Showing posts with label benefits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label benefits. Show all posts

Christopher Chantrill: What Is Going On With Jobs?

Unemployment rate depends on job seekers giving up.  Everyone agrees that the employment report last Friday was very bad. Unemployment went down to 6.7 percent, but that was because the Household Survey showed that 347,000 people left the labor force in December while only 144,000 found jobs. In a healthy growing   ... MORE

John Goodman: Five Myths About Income Inequality

Repeating a fallacy does not make it true.       “Inequality is the defining challenge of our time,” according to President Obama. It’s certainly the topic of the day for Paul KrugmanJoe Stiglitz and a whole raft of liberal pundits. But have you noticed that hardly anyone else is talking about it? When is the last time you heard a shoeshine    ... MORE

Sylvia Bokor: The Trillion-Plus Dollar Heist

Public servants or public masters?       Government produces nothing. It creates no wealth. Yet the District of Columbia is ranked as the richest area in the nation. Politicians and bureaucrats shriek that business people are "greedy." But facts show differently. Imagine voting yourself a raise and millions of dollars in allowances. Imagine    ... MORE

Does the Bell Toll for Excessive Public Pay?

by Steven Greenhut. “The art of government is to make two-thirds of the nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third,” mused Voltaire. Even that cynical French Enlightenment writer couldn’t imagine what would transpire one day in California, where a portion of the mere 15.3 percent of the public that works for government  ... MORE

Veronique de Ruby: Slouching Toward Bankruptcy

Its dangerous to put off Social Security reform.    In November 2004, President George W. Bush was re-elected after campaigning on personal accounts for Social Security. It was unfair, he argued at the time, to make a generation of young people pay into a system that's going broke. Bush's plan promised to make the program solvent,     ... MORE

Michael S. Rozeff: Who Wants Marijuana To Remain Illegal?

In addition to organized crime and the drug cartels:     Police unions, private prison corporations, alcohol and beer companies, pharmaceutical companies, and prison guard unions are said to be in the top five in terms of lobbying and paying lawmakers to keep marijuana illegal. Hey, this is DEMOCRACY at work. This is the best system   ... MORE

Michael Tanner: Why Get Off Welfare?

Being poor doesn't mean you're stupid.            Contrary to stereotypes, there is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy. Indeed, surveys of welfare recipients consistently show their desire for a job. But there is also evidence that many are reluctant to accept available employment opportunities. Despite work requirements  ... MORE

Emily Goff: The Top 10 Ways Washington Wastes Money

Lawmakers have lost control.      Whether it’s negotiating over how much to spend on government operations or the government’s borrowing limit, we hear a familiar refrain in Washington these days: There is absolutely no room to cut federal spending. This is not the case. Many people remember the millions spent on the infamous “Bridge     ... MORE

Katrina Trinko: Standing Up To The Unions

Even Dems are opposing outrageous union demands.    Even in California, the buck stops occasionally. The final outcome is not yet clear, but even a four-day strike against BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, the rail system that serves San Francisco and the surrounding area) in July and the threat of a longer one haven’t won transit-union workers    ... MORE

Doug Bandow: America On Welfare

Great society needs to be replaced by free society.  Living the good life on welfare. Even the Europeans recognize that they pay a high price for creating an increasingly dependent society. Denmark has been transfixed by the revelation of a 36-year-old single mother who collects more in benefits than many Danes earn at work, and has done so ... MORE

Scott Shackford: Dead Letters

The U.S. Postal Service's long, hard fall.  The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) did not fare well in 2012. Costs, losses, and debts rose as the volume of mail continued a decline that began in the middle of the last decade. Now the USPS is warning that without help from Congress, it will run out of money by the end of October. In reason’s May 1991     ... MORE

Who Benefits From The Mortgage Interest Deduction?

by Anthony Randazzo & Dean Stansel.    The federal income tax code is riddled with loopholes, deductions, and credits designed to promote various social goals and benefit assorted groups of Americans. One of the largest of these is the mortgage interest deduction (MID), which allowed taxpayers to claim benefits of $82.7 billion in      ... MORE

Union Fail: Walmart Reports Record Sales

The people vote with their pocketbooks. Despite union efforts to target retailers like Walmart, businesses are reporting record Black Friday traffic – the biggest sign yet that the unions are out of touch with the American people. Starting at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Walmart put its products on Black Friday sale, sparking a run to the stores and     ... MORE

$60,000 In Welfare Spent Per Household In Poverty

by Daniel Halper. New data compiled by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee shows that, last year, the United States spent over $60,000 to support welfare programs per each household that is in poverty. The calculations are based on data from the Census, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Research Services. ... MORE

How Government Workers Profit At Taxpayer Expense

by Steven Greenhut.   Stockton, California city workers who attended the unveiling of a new report detailing the trends in public-employee compensation in California on Wednesday night complained about cuts in their compensation packages that are causing hardship for them and their city. But the report, prepared on behalf of the Howard Jarvis  ... MORE

Mike Riggs: Why Firing A Bad Cop Is Damn Near Impossible

It'a law enforcement that has the real protection.    Over the summer, a still from a surveillance camera showing a police officer kicking a handcuffed woman in the head went viral on Facebook and email. The text below the picture read, "Rhode Island police officer Edward Krawetz received no jail time for this brutal assault on this seated and    ... MORE