Taxes & Economy

Turnpike Comission seeks private bidders to finish roads

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 5, 2008

With no sense of irony, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is adverstising for for “expressions of interest” from private firms interested in finishing and managining the Mon-Fayette Expressway and Findlay…

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Taxes & Economy

Free analysis of costly Turnpike study

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 4, 2008

Toll Roads News offers some comments on the $75,000 taxpayer-funded “study” on a Turnpike lease. The Caucus report is in its nature hypothetical. It is based on…

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Taxes & Economy

Did the PA min. wage increase cost jobs?

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 4, 2008

The PA Department of Labor and Industry released their report on the state minimum wage increase. As this Post-Gazette story indicated, the report doesn’t attempt to address what…

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Public Union Democracy

Texas v. Ohio

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 3, 2008

Wall Street Journal article contrasts the economic fortunes between Texas (good) and Ohio (bad), and explores some of the reasons behind this – namely taxes (Texas=low, Ohio=high and increasing)…

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Taxes & Economy

NAFTA, Foreign Trade, and jobs

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 3, 2008

Cato’s Dan Griswold writes that “Ohio Needs More Foreign Trade” as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama denounce NAFTA in Ohio: Ohio workers would pay a heavy price for…

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Regulation

Union wants pension backing for roads

  • Nathan Benefield
  • March 3, 2008

Financial Times article on public sector unions pushing for public pension funds to invest in roads and other infrastructure. Of course, as noted, many public pension funds (the California…

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Taxes & Economy

An Upside for the Middle Class

  • Nathan Benefield
  • February 29, 2008

Interesting Washington Post article on the middle class: Items once considered luxuries — dishwashers, central air conditioning, video cameras — are now common. The average size of new…

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Regulation

How to Shrink an Economy

  • Nathan Benefield
  • February 29, 2008

Penn State Altoona econ professor John McGinnis writes on how Pennsylvania’s “economic development” spending shrinks our economy – first by taxing to pay for this corporate welfare, then by…

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Government Accountability

After returning raise, LaGrotta took it back

  • Nathan Benefield
  • February 29, 2008

Another bizarre twist in the payraise debacle was uncovered in the Frank Lagrotta case. Former Rep. LaGrotta was recenlty convicted and sentenced, and more recently face a ruling that…

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