Featured Article
The Energy Quagmire
By Ken Blackwell
America is in a worsening energy crisis, and the increasing consumer costs associated with it are wrecking economic havoc on American families. Tackling this crisis has fallen prey to presidential politics and looms large as a top-shelf issue in this fall's election.
Gas prices have topped $4 a gallon, and prices are soaring across all sectors of the economy because of the impact of fuel prices on businesses.Families are hurting. It's worse than just having to cut back on family vacations and travel, or not being able to visit each other. It's sapping money out of the paychecks of families, money that would otherwise go to funding non-public schools, college, retirement, buying or paying off a home loan, or getting out of credit card debt.
Energy prices are undermining family independence. Voters are demanding action and the presidential candidates are scurrying around in response.
Targetting Tobacco
The
Toledo Blade
reports, "Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the lung association,
urged lawmakers to raise taxes on cigars, chewing tobacco, and other
tobacco products that are currently taxed at lower levels than
cigarettes and to dedicate those funds to anti-smoking efforts.
Lawmakers so far have resisted such an effort."
In
No Need to Raise Tobacco
Taxes,
Buckeye Institute analyst Marc Kilmer writes, "Cigars and smokeless
tobacco products are taxed heavily compared to the cost they impose on
society. Illnesses from cigars and smokeless tobacco such as chewing
tobacco cost taxpayers almost nothing. These products are just not as
dangerous as cigarettes. Because of this, they should have no special
taxes levied on them. Instead, they have an onerous ad valorem tax
imposed by the state that taxes these products based on their price.
This distorts the market and unfairly penalizes high-end products."
Competition Works in Education
"Carlisle Local Schools officials said they are in the talking stages of developing their own program to serve students who are leaving the district to enroll in charter schools. Superintendent Mike Griffith said creating a special program within the school district could serve Carlisle students and recapture some of the state funding lost when students living in the school district open enroll in community schools," according to the Middletown Journal.
In Why We Created Charter Schools in Ohio, former state representative Sally Perz writes, "Competition has moved districts to make better decisions and continues to give thousands of Ohio's children and families new opportunities for academic achievement and hope for a brighter future. Before options in public education existed, there was no urgency for districts to do business differently. Their built-in monopoly market actually reduced incentives not only for improvement, but for change of any kind."
Mandate Madness
The Akron Beacon Journal reports, "Mandating insurance for young adults could then lead to guaranteed affordable coverage for everyone, [Doug Anderson, the Ohio Department of Insurance's chief policy officer] said, because a larger pool of young, healthy enrollees could offset the cost of offering insurance to people with chronic conditions."
In
Mandating Insurance not
the Answer, Marc Kilmer writes, "Another problem
with this mandate is that for many people insurance is unaffordable.
State and federal regulations drive up the cost of insurance for many,
and for others they simply do not make enough money to buy it.
Supporters note that an individual mandate would have to be accompanied
by subsidies for lower-income residents or expanded Medicaid, but as
Massachusetts residents are discovering, there will always be a group
that makes too much money for subsidies or Medicaid but too little to
afford insurance. The supposed universal mandate in that state was
adjusted to reflect this reality -- one-fifth of the uninsured in that
state were exempted from it."
Buckeye Institute in the News
Ronald
Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ken Blackwell discussed his column, the
Energy Quagmire, on Fox News Radio's
"Brian and the Judge." In addition, he discussed the Supreme
Court's Heller ruling on the G. Gordon Liddy nationally-syndicated
radio show and appeared on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes."
The Hillsboro Times Gazette published Marc Kilmer's article on climate change.
