Issues
July 29, 2011 JEnergy & Environment
This year is being coined a Season of Growth for the dramatic gains that have been made in school choice. And, indeed, it has been, with school choice programs being enacted or expanded in more than a dozen states across the county. But as we celebrate those fruits and those who cultivated them, we also must recognize their original Johnny Appleseed.
Although Dr. Milton Friedman died almost five years ago, his impact on freedom and specifically school choice continues to be recognized by freedom-loving people both in the United States and around the world.
July 13, 2011 JBanking & Financial Services
-Grassroots visit representatives district office urging spending cuts-
SEAVIEWThe Washington State chapter of the free market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity will join a huge coalition of conservative and tea party organizations in a nationwide effort to visit U.S. House Members district offices. The grassroots message this coalition will carry is that representatives must support a balanced budget amendment to U.S. Constitution that has spending caps and a requirement for a supermajority vote to raise taxes.
July 12, 2011 JBanking & Financial Services
Even after over 200 years, our Constitution is still a thing of wondrous beauty. The proof of the Constitutions success is, like those truths in the Declaration of Independence, self-evident: America is the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the face of the Earth. Our Founding Fathers constructed a marvelous governing machine, complete with checks and balances, firm prescribed limits, and divergent interests offsetting each other. They realized that this government was to be administered by men, not angels, and planned accordingly. They also realized that over time everything changes, and so incorporated a means to modify the nations guiding document, to amend the Constitution as the need arose.
July 09, 2011 JBanking & Financial Services
A surprising editorial in The Columbian.
In Our View: Incentives, Penalties
Performance-based contracts yield more efficiencies for state government
As of Thursday, July 7, 2011
On Monday, State Auditor Brian Sonntag announced that he would not be running for governor in 2012, noting that his current job continues to be a good fit and the place where I can best contribute and focus on my values: advocating for open and accessible government; holding government accountable to citizens; valuing public employees as a primary resource.
Yes, wed say so. It took the high-achieving and well-respected state auditor only one more day to proffer another example of the second of his three values: holding government accountable. On Tuesday, Sonntags office released a Performance-Based Contracting Review that should make the states massive contracting system much more efficient.
June 04, 2011 JTaxes
Liberal Washington State Tries to Kiss Medicaid Goodbye
Originally posted in the Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2011.
The governor and the legislature unanimously back a block-grant model similar to welfare reform
By NANSEN MALIN
