The Foundry

Posts Tagged ‘outside the beltway’

• Outside the Beltway: E-Verify Law Gains Traction in Virginia

  Posted February 17th, 2010 at 2:14pm in Rule of Law with 6 comments

  Following the lead of a handful of other states, the Virginia House yesterday passed a bill by an 82–13 margin that would require all state agencies, public contractors and Virginia-based employers with 15 or more employees to ensure that any potential hires are eligible to work in the United States. The bill would require employers to [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: Utah Questions Climate Science

  Posted February 12th, 2010 at 11:01am in Energy and Environment with 4 comments

  Utah’s House Legislature took a strong stance against cap and trade as well as the alleged scientific consensus by passing a nonbinding resolution yesterday 56-17. Specifically, the resolution “urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency to halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and with its “Endangerment Finding” and related regulations until a full [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: Luaus in Illinois? Sure, When Pork Is What’s for Dinner!

  Posted February 10th, 2010 at 2:00pm in Ongoing Priorities with 3 comments

  $1,100 for Hawaiian party props and luaus? $78,066 to promote quail? $6,500 for a 4,000-gallon live bass fish tank? $10,000 for a Batman party? $353,165 to fund car racing?Congratulations, Illinoisans, you’re funding all this and more with your hard-earned taxpayer dollars, courtesy of your state government in Springfield. More

• Outside the Beltway: Americans Angry, But Also Engaged

  Posted February 9th, 2010 at 11:59am in Ongoing Priorities with 5 comments

  Yesterday’s Rasmussen poll reveals what anyone who has been watching the news for the past year already knows — Americans are angry. They are angry at their government and its failures to provide solutions to the current problems. According to today’s poll, 75% of likely voters are “at least somewhat angry at the government’s current [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: States Consider Prohibiting the Individual Mandate

  Posted February 2nd, 2010 at 9:17am in Health Care, Rule of Law with 7 comments

  According to the Associated Press, an increasing number of state legislatures have begun considering legislation that would prohibit the imposition of the individual mandate — a feature of both the current House and Senate bills. The individual mandate, an attempt to keep the costs of the reform package in line by forcing all citizens to purchase health insurance, has concerned many Americans and has led to a public backlash against the proposal. More

• Outside the Beltway: California Dreamin’ Up Ways to Avoid Economic Disaster

  Posted January 11th, 2010 at 4:25pm in Energy and Environment, Enterprise and Free Markets, Ongoing Priorities with 4 comments

  California, the land of sunshine, surfing, soaring unemployment and ballooning deficits, may be making moves to strip itself of one of its most costly and draconian environmental regulations: the cap-and-trade carbon tax. Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles is turning to private industry for help in digging out of a financial hole. As reported in The [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: Colorado Ready To Fight Obamacare Post-Passage

  Posted January 8th, 2010 at 11:35am in Health Care with 15 comments

  The House and Senate still have to iron out six key differences between their versions of the legislation before Obamacare can be signed into law. But getting past the House and Senate may just be the beginning of the plan’s problems. Not only are the attorneys general of13 states jointly investigating whether Sen. Ben Nelson’s [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: Tea Parties Aren’t Stopping for Holidays

  Posted November 30th, 2009 at 5:39pm in First Principles, Health Care, Ongoing Priorities with 17 comments

  While Americans prepared for Thanksgiving feasts and hit the malls on Black Friday, the Tea Party movement lived on in the streets of St. Louis and in the small towns of Arkansas to protest Obamacare, rampant government spending, and the massive expansion of the federal government. According to the St. Louis Conservative Examiner, 4,000 “Tea Partiers” [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: $1.2 Billion for Michigan, But No Stimulus Jobs Created

  Posted November 16th, 2009 at 6:52pm in Enterprise and Free Markets, Ongoing Priorities with 32 comments

  Last year, with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm standing by his side, President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed the importance of rapidly passing a stimulus package, described his intense focus on job creation, and noted that a new president can have an “enormous impact” on the economy. This week, The Detroit Free Press reported that Obama’s stimulus package has [...] More

• Outside the Beltway: California’s Nightmare the Future for Other States?

  Posted November 12th, 2009 at 5:06pm in Enterprise and Free Markets, Ongoing Priorities with 21 comments

  The budget shortfalls, plunging revenue, and economic woes plaguing near-broke California could foretell the future of other cash-strapped states. A new study by The Pew Center on the States found that the economic pressures that pushed California to the brink of a total economic meltdown are also found in nine other states across the country, all [...] More