.”
But that view misses the bigger and vital picture. Federal tax policy defines, in the most basic way, the relationship the ruling class establishes with those they govern. And that dynamic, no matter what tax bracket you’re in, matters. A lot. Does your government have first and ultimate claim on your time and labor? Or does your government acknowledge and respect that your finite time and labor are your own — to put toward the advancement of yourself and your family — and seek to only take from you what is absolutely necessary? In short: Who’s aims are paramount? Yours as a free citizen, or those of the state?
Henninger addresses that by quoting Paul Krugman of the New York Times:
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Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: Is the American Educational Research Association is advancing a political agenda over actual social science? The American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess thinks so, and joins the podcast to explain why the nation’s largest professional education research organization should stop playing politics or stop receiving public funds. Read his blog post on Rick Hess Straight Up for the backstory. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Detroit record store owner Warren Westfall discusses how he uses the Internet to supplement his bricks-and-mortar retail operation, and how online sales now represent 20 percent of his business. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo explains why meteorologists are skeptical of alarmist global warming predictions.
Listen here.
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Americans for a long time have felt what they are being told about inflation doesn’t fit with their own experiences in paying monthly bills. Over the years the government has made a variety of “adjustments” in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which minimize inflation. At a House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, chaired by Congressman Ron Paul, on March 17, 2011, Lewis Lehrman was one of the experts who testified. He pointed out that if the CPI were calculated the way it was in 1980, it would show inflation (as of March 2011) at 8 percent.
The Fed likes to talk now about “core inflation,” which omits the cost of food and energy from the Consumer Price Index—but those are costs of things people need every day. How can a measure of inflation be accurate without including them?
The American Institute for Economic Research is an independent nonprofit scientific and educational organization. It was founded in 1933, and I have known about it for more than forty years. Over the years I have bought a number of its books and other publications, which I have found accurate and useful. It has done considerable research to provide a better measure of inflation that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI. It has devised an Everyday Price Index (EPI) based on things Americans purchase at least once a month, rather than big-ticket items that are featured in the CPI. AIER believes this is a better measure of inflation. I think they are right.
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Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: The waning days of Virginia’s 2012 legislative session are packed with unfinished education bills, which include far-reaching changes to charter schools, virtual schooling, teacher tenure, and a tax credit for private school tuition. Chris Braunlich, a Virginia board of education member and vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, joins the podcast to outline what’s at stake, how bills have endured the legislative meat grinder, and the politics in play. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, discusses the recent report that crowd funding site Kickstarter will disburse more money to arts projects this year than the National Endowment for the Arts. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Energy economist Donn Dears discusses the economic benefits of natural gas fracking and its outstanding environmental record.
Listen here.
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Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: With wickedly funny, deeply poignant prose, Providence College Professor Anthony Esolen‘s new book dissects how current approaches to education and parenting squash children’s imaginations and cheapen childhood. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child discusses forming a child’s mind and heart to wonder at the world around him. “Imaginative children are by nature difficult to herd,” he says. “Schools are built for a certain kind of efficiency and anonymity; they look like factories, and serve many of the same functions.” Esolen both explains why and discusses what to do about it. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Author and consultant Larry Downes discusses the spectrum crunch, as well as Federal Communications Commission opposition to legislative efforts to alleviate it by conducting auctions. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Emergency medical physician Dr. John Dale Dunn explains how EPA is misrepresenting data regarding lives allegedly saved through regulation.
Listen here.
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Happy 2012 and welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on Obamacare’s interim final rules and regulations. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: The current media and government scrutiny of for-profit higher education’s weaknesses often ignores the potential for these institutions to innovate beyond their current startup stages, says Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow for the Kauffman Foundation. He has recently released a report of in-depth interviews he held with those leading such firms, outlining their experiences in traditional and for-profit higher education and comparing the two. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: In this week’s podcast, Randolph J. May, president, The Free State Foundation, discusses his newly published collection of essays, which call for free-market reforms of U.S. communications policy. Listen here.
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