Criminal Justice Reforms Prompt Evolution in Private Sector Rehabilitation...
Privatization & Government Reform Newsletter Detractors of private prisons often cite a supposed conflict between privatization and the growing trend towards criminal justice reforms and reduced...
View ArticlePrivatization & Government Reform Newsletter #6 (Apr 2014 edition)
The April 2014 edition of the Privatization & Government Reform Newsletter is now online. Topics covered in this issue include:PRIVATIZATION: Reviewing the Past Year in State...
View ArticleTrends in Educational School Choice, Charter Schools and Student-Based Budgeting
Earlier today, Reason Foundation released the Education section of their Annual Privatization Report – a publication 27 years in the making. This most recent edition provides evidence that the upward...
View ArticleCalculating Public Sector Pensions in All 50 States
In an effort to compare the retirement benefits between public and private sector employees more accurately, the PublicSectorInc.org project of the Manhattan Institute has launched an expanded version...
View ArticlePresident Obama's Proposal to Allow Tolling to Rebuild Interstates Is the...
I’m not a big fan of most of President Obama’s new transportation budget proposal. Much of it is not credible because it lacks a realistic funding source, especially since it calls for a nearly 40...
View ArticleLouisiana's Heroin Panic Makes Poor Policy
Shreveport Times The Louisiana legislature is in the midst of a heroin panic. A bill that breezed through the House on a 94-1 vote, and is now with the State Senate, would require anyone caught in...
View ArticleKeys to Financing Managed Lane Networks
Public Works Financing By now it’s pretty clear that most of America’s major urban areas hope to implement region-wide networks of priced (“managed”) lanes on their freeway systems. Plans for such...
View ArticleLessons and Myths of West Virginia's Pension Reform
When a state or local government's pension system gets in trouble, an oft-proposed solution is to close a defined-benefit (DB) system and open defined-contribution (DC) accounts. This eliminates the...
View ArticleDid Pension Reform in Alaska Fail?
It’s been 9 years since the Alaska state legislature passed Senate Bill 141, which among other things replaced the state’s defined benefit pension system with defined contribution accounts for new...
View ArticleSacramento's Attempt to Placate Unions
The Orange County Register California’s public sector unions are the proverbial broken record. Like clockwork, their annual push for legislation to demonize and snuff out privatization – basically, to...
View ArticleOil Trains Run Because Pipelines Don't
The Orange County Register Some politicians in California, and people like me who live near railroad tracks, are waking up to the fact that four times as much oil was shipped to California by train...
View ArticleIllinois Funding Reform Act Doesnâ??t Go Far Enough to Address Inequality:...
State Senator Andy Manar and thirteen fellow Democrats have sponsored a bill to streamline Illinois’ current education funding mechanism. The School Funding Reform Act of 2014 is intended to improve a...
View ArticleOrange County Must Compete on Education Front
The Orange County Register Successful investors often know a good thing when they see it, and right now more than 250 private equity firms have investments in the education sector. San Francisco-based...
View ArticleToll Lanes Are Key to Reducing Traffic Congestion in Southern California
The Orange County Register Orange County’s 91 Express Lanes, the first variably priced toll lanes in the nation when they opened in 1985, are a major success. Commuters can shave 30 minutes off their...
View ArticleFrequently Asked Questions on Toll-Financed Interstate Reconstruction
» Click here to download these frequently asked questions as a PDFMany governors and state DOTs are asking Congress to remove the federal ban on charging tolls on Interstate highways. The President’s...
View ArticleBig Milk's Corporate Cronyism
The Orange County Register I grew up on a small family dairy and drank unpasteurized milk growing up, so the debate over whether or not people should be allowed to buy and sell it really hits home for...
View ArticleNYC Mayor's Plan to Shut Down High-Performing Charters is Turned Against Him
In February New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would prevent three high-performing charter schools from opening by denying them co-location space in underutilized traditional public...
View ArticleThe Time Is Right for California to Ditch the Death Penalty
The Orange County Register Last month condemned Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett was pronounced dead from an apparent heart attack more than 40 minutes after his botched execution had...
View ArticleChallenging Government-Sponsored Private Regulation of Competitors
It has been a longstanding practice in America for governments to give private entities made up of professionals in an industry the authority to regulate the profession (e.g., state bar associations...
View ArticleAdministration's TIGER Grants Need Congressional Prohibitions
Earlier this week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to decrease the budget and impose restrictions for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants. While some...
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