Featured Articles
Reduce Government to Improve Health Care
By Marc Kilmer
Much like the drunk who wakes up with a hangover and thinks more alcohol will cure him of his ills, many of those who decry our nation’s health care problems think we need more government involvement. Government is already by far the biggest player in our nation’s health care, though, and many of the problems with the system can be traced to it. In order to cure our health care hangover, our nation does not need more government – it needs a healthy diet of consumer control.
Buckeye Voices
In this week's Buckeye Voices podcast, the Buckeye Institute announces its Center for Transparency in Government with a discussion about open government between newly appointed Director of Transparency Mike Maurer and Buckeye Institute President David Hansen. Maurer is a veteran Ohio Statehouse reporter.
Politicians Meddling in Lending Market
The
WHIO-TV,
"A bill scheduled to be unveiled in detail next week would end payday
lending as consumers know it today in Ohio."
In
Ohio's
Payday Solution a Bigger Problem, David Hansen and Citizens
Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz write "Ohio taxpayers
should be wary when politicians begin picking winners and losers in any
marketplace. Their new target in Ohio and in other states is the payday
lender industry, even though private sector payday loans are a
legitimate business with tens of thousands of employees across the
country that help provide a proportionate remedy to meet the short-term
financial needs of millions of working customers. As usual,
politicians’ solutions are worse than any perceived problems."
Trade Benefits Ohio
"The supporters of our trade policy rarely mention our exploding trade deficits. In just 15 years, our annual trade deficit has mushroomed to more than $800 billion from $38 billion in 1993. With Mexico, our trade surplus evolved into a $90.7 billion trade deficit. With China, our trade deficit jumped to $250 billion today from about $22 billion. President George H.W. Bush once estimated that a $1 billion trade deficit represents 13,000 lost jobs. Do the math," writes Senator Sherrod Brown in the Toledo Blade.
In Ohio and NAFTA Revisited, Buckeye Institute advisor Joseph Zoric writes, "Ohio is a state that is heavily dependent on international trade. Over twenty percent of the state's manufacturing workers depend upon exports for their jobs. The state ranks eighth in exports among the fifty states and exports to 205 countries around the world. In 2006, $18.3 billion of goods were exported to Canada and $2.7 billion to Mexico. Exports to Canada increased by 8.7% and those to Mexico increased by 13.3% from 2005 to 2006. The top five categories of exports were machinery, vehicles, electrical machinery, plastics, and optics. These are all industries that support high paying manufacturing jobs which benefit from expanded trade."
Leave Tobacco Users Alone
The Columbus Dispatch reports, "A Washington-based anti-smoking group wants Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders to slap a 75-cent surcharge on packs of cigarettes in order to save an Ohio foundation that discourages youth from smoking and runs a smoking quit line."
In
No
Need to Raise Tobacco Taxes, Buckeye Institute analyst Marc
Kilmer writes, "Whenever there is a need to increase government
revenue, one group can always be counted on as an easy target
– tobacco users. While it is stressed that we need to be
tolerant of every other lifestyle, it is somehow OK to demonize people
who use tobacco products. Even though they are an easy target,
legislators should resist the temptation to increase their taxes as a
way to raise revenue or discourage their habit."
Buckeye Institute in the News
Buckeye Institute Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ken Blackwell discusses religious issues in the Xenia Gazette.
The Hillsboro Times Gazette published an op-ed on payday lending by David Hansen and Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz.
