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Education
Public Schools Increased Spending to $23,000 Per Student, Ballooned Reserves While Enrollment Declined
Harrisburg, Pa., May 15, 2025 — Pennsylvania school districts increased overall revenue collected in 2023–24 to $23,000 per student, while expanding general fund reserves to $7.4 billion, according to new…
Read More: Public Schools Increased Spending to $23,000 Per Student, Ballooned Reserves While Enrollment Declined
Energy
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on RGGI
Read More: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on RGGI
Education
Senate Education Committee Approves Bipartisan PASS Scholarships, Offering Lifeline to Students in Need
Read More: Senate Education Committee Approves Bipartisan PASS Scholarships, Offering Lifeline to Students in Need
Prosperity
New Report: Gig-Workers Prefer Flexibility of Portable Benefits
Read More: New Report: Gig-Workers Prefer Flexibility of Portable Benefits
Legislators back away from I-80 toll plan
Morning Call coverage of state lawmakers unhappy with Act 44 (Tolling I-80) and calling for going back to the drawing board. I respect this admission from the Rendell…
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PA Health Survey Results
The PA Department of Health released results on a survey of health (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System). What does this tell us? Their main finding was:…
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Sick Sob Stories
John Stossel in today’s Wall Street Journal on American health care and Michael Moore’s Sicko. When government is in charge of health care, the result…
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Biofuels may harm more than help
OECD report says that Ethanol and Biodiesel aren’t the holy grail that Gov. Rendell thinks they are: “When acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of agricultural pesticides…
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There IS enough funding for roads and bridges
Sixty-three Senators believe there is enough federal funding for roads and bridges to also fund the “International Peace Garden” in Dunseith, North Dakota; “America’s Wetland Center” in Lake Charles, Louisiana;…
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Read More: There IS enough funding for roads and bridges
Cyberschools and AYP
Lancaster Intelligencer Journal on cyber schools academic performance and area schools. The article cites our Edifice Complex report– particularly fact about cyber students coming disproportionately from underperforming school…
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Time to put PHEAA up for sale
Editorial on PHEAA from The Valley Independent: “While the concept of placing the agency in the hands of a private, for-profit company might seem – considering the whole PROFIT aspect…
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Who are the judges?
A Reposting – for those of you who are neither lawyers or criminals and are looking for more info about the judicial candidates, here are various surveys/voter guides. Democracy…
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Pork or Bridge Repairs
The Club For Growth and Americans for Prosperity are blogging on Senator Tom Coburn’s effort to remove pork projects from transportation funding. Read more on transportation pork…
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PA Chief Justice to retire at year’s end
Chief Justice Cappy will retire at the end of the year. Apparently, even he just isn’t paid well enough to finish his term.
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English offers new remedy to tolling of I-80
Congressman Phil English is proposing to ban tolls on all existing federal freeways, similar to a proposal introduced by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. We don’t think that is…
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Are 37 million really poor?
Robert Rector Q&A on the latest poverty numbers: When you look at the people who John Edwards insists are poor, what you find is that the overwhelming…
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Consumerism and High-Cost Health Care
Health Hog on the idea that individual consumers can’t be allowed to make choices in major health care decision (which leads to the idea that government agents need to…
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Falling Bridges: The Nation Doesn’t Face a Crisis
John and Maxim Lott in the NY Post take on the “crisis” in bridges. They note that “structurally deficient” bridges have little or nothing to do with a likelihood…
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Fumo still doesn’t like Turnpike Lease idea
Patriot News article cites Vince Fumo as evidence that legislators don’t like the idea of a Turnpike lease. As Fumo put it, the turnpike “is what it is,…
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Read More: Fumo still doesn’t like Turnpike Lease idea
Paying interest, not earning it
Matt Brouillette’s commentary “Paying interest, not earning it” in the Sunday Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. And did you see Gov. Rendell’s response that was put out about 8 hours after…
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‘The Ten Cannots’…again
Although we posted “The Ten Cannots” last week, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review used them on their editorial page today with some commentary. They are so good, they are worth reading…
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Socialized Medicine is Already Here
Michael Cannon writes that the US health care system is already half socialized (and it is the half-socialized aspects, not the half-free parts, which is to blame of most…
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I-80 tolls the best of ideas … or the worst
Eric Heyl on Tolling I-80 in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review The most significant problem with this proposal — and it is a particularly nagging one — is that…
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Read More: I-80 tolls the best of ideas … or the worst
Minnesota’s Fiscal Priorities: Too Bad Bridge-Building Isn’t a Sport
Tax Foundation commentary on looks at the Minnesota bridge collapse, and debunks the myth of there not being enough money for transportation by pointing out how there is an…
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Read More: Minnesota’s Fiscal Priorities: Too Bad Bridge-Building Isn’t a Sport
Who Pays for Health Insurance?
Wall Street Journal column discusses how it isn’t just the uninsured who don’t benefit from the current health insurance model (and how a standard deduction for health care would…
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Read More: Who Pays for Health Insurance?