Mitch Daniels Explains the Need for Fiscal Responsibility in the States. “The coming state government reset will be particularly wrenching after the happy binge that preceded this recession. During the last decade, states increased their spending by an average of 6% per year, gusting to 8% during 2007-08. Much of the government institutions built up in those years will now have to be dismantled.”
The Tories’ Privatization Scheme. It sounds like a fine idea, but the justification is a bit odd. Aren’t there better reasons to privatize government-run industries other than short-term revenue gains? I hope and expect the Conservatives are making this point.
Health Care Reform, Meet the Law of Supply and Demand. “Even without an influx of new patients, doctors are likely to be in increasingly short supply nationwide in the coming years. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2025. Universal health coverage would increase the shortfall by 25 percent, according to the organization.”
Charles Kesler on How Conservatives Can Get Back on Track. “It is necessary to reground our conservatism in [America’s] revolutionary [Founding] principles, but it will not be sufficient. Although conservatives cannot remedy America’s problems without them, our principles need to be explained in a contemporary idiom and applied prudently to our present circumstances. That requires, for want of a more comprehensive word, statesmanship. ”
How Consumer-Based Reforms Can Fix What Ails Health Care. David Goldhill on how the current system fails us and what to do about it. “The most important single step we can take toward truly reforming our system is to move away from comprehensive health insurance as the single model for financing care. And a guiding principle of any reform should be to put the consumer, not the insurer or the government, at the center of the system.”
Is Conservatism Dead? “Like the liberal writers of the 1950s, Tanenhaus wants to see a conservative movement that accommodates rather than opposes liberalism, and thus one that will accept its role as subordinate to the dominant liberal tradition in American life.”
Should the NEA Promote the Obama Agenda? “Do you think it is the place of the NEA to encourage the art community to address issues currently under legislative consideration?”