It’s Friday!
Events
– October 24: Invitations have been mailed for the Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Celebration and Freedom Award dinner, scheduled for the evening of Monday, Oct. 24, at the Renaissance Waverly Atlanta. Speakers include Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. To join in this milestone celebration with the Foundation, please register athttp://tinyurl.com/3kwyxf6.
Quotations
– “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frederic Bastiat
– “As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago.” – Judge Robert Bork
Criminal justice
– Right on Crime and the Georgia Public Policy Foundation launched a state-based criminal justice initiative in Georgia Thursday. Right on Crime’s nationwide initiative, which is endorsed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, aims to educate lawmakers about the commonsense criminal justice reforms that have cut crime and cut costs in states like Texas. Georgia’s Criminal Justice Reform Council plans to release its recommendations in November, and the state seeks to revamp its criminal justice system based on that. Along with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation the announcement included Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who was monumental in working with Gov. Rick Perry’s administration and others to implement smart-justice reforms in Texas and David Keene, former chairman of the American Conservative Union.
Energy and environment
– End justifies the means? The Environmental Protection Agency did not properly review technical data that underpins its authority to control greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, according to a 99-page report from the agency’s inspector general. The report found no fault with the EPA’s data, but it criticized the method of assessing the so-called “endangerment finding” – in particular, for relying on existing peer-viewed studies rather than conducting a fresh scientific review when issuing the finding. EPA’s review of data from a U.N. panel also did not meet the White House Office of Management and Budget’s own requirements “because the review results and EPA’s response were not publicly reported, and because 1 of the 12 reviewers was an EPA employee,” the report said. Read the report here: http://tinyurl.com/66xe5qe.
Health care
– Why they’re called ‘waiting’ rooms: The fundamental problem with the way health care is financed in Canada – also the primary reason why health care spending across most Canadian provinces has grown at an unsustainable pace – is that patients bear no responsibility for the costs of the medical services that they use, the Fraser Institute’s Mark Rovere points out in an op-ed. “That leads to an unawareness of price, and that has created a situation where, for example, people use their local hospital emergency ward for minor bumps and bruises, something they may otherwise think twice about doing if a minor fee was required.” Read more at http://tinyurl.com/665hlwg.
Economy
– Ripple effect: The politicians and bureaucrats who forced lenders to lower their standards had limited goals in mind – namely affordable housing and more minority home ownership, columnist Thomas Sowell points out. “But the repercussions when the housing markets collapsed spread all across the American economy and led to financial crises overseas, where financial securities based on American mortgages were widely sold. All politics may be local but the repercussions reach around the world, and even extend to generations yet unborn, who will be left to cope with the national debts resulting from this debacle.” Source: The Patriot Post
Visit www.georgiapolicy.org to read the Foundation’s latest commentary, “Tough on Crime, Smart on Criminal Justice Spending.”
Have a great weekend.
Kelly McCutchen
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